Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter died Sunday at the age of 100. A one-term president in office from 1977 to 1981, Carter went on to have an auspicious post-presidential career that ranged from fiction writer to conflict mediator. Indeed, the latter efforts, both personally and through the Carter Center in Atlanta, were recognized in 2002 with a Nobel Peace Prize.
Carter is remembered as a “peacemaking president” largely for his efforts in brokering the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. But his presidency can be seen as more generally epitomizing a values-based approach to foreign policy, for better and for worse.
Carter was seen as the antithesis of former President Richard Nixon, who had resigned the presidency in 1974 over the Watergate scandal. Given this, it is perhaps not surprising that his approach to foreign policy is also a stark contrast to that of Nixon’s secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, who coincidentally also died at the age of 100 in late 2023. Kissinger—who also served under Nixon’s successor and Carter’s predecessor, former President Gerald Ford—was considered the modern archetype of realpolitik thinking, meaning a foreign policy guided by the hardnosed pursuit of national interests. In contrast, Carter’s approach embodied idealpolitik thinking, meaning a foreign policy guided by values and moral considerations even when their pursuit runs against national interests.