Starting From Scratch

Well before President Donald Trump took office again in 2025, it was already long past time to conduct a fundamental review of U.S. national security strategy. Today, the imperative for such a reckoning is beyond question—less because of how the world is changing and more because of what the Trump administration has wrought. Long-established principles of U.S. foreign policy have been upended, if not eviscerated, with profoundly disruptive consequences for the rest of the planet. Although a significant course change seems unlikely anytime soon, whoever succeeds Trump will have to undertake a comprehensive appraisal of U.S. goals overseas and how best to pursue them.

A return to the status quo ante is highly improbable, even if it were desirable. Too much has happened already to turn the clock back. The question of what kind of world the United States should now try to shape for its own best interests will be open for debate. Indeed, some foreign policy experts are already calling for a full “zero-based review” of U.S. goals and strategy after Trump leaves office.

If strategy is essentially about defining practical ways and means to achieve desired ends, then any such exercise has to begin with a clear-eyed evaluation of U.S. interests and objectives in the world. Too often, what are in reality goals of choice assume the status of goals of necessity.

Goals of necessity can all be considered critical to the well-being of the United States, but strictly speaking, they are not all equal. Using a Maslow-type hierarchy of needs, goals of necessity can be ranked in order of priority as follows: first, ensuring the survival of the United States as an independent sovereign state; second, protecting its citizens from physical risks, particularly catastrophic ones; third, maintaining the liberty and basic civil rights of Americans; and fourth, promoting the prosperity of the United States such that it can pay for its essential needs, including defense.

Goals of choice, on the other hand, are strategic objectives that have been deemed instrumentally vital to the well-being of the United States. In some cases, they have acquired an almost sacrosanct status. Examples include the oft-stated nostrum that the United States must prevent the domination of the Eurasian landmass by any single great power, a goal that first gained currency in the early twentieth century yet continues to be asserted a hundred years later. Similar arguments are routinely made about the necessity for a U.S. military presence in the Middle East and East Asia. More generally, some would argue that maintaining American “primacy” in the world or promoting human rights, democracy, and an open trading system are necessary strategic goals. For much of the American public, however, that reasoning is not obvious. A zero-based review, therefore, should distinguish the “need to do” from the “nice to do.”

Determining how best to safeguard or promote the United States’ vital interests should derive from a thorough evaluation of the putative efficacy of alternative courses of action, as well as their relative costs and risks. That requirement may seem self-evident, but past experience shows that Washington has made important strategic decisions without properly vetting basic assumptions and appreciating potential downsides.

Demonstrating efficacy requires explaining how a specific series of steps could plausibly bring about the desired ends, assuming the strategy is faithfully followed. During the Cold War, the theory behind the strategy of containment was that an economically successful and democratic West would not just be stronger to resist further Soviet advances but would also eventually prevail by offering a more attractive alternative for those living under communism. The post–Cold War U.S. strategy of promoting democracy and free trade around the world rested on the belief that it would foster peace and prosperity and eventually be embraced by holdout autocratic powers, notably China. The same logic applied to the post-9/11 “global war on terror,” with its emphasis on nation-building as the best antidote to violent extremism. Different strategic options should ideally be stress tested, therefore, to ensure that their theory of the case is logically sound and, better still, grounded in empirical evidence as to what has worked and not worked in the past.

Once the potential efficacy of a strategic option has been ascertained, then its likely costs and risks also have to be weighed, along with any obvious trade-offs. Ideally, this process should be conducted in as open and rigorous a way as possible. A true zero-based exercise, in other words, should assume a blank slate and only later consider the practicalities and costs of unwinding prior policies if they are no longer fit for purpose. Easier said than done, of course, but there are proven ways to promote open and impartial analysis.

The third and final component to a zero-based assessment should evaluate whether the necessary means exist to execute whatever strategic options are being considered. Are the required policy instruments—political, economic, military—at the United States’ immediate disposal? If not, can they be obtained relatively quickly, or can like-minded and supportive partners supply them? The importance of this calculation has become all too evident in recent years as the United States and its partners have expended difficult-to-replace munitions faster than expected in various military operations.

In a more fundamental sense, however, calculating whether the means exist to execute any given strategy is about whether the overall level of resources—human, financial, political, and so on—will be sufficient to sustain it over time. The West’s Cold War strategy was remarkably cost-efficient in this respect, whereas the economic investment necessary to support the global war on terror was not.

A true zero-based review is a tall order for any administration. It is unrealistic to expect that busy officials could devote much time to such a demanding analytical effort. Outside experts, however, can at least ask the right questions and pursue helpful answers in as rigorous a way as possible before the next administration takes office. Too much is at stake for the United States to drift along without a clear sense of how best to secure its interests in the world.

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