Rank the presidents since WW2 for foreign policy

[OSR stands with Israel]

Here's Mine
Great:
1. Truman
2. Nixon
3. Reagan

Good:
4. IKE
5.  Bush SR
6. JFK

Inconsequential
7.  Clinton
8. Ford

Time Will tell:
9. Obama

Horrible:
10. LBJ
11. Carter
12. Bush JR

Carter would be last if Reagan wasnt able to clean up his mess. I am not sure it is possible to clean up the mess Bush JR made. The results of the Iran deal will either push Obama up to the good column or into the Horrible Column  

[Col. Roosevelt]

Great:
1. Truman
2. Nixon
3. Bush Sr.

Good:
4. IKE
5.  JFK
6. Reagan

Mediocre:
7. LBJ

Inconsequential
8.  Clinton
9. Ford

Bad:
10. Carter

Horrible:
11. Obama
12. Bush JR

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Great:

Good:

Mediocre:
Obama
Truman
JFK

Inconsequential:
Ford

Bad:
Clinton
Carter
Eisenhower
Bush Sr

Horrible:
Reagan
LBJ
Nixon
Bush Jr

[Intell]

Good

1. Ike

Mediocre

2. Carter
3. H.W Bush
4. Nixon
5. Kennedy
6. Ford
7. Clinton

Conflicted

8. Truman

Bad

9. Reagan
10. Obama

Horrible

11. W. Bush

The Worst

12. LBJ

[Higgs]

Great:
Bush Sr.
Reagan
Truman

Good:
Nixon
Ike
Kennedy

Ok:
Clinton
Ford

Bad:
LBJ

Horrible:
Obama
Carter
Dubya Bush

[Mr. Smith]

Good, but not Great

Carter

Passable

Truman
Kennedy


Bad (no order)

Ford
Clinton
Bush Sr
Nixon
Eisenhower
Obama

Nasty (no order)

Bush Jr
Reagan
Johnson

[/]

Very Good: Obama, Reagan, Bush Sr. Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon

Alright: Clinton, Kennedy

Well-intentioned, but made mistakes: Johnson, Carter

IDK: Ford

Horrible: Bush Jr.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Very Good: Obama, Reagan, Bush Sr. Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon

Alright: Clinton, Kennedy

Well-intentioned, but made mistakes: Johnson, Carter

IDK: Ford

Horrible: Bush Jr.

I really dont think Obama can be in the very good after what he did in Libya and wanted to do in syria but he can go as high as good if the Iran deal works.

Vietnam was a total disaster and LBJ lying about the Gulf of Tonkin means it wasnt well-intentioned

[/]

Very Good: Obama, Reagan, Bush Sr. Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon

Alright: Clinton, Kennedy

Well-intentioned, but made mistakes: Johnson, Carter

IDK: Ford

Horrible: Bush Jr.

I really dont think Obama can be in the very good after what he did in Libya and wanted to do in syria but he can go as high as good if the Iran deal works.

Vietnam was a total disaster and LBJ lying about the Gulf of Tonkin means it wasnt well-intentioned

- I could see Obama going partially in the "well-intentioned; but made mistakes" group for the whole Libya thing and withdrawing from Iraq/Afghanistan

- All presidents lie

[DavidB.]

Reagan
Truman
JFK

Eisenhower
Clinton
Bush 43
LBJ

Ford
Bush 41

Nixon
Obama
Carter

[tpfkaw]

Good:

Reagan

Decent:

Nixon
Bush I
Ford

Limited damage:

Ike
Clinton

Poor judgment:

LBJ
Carter
Kennedy
Bush II

Catastrophically awful:

Truman

[OSR stands with Israel]

Good:

Reagan

Decent:

Nixon
Bush I
Ford

Limited damage:

Ike
Clinton

Poor judgment:

LBJ
Carter
Kennedy
Bush II

Catastrophically awful:

Truman

How

[OSR stands with Israel]

Reagan
Truman
JFK

Eisenhower
Clinton
Bush 43
LBJ

Ford
Bush 41

Nixon
Obama
Carter

Why is Nixon so low, he took China away from the USSR ally column and put it into the US ally column

[tpfkaw]

Right at the moment when Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalists were about to win the Chinese Civil War (they had captured the Communist capital of Yan'an), the Truman administration demanded that they form a "power-sharing" government with Mao Zedong and the Communists. After Chiang quite rightly refused, the Truman administration imposed an arms and ammunition embargo on the Nationalists.

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The Truman administration is directly responsible for the deaths of a good 60 million people or so. And of course condemning most Chinese (and by extension North Koreans, and Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians) to live in brutal, abject poverty to this day when they could've been a first world country like Taiwan, South Korea or Japan.

Somewhat less clear-cut, but he also allowed Stalin to enslave Eastern Europe while we had the nuclear bomb and he didn't.

[ScottieF]

1. Truman - Marshall Plan, United Nations, NATO, not retreating into isolationism as after WWI - some decisions may be controversial, and rightfully so, but it's my best guess that he probably pursued the right course.

2. Eisenhower - Competence, level-headed, eight years of relative peace, good crisis management. Some espionage is troubling but typical of Cold War foreign policy.

3. JFK - Missteps at the beginning but after Cuban Missile Crisis - handled heroically - he was clearly on a path to greatness here.

4. Bush Sr - Very good job at overseeing collapse of USSR, Gulf War handled well.

5. Obama - Remains to be seen but props for cleaning up Dubya's mess.

6. Nixon - Extremely mixed bag; huge accomplishments w/China and detente coupled with horrific expansion of Vietnam War and illegal bombings of Cambodia and Laos.

