Pros and Cons Versus Compare and Contrast

I'm happy to help with this.

Let's make this specific and concrete, for clarity. Let say, for the sake of argument, we are discussing President Clinton's foreign policy over his 8 year term.

If I discuss the pros and cons of President Clinton's foreign policy, then I am only discussing President Clinton's foreign policy and no other foreign policy. I am comparing the good parts, the strengths, of President Clinton's foreign policy to the weakness & oversights & shortcomings of this same policy. The entire focus is just on President Clinton's foreign policy, the good and the bad about that one policy. I am just looking at that one thing.

If am asked to compare and contrast President Clinton's foreign policy, then I am necessarily comparing it to something else (often, that other thing would be specified in both the RC passage and in the question). For example, I could compare and contrast President Clinton's foreign policy with the foreign policy of Reagan, or GW Bush, or Eisenhower, or Truman, etc. etc. I could even compare and contrast President Clinton's foreign policy with the foreign policy of some other contemporary world leader --- Mitterand, John Major, Yeltsin, Deng Xiaoping, etc. etc. Compare and contrast necessarily involves looking at President Clinton's foreign policy in relation to some other foreign policy. I have to look at more than one thing.

Pros & cons happen within, but compare & contrast happens between.
Pros & cons focus on the good vs. the bad of a single thing.
Compare & contrast necessarily involves at least two different things.

Does that make sense?

Mike