During the Cold War, proposals that the United States adopt a more modest or restrained foreign policy never attracted much support within the foreign-policy establishment. To be sure, prominent realists such as Hans Morgenthau, George Kennan, Kenneth Waltz, Walter Lippmann, and others were sharply critical of America’s worst foreign-policy excesses—most notably in Vietnam—and each favored a more modest and less militarized foreign policy. Libertarians seeking to shrink the federal government also sought to reduce U.S. overseas commitments, but the bipartisan desire to vanquish Soviet communism kept such proposals at the margins of foreign-policy discourse. Calls for restraint or retrenchment were equally unwelcome during the subsequent “unipolar moment,” when American elites believed the tides of history were flowing their way and sought to bring the entire world into a peaceful and prosperous liberal order, under the benevolent arm of America’s unmatched power.
During the Cold War, proposals that the United States adopt a more modest or restrained foreign policy never attracted much support within the foreign-policy establishment. To be sure, prominent realists such as Hans Morgenthau, George Kennan, Kenneth Waltz, Walter Lippmann, and others were sharply critical of America’s worst foreign-policy excesses—most notably in Vietnam—and each favored a more modest and less militarized foreign policy. Libertarians seeking to shrink the federal government also sought to reduce U.S. overseas commitments, but the bipartisan desire to vanquish Soviet communism kept such proposals at the margins of foreign-policy discourse. Calls for restraint or retrenchment were equally unwelcome during the subsequent “unipolar moment,” when American elites believed the tides of history were flowing their way and sought to bring the entire world into a peaceful and prosperous liberal order, under the benevolent arm of America’s unmatched power.
As the failures that accompanied this period of hubris piled up, however, the case for a more realistic and sensible foreign policy became harder to ignore. The publication of MIT professor Barry Posen’s Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy in 2014 was an important milestone, along with related works by other scholars (including yours truly). The election of Donald Trump in 2016 played a role, too: Although Trump’s actions as president were a far cry from the restrainers’ recommendations, his rhetorical attacks on many of the central orthodoxies shaping U.S. foreign policy and evident disdain for the foreign-policy establishment created space for a more open discussion of these issues. The founding of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in 2019, along with related initiatives at Defense Priorities, the Stimson Center’s Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy Program, and the Carnegie Endowment’s program on American Statecraft were additional signs that the restraint movement was gaining momentum. (Full disclosure: I’ve been a nonresident fellow at Quincy since its founding and joined its board of directors last year.)
Among the signs that the restraint movement was achieving liftoff were the attacks it began to receive from critics who remained staunchly committed to an expansive view of U.S. global leadership or a desire to preserve the fraying liberal order. These attacks typically misrepresented what restrainers were recommending—often by falsely portraying them as “isolationists”—and the tendentious nature of some of these critiques suggested that mainstream figures were starting to worry that the ideas advanced by restrainers might gain a substantial following and eventually lead to significant changes in America’s approach to the rest of the world.
That was then; this is now. The idea of restraint had undeniable appeal in the aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but great-power rivalry tops the agenda today. China’s power is still rising despite its economic woes, and its desire to alter the status quo in Asia is undiminished. Russia has invaded Ukraine and holds the upper hand there now, though its gains have come at a very high cost. Cooperation among China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and a few other countries has increased, and efforts to rebuild European defense capabilities are moving more slowly than many had hoped. A brutal bloodletting is underway in Gaza, and the risk that the war will spread remains unacceptably high. Civil wars and jihadi movements continue to shatter lives in Sudan, Libya, Ethiopia, and several other African countries, while Russia and China continue to court governments there with some success. The hubris of the 1990s may be gone, but so is the belief that conflict among major powers is unthinkable.
Given all these developments, does a foreign policy based on realism and restraint still make sense? Is it time for Americans to dig deep, pick up the mantle of global leadership once again, and get busy heading off a “geopolitical hard landing”? Has the time for restraint come and gone?
The answer is no.
Let’s start by being clear on what the restraint movement wants. More than anything else, restrainers oppose fighting unnecessary “wars of choice,” where the vital interests of the United States are not involved. They are neither pacifists nor isolationists; they believe in a strong national defense; and they recognize that the United States should be willing to use force overseas in some circumstances. Instead of withdrawing from the world, restrainers believe the United States should trade and invest in other countries, encourage other states to do the same, and be open to managed immigration instead of building walls in a fit of xenophobia. Indeed, restrainers think the United States should be more actively and effectively engaged than it is today, putting diplomacy first and making the use of force Washington’s last resort rather than its first impulse. Why? Because restrainers also understand the limits of military power: It may be necessary on occasion, but it is a crude instrument that invariably produces lots of unintended consequences. It is also hard to sustain public support for wars when vital interests are not engaged and success is hard to define. In particular, restrainers oppose trying to spread liberal values through regime change and military occupation, because such efforts typically lead to costly quagmires or failed states instead.
