The United States needs to return to realism

Open the newsletter to watch the White House for free

Your guide to what the second period of Trump means to Washington, business and the world

The writer is an older colleague at Stimson Center and author of “First Perfect: American Foreign Policy in a multi -polar world”

The world is an increasingly underestimated place. This is easy to determine on Donald Trump and his wrongful foreign policy options. But the foreign policy of the American president is one of the symptoms of the ongoing global fragmentation, not the cause.

The emergence of the multi -poles world order is especially more dangerous for the United States, which has largely ruled the international regime since 1991. Since then, American elites have defeated the US interests on a large scale to be almost meaningless; Follow the policies that sought to preserve American military priority and spread democracy worldwide. However, in the emerging multiple era, Washington risked stumbling or stumbled in the conflict if it continues to follow up on a very ambitious foreign policy.

The US foreign policy thinkers have been highly responded to this dilemma by proposing new strategies that seek to “the Allied scale” against the “axis of the turmoil” or describe the “technical industrial” competition. All of these suffer from the same defects that their precedents suffer from, from the Bill Clinton strategy of “Participation and Expansion” to “Freedom Agenda” by George W. Bush. They are great visions that seek to reshape the world, something that the country failed to do even at the height of its strength.

What Washington needs instead is to return to realism. Although realism often gets bad rap music, the reason why it has endured for centuries is that it focuses on energy and security at the heart of the international system, and provides a narrow range of achieveable goals for policy makers to focus on. The realistic approach to American foreign policy would give priority to American security and prosperity, focus on creating and maintaining a controlled balance between the main countries in the international system, and prevents the rise of peer competitors in important areas and avoiding the war of catastrophic power.

American presidents often return to their realistic roots in times of international turmoil, as Dwight Eisenhower did in the dangerous days of the early cold war and Richard Nixon amid political and financial turmoil in the 1970s.

Realism is not – as some described it – recovery or isolation. Its followers can be honest or wandering, depending on the situation. But they are guiding in the sense that the global system can be managed, rather than transformation. Realistic foreign policy does not necessarily mean that the United States should abandon the world.

Some discounts are inevitable, given America’s excessive position in the past few decades. But while it is a dirty word in Washington, the accidental reduction – or the definition of priorities – is part of the strategic modification, the reorganization of the means and ends with the change of conditions. Likewise, the costs of expanding the unlimited alliance have become more clear. Realism does not mean abandoning this vital tool for fold, but it means that politicians need to recognize alliances as tools, and not the sacred obligations that values ​​drive as much as interests.

The Trump administration has started to turn into a more realistic foreign policy. It seeks to end the war in Ukraine, and to promote the exchange of the burden by the allies and prepare to speak to non -friendly countries from Iran to Russia, all steps of practical foreign policy to deal with the world as it is, not as we want to be. But the administration’s approach is often irregular and confrontation. Trump bombed Iran while negotiations were continuing; The customs duties against allies and opponents alike threatened issues of slight importance.

Although it cannot be predicted, its definitions are in some respects just another step in the US Economic Power. From the sanctions to the controls of exports and definitions, America has repeatedly and repeatedly in the international economic system to coercion other countries. However, the mono -pole moment disappeared, and the United States began to find a lever less than it was.

Since the uninterrupted globalization is increasingly linking the elites and the audience in free trade, the risks are that America slowly loses its influence against the opponents and its most persuasive goodness: an advanced commercial economy. Washington is specifically retracting trade in the wrong time; If you want to contact military participation, you must tend to trade.

Realists should seek to reduce America’s use of forced or negative economic fold and work to build a positive agenda. This approach should focus on the flexibility, diversity of markets and safe supply chains and aims to be attractive to other countries – which enhances access to American technology and companies, instead of alienating the old allies and pushing them to trade with the competitors of America. Ultimately, the most effective vision that the United States can present to the world is the vision and a lot.