7. Clinton - Decent, meh, not too much damage.

8. Carter - Comparatively peaceful policy is commendable, largely disorganized however.

9. Ford - Not around long enough to do much.

10. Reagan - Iran-Contra, bloated military budget, Star Wars fiasco and incubating Bin Laden leaves behind a largely negative legacy.

11. LBJ - Disastrous war of imperial vanity in Vietnam, pretty terrible.

12. Bush Jr - Two pointless wars, one fought on bad intelligence, torture, utter destruction of global reputation, a complete disaster.

[Clark Kent]

Great:

Reagan
Truman
Bush, Sr.

Good:

Nixon
Kennedy
Eisenhower
Obama

Average:

Carter
Ford

Bad:

Clinton
Dubya
LBJ

[Illuminati Blood Drinker]

Great:
Obama
Truman
JFK

Good:
Bush, Sr.
Clinton

Eh:
Ford

Bad:
LBJ
Nixon
Reagan
Eisenhower

Terrible:
Bush, Jr.

[ElectionsGuy]

Not ranking Ford. Otherwise, from best to worst:

Kennedy
Eisenhower
Carter
Bush I
Obama
Clinton
Reagan
Nixon
Truman
Johnson
Bush II

None of them were really great. Carter, despite having hostages in Lebanon, accomplished one of the greatest foreign policy achievements that is still very under appreciated: Camp David - peace between Israel and Egypt. I got the sense from Kennedy that he really wanted to avoid war, and use diplomatic options at all costs. Besides the disaster of the Bay of Pigs (which was really the CIA) his foreign policy was pretty good. Johnson obviously is a different story.

[Sumner 1868]

Great:

Good:

Above Average:
Carter

Average:
Ford
Eisenhower

Bad:
Clinton
Obama

Horrible:
Nixon
Johnson
Kennedy
Reagan
Bush Sr.
Bush Jr.
Truman

[OSR stands with Israel]

Great:

Good:

Above Average:
Carter

Average:
Ford
Eisenhower

Bad:
Clinton
Obama

Horrible:
Nixon
Johnson
Kennedy
Reagan
Bush Sr.
Bush Jr.
Truman

WOW

[Sumner 1868]

Great:

Good:

Above Average:
Carter

Average:
Ford
Eisenhower

Bad:
Clinton
Obama

Horrible:
Nixon
Johnson
Kennedy
Reagan
Bush Sr.
Bush Jr.
Truman

WOW

What? You know by now I'm not the least bit hawkish. In fact, my first inclination was labeling all as horrible, but I decided to be a little more generous.

[Intell]

Why is everyone listing Truman as great in foreign policy. He literally killed millions of innocent civilians, and he spread war to communist countries through the Truman doctrine which displaced many governments and people. I guess WWII, makes him mediocre.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Why is everyone listing Truman as great in foreign policy. He literally killed millions of innocent civilians, and he spread war to communist countries through the Truman doctrine which displaced many governments and people. I guess WWII, makes him mediocre.

I agreed with his decision to drop the atomic bombs, and Soviet Communism was evil and had to be stopped

[Intell]

Why is everyone listing Truman as great in foreign policy. He literally killed millions of innocent civilians, and he spread war to communist countries through the Truman doctrine which displaced many governments and people. I guess WWII, makes him mediocre.

I agreed with his decision to drop the atomic bombs, and Soviet Communism was evil and had to be stopped

I guess Maoist communism was alright then. You do realize we overthrew democratically f*king elected Marxist governments were replaced with horrible dictators. I'm sure supporting Khmer Rouge to oppose North Vietnam was a good idea. You can't just do wars because something was muh, 'evil', which after Stalin it wasn't really evil compared to regimes we supported.

How was the atomic bombs justified, yea I'm sure killing innocent civilians on major cities is justified. If the atomic bombs we dropped, they could do it in a rural area, or a place with no civilians making no one killed and showing the prowess of the nuclear bomb, which even then is questionable. Though Truman isn't like Hitler or Stalin, he certainly is horrible for dropping the nuclear bomb.

[Crumpets]

Great
Kennedy - prevented worldwide nuclear holocaust - all else can be forgiven
Nixon - mixed bag, but brought a billion new people into the community of nations and set the stage for the end of the Cold War
Carter - The US was at peace for his entire presidency and is the only one to have actually made some headway in the Arab-Israeli conflict

Good
Bush Sr. - did little damage, but showed that the US would stand by its principles even when the Soviets weren't a threat
Obama - started to get us out of the hole W put us in, but there's still a long way to go

Average
Eisenhower - didn't get us too entangled anywhere, but also allowed the Cold War to grow unfettered  
Ford - oversaw the end of Vietnam, didn't do too much else of note
Clinton - made some smart trade deals despite political pressure not to, but we're still seeing just how they'll play out in the long run

Poor
Johnson - Vietnam was a disaster no matter how you look at it, but probably still better than Goldwater would have been
Truman - used nukes in war (for better or for worse), did nothing to prevent the rise of the Cold War, gave Stalin the treaty of a lifetime, but also helped establish the UN and rebuild Europe
Reagan - basically screwed over all of Latin America, chronic dick-wagger, convinced everyone that neo-liberalism is the only alternative to Communism, and needlessly re-escalated the Cold War (no, he didn't get that wall torn down)

Terrible
Bush Jr. - ruined the US's standing abroad for probably a whole generation and fails even now to grasp that anything he did was wrong