This is something that aspiring foreign policy wonks dream about, because sometimes these concepts actually matter. George Kennan’s doctrine of containment was pretty important. My good friend Evan Feigenbaum coined the term “responsible stakeholder” to describe how the United States wanted China to view the world, and it caused the Chinese to furiously research how to translate the term “stakeholder.”

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Those are extraordinary cases, however. What if you just need a catchy name for a foreign policy doctrine and you don’t have the time to research it thoroughly? Or what if you’re working for a candidate who desperately wants to sound smart on this topic but just can’t pull it off?

Presidents have it easy, they can just attach their name to the word “doctrine”: Reagan Doctrine, Bush Doctrine, Obama Doctrine, etc. But most people are not the president.

The hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts is here for you grunt-level wonks:

The recipe for this is pretty simple. Good foreign policy doctrines consist of a fancy adjective preceding an important noun. So, here’s your three-step process for coining a vacuous but serious-sounding foreign policy doctrine.

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1) Pick an adjective. Lozada is correct that “strategic” is pretty good. Here are some other possibilities:

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Global

Tactical

Robust

Geopolitical

Constructive

Democratic

Responsible

Forward

Liberal

Sovereign

Westphalian

(Side note: That last one is my personal favorite. Use “Westphalian” in a book or speech and foreign policy thinkers get all weak-kneed.)

2) Pick a noun. Some possible examples:

engagement

action

projection

deterrence

patience

containment

integration

geopolitics

sovereignty

detente

segmentation

3) Do you need a “neo”? Does the doctrine sound familiar? Can you affix “neo” to the adjective, like “neoliberal” or “neo-Westphalian”? Then go for it!

And that’s pretty much it. I wouldn’t recommend combining the adjective and noun that rely on the same root — I just don’t think “Sovereign sovereignty” will fly even if you add a “neo” to it. But to each his own!

If I’m doing my math right, the above formula will give you 120 possible foreign policy doctrine names — twice that if you add the “neo”! Some of them, such as “strategic patience,” already have been used. Others, like “neo-Westphalian integration,” are oxymorons just waiting to be applied to some situation in world politics.

Good luck, wonks!