This is what I've gathered, though I may be wrong: The implementation of foreign policy wasn't readily be farmed out to bureaucrats (by extension, neither cou

This is what I've gathered, though I may be wrong: The implementation of foreign policy wasn't readily be farmed out to bureaucrats (by extension, neither could responsibility for its failures). Politicians were forced to be more cognizant of it. There was generally a consensus that the country should exist, that it should be looking out primarily for its own interests, and that it should avoid foreign entanglements. This made foreign policy decisions much simpler. No such popular consensus exists today.