Foreign policy is typically one of the domains of power that
goes to the federal level in a Union of states. The history of the E.U. in its
development provides a counter-example, as traditionally lower-level functions,
such as government regulation of business, were the first to be federalized.
Even as a counter-example, the E.U. is nonetheless a federal system, as such a
system is not defined by which competencies
are federalized. Even so, there are downsides to leaving foreign policy at the
state level. In the case of the U.S. under the Articles of Confederation
(1781-1789), the foreign policies at the state level involved the risk that
European states would try to break apart the new American union by giving the
American republics different geo-political foreign interests.