In practical terms, most restrainers believe the United States should disengage militarily from the Middle East and have normal relations with all countries in that region, instead of “special” relations with a few states and no relations with others. They think Washington should encourage our NATO allies to take greater responsibility for their own defense. Unlike Trumpian wannabes such as Republican Sen. J.D. Vance, however, most restrainers support continued aid to Ukraine combined with a dedicated and flexible effort to reach a diplomatic settlement. Restrainers are divided on the best way to respond to China, with some favoring more vigorous efforts at containment while others emphasize the need to reduce tensions and pursue mutually beneficial compromises. But they all agree that the United States is still overcommitted overseas, as well as overly prone to relying on military solutions that cannot solve underlying political problems.
This view is as relevant today as it was a decade or more ago. Remember: Many of the problems the United States is now grappling with might have been avoided entirely had the restrainers’ earlier warnings been heeded. If the United States had not pushed hard for open-ended NATO enlargement—and to bring Ukraine into the Western orbit and eventually into NATO—Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014 and its illegal invasion in February 2022 would probably never have occurred. Indeed, had the Biden administration shown more flexibility in the months preceding the Russian attack, been more supportive of Turkish and Israeli mediation efforts in the spring of 2022, or pushed for a cease-fire when Ukraine had the upper hand that fall, the two states might never have fought at all or ended the conflict before Ukraine had suffered so much damage. It is impossible to know any of this for certain, of course, but U.S. officials did not do all that they might have done to avert the war that Ukraine is now losing.
Events in the Middle East offer a similar lesson. Both the Trump and Biden administrations mistakenly focused on trying to normalize relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors while completely ignoring the Palestinians, who were under growing pressure from increasingly right-wing Israeli governments. As restrainers warned, this shortsighted approach was bound to trigger an explosion, leading to the tragic results of Oct. 7, 2023.
Israel’s onslaught in Gaza—a campaign that has now killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, destroyed or damaged 50 percent to 60 percent of the buildings in Gaza, and badly tarnished Israel’s global image (along with America’s)—is also a telling reminder of the limits of military power. Israel has massive military superiority and is using it wholeheartedly, but force alone cannot resolve the political differences that keep its conflict with the Palestinians going. Hamas is not going to be destroyed by military action, and the fundamental issue—how to accommodate the legitimate aspirations of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs and allow both populations to lead secure lives—will remain unresolved. Much the same could be said for U.S. efforts to halt Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping by dropping bombs and firing missiles at them, instead of using its considerable leverage to bring about a cease-fire in Gaza (the Houthis’ stated condition for halting their attacks). These examples illustrate the reflexive tendency to think that complex political issues can be addressed by blowing something up, an impulse that restrainers have long opposed.
Restrainers also recognize that American power, while considerable, is not unlimited. In an era of great-power competition, it is more important than ever to set clear priorities and to make sure our main objectives are not at odds with one another. Today, the United States is trying to help Ukraine defeat Russia in Ukraine, backing Israel’s efforts to wipe out Hamas no matter what the human consequences may be, and trying to permanently cripple China’s efforts to develop world-class semiconductor and other digital technologies. This is hardly a restrained agenda, and the contradictions within it are as obvious as they are self-defeating. Instead of playing the two main Eurasian powers off each other, we have spent several decades giving them additional reasons to work together. Instead of isolating Russia and limiting Chinese influence in the global south, our support for Israel’s campaign in Gaza has put the hypocrisy of the “rules-based order” in sharp relief and handed China a cheap propaganda victory. President Joe Biden’s failure to reenter the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action might be included here as well, insofar as it led Iran to restart its nuclear program, increase its support for its various regional proxies, and then give active military support to Russia’s efforts in Ukraine.
Lastly, advocates of restraint have long warned that overstretched military commitments and “forever wars” would have debilitating effects back home. To maintain support for an overly ambitious foreign policy, U.S. leaders have come to rely on the all-volunteer force, thereby insulating most of the electorate from the consequences of its decisions. The U.S. military now faces an acute recruitment crisis; according to West Point’s Modern War Institute, this is partly because Americans “witnessed a generation of servicemembers deploy again and again to a war without bounds.” U.S. presidents concealed the costs of these activities by borrowing the money instead of raising taxes, by inflating threats, and by concealing some of what they are doing from the American people. When some of these secret activities are eventually revealed, however, trust in public institutions erodes further. As the Founding Fathers understood, republics that are constantly at war put their republican character at risk. It is not hard to see the fragile condition of American democracy today as partly due to an unrealistic and unsuccessful foreign policy, one that restrainers are striving to correct.
No foreign-policy doctrine is perfect, and all of them should be reexamined as global conditions evolve. The idea of restraint is no exception, and its advocates should remain open to rethinking their positions as new information emerges and new events occur. As of now, however, the case for restraint is still convincing, especially when compared to the alternatives that still hold sway inside the Beltway. And doubling down on the policies that got us where we are today makes no sense at all.
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