A foreign policy is a set of political goals that seeks to outline how a particular nation state will interact with the other nations of the world.
Foreign policies generally are designed to help protect a country's national interests, national security, ideological goals, and economic prosperity. This can occur as a result of peaceful co-operation with other nations, or through aggression, war, and exploitation.
The 20th century has seen a rapid rise in the importance of foreign policy, with virtually every nation in the world now being able to interact with one another in some diplomatic form.