Identify a critical issue in the US foreign policy relationship with one other nation. Try to pick a country of personal interest, which should help motivate your research efforts. Finally, identify strategies that could be used to improve the policy (a thesis statement).

Pick one of the following topics:

• US foreign policy regarding counter-terrorism in Yemen
• US foreign policy regarding Russian military aggression
• US foreign policy regarding N. Korea’s nuclear program

Step 2 – Gathering Sources

Conduct research to locate three peer-reviewed academic journal articles (aka: scholarly sources) that specifically address issues within the foreign policy relationship you selected and meet the following criteria:

• The articles must be no more than ten (10) years old.
• The article must have more than five (5) pages of actual content (without graphs, charts, footnotes, citations, etc.).
• Books will not count toward the minimum research requirements.
• Carefully choose those sources that provide a variety of perspectives on your selected topic.
• In addition to the minimum research requirements, you should offer “supplemental sources” for essential current events information relevant to your topic. These may include academic sources that are not peer-reviewed (position papers), newspaper articles, magazine articles, and other quality or reputable sources.
• Textbooks, Dictionaries, Encyclopedias (including Wikipedia), Almanacs, or an Atlas are reference materials and are not to be listed as sources on the collegiate level.
• Provide the formal MLA citation for each source, both in the essay and on the works cited page.

Step 3 – The Policy Paper

Your task will be to prepare a formal research paper regarding the selected policy. The assignment is to be around 5-6 pages with in-text citations for your research. The minimum writing requirement is a 1000 of your own words or around 3 pages of a word document (excluding the cited information). The essay is to discuss each of the following prompts:

• An introduction and brief overview of the policy relationship.
• What are the major issues facing each country involved?
• What are the reasons for initiating changes to the policy?
• What are the options to be considered (discuss several)?
• What are the pros and cons of each potential reform (costs v. benefits)?
• Which is the best option moving forward (pick one)?

• A summary and conclusion