Overreach and Retrenchment

An enduring myth about the Cold War strategy of the United States—that it was marked by bipartisan unity and policy continuity—can make it hard to think clearly about the choices American policymakers will face in the decade ahead. The years between World War II and the collapse of the Soviet Union were in fact often marked by disunity and discontinuity. American leaders always wanted to avoid nuclear war but sometimes thought the way to do so was by stopping the arms race; at other times they wanted to win it. Nor did they agree on how to arrest the spread of new communist regimes: was it by slowing the break-up of Europe’s colonial empires or by accelerating it, by supporting friendly Third World dictatorships or by challenging them to liberalize? Advocates of an activist approach might dominate U.S. policy for a time, only to give way to those who favored doing less. Overcommitment alternated with retrenchment. Because this pattern is likely to repeat itself in the decade ahead, a review of past changes of direction can clarify future policy choices.

Surges of policy activism have almost always been triggered by some sort of shock, such as the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, or the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Each incident produced a new consensus on the need for a more ambitious strategy, sustained by more resources and more risk-taking. The “China shock”—the surge in Chinese exports and loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs—has had a comparable effect across administrations of different parties over the last two decades. It lives on in President Donald Trump’s conviction that the key to economic success is not to prevent trade wars, but to start them, and win.

The activist U.S. response to two other recent shocks—the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel—is still unfolding. And further shocks—the effect of new technology on military strategy, for example—are not hard to envision. The Trump presidency itself could prove to be the biggest shock of all, an experience that future policymakers may argue shows the need to restore previous relationships and institutions.

Whatever its focus, whether trade or terrorism or territory, one thing about a period of strategic activism is all but certain: as the costs of activism increase, so do its critics, and so does pressure for change. Like activism, strategic downsizing can come in different forms, each with its own script for how to scale back American interests abroad. In the decade ahead, efforts to reshape U.S. foreign policy are likely to look at four different (but overlapping) ways of downsizing it—by making it less ideological, less global, less bloody and expensive, or less unilateral.

Many policy analysts and policymakers have in recent years seen international politics as an ideological clash between two camps, autocracies against democracies. A similar reading pits the United States and its partners against a so-called axis of upheaval, led by China and Russia. Trump, by contrast, has signaled a clear preference to deal separately with U.S. adversaries, rather than stress their links to each other or wage across-the-board confrontation with authoritarian regimes. That approach, which might be called “divide and conciliate,” has an obvious Cold War antecedent. Hoping to ease the U.S. withdrawal from the Vietnam War, the Nixon administration saw advantages in reaching out separately to Moscow and Beijing. The analogy is an imperfect one (by the early 1970s, the Soviet Union and China had been bitter enemies for years), but faulty history alone need not deter future policymakers who want to downsize the U.S. strategic agenda.

Policymakers may also seek a second way of narrowing the scope of American foreign policy, which in recent decades has had a truly worldwide focus. This global approach has had many sources, but they are all subject to rethinking. The interests at stake in individual regions can be downgraded or devalued. Advocates of a pivot to Asia, for instance, have long favored at least partial disengagement from Europe and the Middle East. A still narrower focus on the Western Hemisphere—reflecting Trump’s aim to reduce immigration and illegal drug flows—was announced by the administration’s National Security Strategy of 2025.

How these less global preferences will age over the course of a decade is impossible to predict. A “spheres of influence” strategy focused on America’s own neighborhood will surely be criticized by those who feel it would leave the United States with control of one of the globe’s least valuable spheres. (Just compare what two offshore islands, Cuba and Taiwan, contribute to global GDP.) And the need to balance against China could come to be seen as a reason to preserve an alliance with Europe, not to pivot away from it. Whatever the policy bottom line, the relative importance of different regions seems certain to be a major part of future U.S. debate.

A third way to reshape American policy is to make it less bloody and expensive. Military overcommitment has been the most consistent past contributor to strategic downsizing. Without stalemated wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Barack Obama would probably not have become president when they did. (Joe Biden’s retreat from Afghanistan, and its effect on his poll numbers, gave Trump a similar opportunity.) In all these cases, the domestic political repercussions included pressure for lower defense budgets, aversion to risky uses of force that could entail high casualties, and a strong preference for the optics of peacemaking. Even the Clinton administration, though remembered for enjoying and exploiting the “unipolar moment,” felt many of the same constraints. The more the Trump years are seen as a time of overreliance on the use of force, the more cost- and risk-averse future policymakers will likely be.

Finally, downsizing could make U.S. policy less unilateral. Military operations prepared without domestic or international consultation have already become a trademark of the Trump administration’s foreign policy. The broader unilateralist strategy they reflect has little use for alliances, coalition-building, international institutions, or even traditional diplomacy. This strategy—and its underlying impulses—may for some time retain support within the president’s own party. Yet within the political system as a whole, its legacy is less certain, especially if its results are seen as unsuccessful or unsustainable. Trump’s foreign policy could, ironically, generate a consensus on the need to rebuild those elements of a multilateral order that he has been most determined to tear down.

Because that order was dominated by the United States, the desire to revive it will be seen by many as a return to policy activism, rather than as strategic downsizing. An effort to reassert U.S. global influence will doubtless have many activist features. Even so, it will include many features of retrenchment as well—more modest and conciliatory rhetoric, a readiness to consult and to compromise, a stress on shared interests and lasting (rather than one-time or transactional) problem-solving.

The effort to fashion a foreign policy that is more affordable, more stable, and more focused on domestically supported goals is likely to draw on all four ways of doing less—less ideological, less global, less bloody and expensive, and less unilateral. The biggest risk a downsized policy will face is the one it has so often faced in the past: a spreading perception that it is failing to counter some growing challenge to U.S. interests. Over time, that perception, especially when bolstered by a sudden shock, will move policy back toward activism.