"U.S. foreign policy is adrift between the old order and one that has
yet to be defined. Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election awakened many in Washington to the reality that despite the
political elite’s presumption of an unassailable foreign policy
consensus, many Americans questioned the assumptions that had guided
decades of the U.S. approach to the world—in particular, the idea that
an international order backed by American military hegemony was
self-evidently worth maintaining, no matter the cost. The 2024 election
has confirmed that 2016 was not an anomaly. The old Washington consensus
is dead.
But Trump’s “America first” approach is not a viable alternative. ...
Americans need an alternative to the choice between “America first” unilateralism or “America is back” nostalgia. ...
It’s going to require a true overhaul of foreign policy paradigms and personnel. U.S. policymakers should start with a decisive break with the
era of the global war on terror. ...
Once Washington has truly closed the book on the global war on terror,
however, it should not simply look to slot in a new enemy. Embracing a worldview of a great-power competition, the Trump and Biden
administrations and much of the U.S. foreign policy establishment are
fixated on reducing China’s presence and influence around the world.
U.S. leaders should not understate the challenges posed by the
government of China. Yet their dangerously unquestioned need to counter
or even beat China in region after region across the globe is not only reactionary but also subordinates U.S. interests to a fight that drains resources and goodwill while foreclosing opportunities for cooperation
and peaceful coexistence. Great-power competition will not revitalize
democracy in a global or domestic context. By fostering international
hostility and xenophobia, it will more likely empower those domestic
political forces unfriendly to democracy.
The United States needs to recognize and secure its interests in the
reality of a multipolar world rather than futilely attempting to
forestall multipolarity through a costly and self-defeating effort to disadvantage China. ...
Finally, it will be impossible to repair U.S. foreign policy without
repairing U.S. politics. No foreign policy agenda, however well defined,
can long endure amid the country’s current polarization, in which every
issue becomes yet another weapon in the culture wars between left and
right. Overcoming this challenge means confronting the fact that
American democracy is constrained, if not torpedoed, by a campaign
finance system that is tantamount to legalized bribery."
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/america-cursed-foreign-policy-nostalgia
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