Ukraine Crisis and Foreign Policy

We're studying the President's role in foreign policy and recently covered the different ways the US interacts with foreign countries.  We discussed the following:

• Militarily
• Foreign Aid
• Sanctions
• Embargos
• Advice
• Treaties

We also discussed the various reasons the US would want to engage in foreign policy.  Some of the reasons discussed were:

• Promote economic growth
• Foster democracy abroad
• Protect national security and interests
• Protect human rights

The crisis in Ukraine is a great current event to get students to try and apply this knowledge.  I created this simple activity to reinforce these concepts above.

Lesson

First we reviewed the crisis with these YouTube clips to get an understanding of the conflict:

Why Russia is invading Ukraine, explained in 2 minutes
Why are Russia and Ukraine Fighting?
How Powerful Is Russia?

Following the video clips I had students work in groups of 4 to discuss the possible actions the US could take to address the crisis.  I had groups use this discussion guide to help guide their group work:

Discussion Guide