Believe it or not,I am not too crazy about his foreign policy.Detente was not too great and he turned a blind eye to some of China's abuses.

Nixons greatest contribution to our country was the work he did with China.

I'm not commenting. The three people before me said everything I could say and more. I'll just shut up.

This charlatan and crook enjoys a totally unmerited sound reputation in terms of Foreign Policy as the myth continues to exist for the droolers. Fact of the matter is that Nixon grossly mismanaged the Viet Nam war, either naively accepting judgments of those death merchants in the Pentagon, or rejecting their conventional wisdom in turns. The man was in office for six years, yet failed to bring the troops home as U.S. involvement in that war ended as a result of exhaustion on our country's part, not as any initiative cooked up by Tricky Dick. Insisting on saturation bombing of that country and mining the harbors did little to dampen the resolve of the Vietnamese, and by killing significant numbers in the civilian population, actually firmed up the convictions of the natives. Nixon's extension of the war into Cambodia and Laos was not only illogical, harebrained and immoral, it was also quite illegal, underhanded and sleazy. His administration supported rightwing tyrants all over the globe, and this, in the aftermath, hardly endeared the U.S. to major segments of the world community. His detente with the Soviet Union was just windowdressing and lipservice that resulted in no enduring palpable benefit, as Cold War tensions continued for a dozen years after Nixon resigned in disgrace. His opening the door to China, highly heralded at the time and vastly inflated in importance over the years, now seems to have not been in the best interests of this country, for various economic and diplomatic reasons.

In terms of foreign affairs, Richard Nixon did a lot to advance America's cause. His impact would have been felt much more strongly had he served out his full time in office. The opening to China was a brilliant move. Nixon's goal essentially was to split the communist empire in half; he played both the Russians and the Chinese against each other, two historic enemies. Detente began in earnest under Richard Nixon, who layed the groundwork for arms reduction agreements with the Russians that would set the stage for the end of the Cold War. Nixon realized that we couldn't have Red China as an enemy forever, essentially they were the 900 pound gorilla in Asia. Their actions had a significant effect on relations in the region. Nixon split international communism by coming to separate agreements with both the Russians and Chinese concerning Vietnam. The big goal of the Nixon administration was to take the heat out of Vietnam where both China and Russia were funding and supplying the Viet-Cong. Nixon wanted us to get out of Vietnam while still giving the South Vietnamese a decent shot at survival. The mining of Haiphong Harbor was the seminal point of this strategy. Against the advice of his advisors, Nixon went ahead with a blockade of this North Vietnamese supply point. This was mid-1972 and Nixon was about to meet with the Russians. His advisors said that the Russians would call off the negotiations if he went ahead with the operation. The President believed that this would drive the Russians to deal with the United States, putting us in the dominant position; Nixon was right, they negotiated with us and we were able to pull out by 1973. Contrary to popular notions, Nixon did not escalate the war in Vietnam. In fact, his budget included cuts in defense spending. He was a big fan of the long-pass, both in football and politics! The final straw was the Christmas bombings of 1972. We were at least able to pull out in a respectable position. Unfortunately, that didn't stop the North Vietnamese from taking Saigon. And unfortunately detente didn't immediately neutralize the Soviet Union. In 1979, they began an expansionary campaign to take over Afghanistan; ultimately, this ended up becoming their Vietnam and they lost. Relations with the Soviets were very bad during the early 1980's. But this didn't matter, Nixon had given the communists a knockout that they would never recover from. It helped that the Russians were persuing a stagnant industrial policy, but the Sino-Russian split really went a long way in weakening the international communist axis. And the arms reduction pact was felt very strongly in the Soviet Union as well. Reagan just had to call the Russians bluff and they were defeated. Nixon was perceptive enough to realize that the Russians had much more to lose than the US when negotiating with him. Most of all, Nixon was perceptive enough to acknowledge that a post-Cold War world would be one that is multipolar. The only way to secure international peace is to have a few powers balance each other as opposed to rampant unilateralism. He was probably one of the best practitioners of realpolitik who ever occupied the White House. This is probably the best way to see the world, idealism many times muddles the picture and sets false expectations. Witness George W. Bush's foreign policy. So on the whole, Nixon had an excellent international strategy; indeed, I would say he was one of the best foreign policy Presidents of the 20th Century.

Worked Miracles for international peace. Should not be held accountable for the US's involvement in a war entered by the US under Kenedy. Rather he should be credited for crafting the London Accords which, though they did little to hamper North Vietnam's resurgence(because Nixon was no longer in office to inforce the consequences of a breach of the terms), it did begin the withdrawal of US troops. All this is not to mention the much larger accomplishments of opening trade with China as well as making great lengths in a joint effort with the Soviet Union to halt the nuclear arms race.