It’s not too late for restrained U.S. foreign policy

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.

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