Foreign Policy was founded in late 1970 by Samuel P. Huntington, professor of Harvard University, and his friend Warren Demian Manshel to give a voice to alternative views about American foreign policy at the time of the Vietnam War.

[3] In early 1978, after six years of close partnership, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace acquired full ownership of Foreign Policy.

It also launched international editions in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America.

[6] According to its submission guidelines, Foreign Policy articles "strike the balance" between informed specialist research and general readability, and tend to be written in plain rather than "wonky" language.

[7] Foreign Policy endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election.