Intergalactic relations?

Everyone’s posts have thus far seemed to take the landing of the aliens on the White House lawn as a surprise or belligerent gesture. In these situations there is an extreme lack of knowledge of the aliens and their motivations. Given these conditions most people seem to be siding with a constructivist-realist approach to how the government would react. To explore the situation with some different concluding assumptions, let’s go with the argument made by Jasmine and Seamus McGregor that the aliens will of course have superior technology. I would say that given the superior technology and obvious intelligence needed to construct this technology, the aliens would also have an information advantage over us (aka the world).
Now given this setup, I choose to believe that the aliens landing on the White House lawn would be a pres-set event, with the US government notified beforehand. The United States is in the weaker position in this situation, the aliens have had time to study us and plan their entrance to our society. They have contacted the major world powers and impressed upon them the necessity and benefit of establishing a working relationship. For the world’s governments this leaves them the responsibility of staging an introduction to their respective populations.

The question at hand will be whether or not each government chooses to cooperate with the aliens or not. Will the aliens want to deal with us as a single entity or will they work within our sovereign nation framework? For this “exercise” I will say that the aliens choose to work within our sovereign nation framework. So, will the US cooperate with the aliens? In realist terms it is to the United States’ advantage to at the very least temporarily work with a more advanced civilization in the hope that the US can correct the information and technology imbalance in the relationship. It is within the United States’ territorial security interests to improve technology and hence defense. Looking at the situation in liberal terms there is the issue of economics. Will trade with the aliens benefit us, or could it possibly hurt us? Could we trust trade agreements with an unknown entity though? These questions would have to be analyzed and answered. From a constructivist view aliens would clearly constitute an extreme “other”. As a people, Americans will have to decide how their identity will accept or reject aliens; xenophobia as Seamus brought up will almost definitely be the knee-jerk reaction to the “alien invasion”. The US government will have a tough PR job in front of them to convince the public that the aliens will not destroy/enslave/endanger us. This ability to influence public thought/identity will be a telling signal in whether the White House visit is viewed positively or negatively and ultimately if the public can accept the idea of intergalactic relations.

Hmmh… inter galactic relations, the next new career field?