U.S. foreign policy today is failing every test that a great power's foreign policy can fail. America's enemies do not fear the United States, and America's friends doubt that they can trust it. Neither the American people nor the world at large understand anymore the purposes of American power or the principles that shape it. After a decade and a half of conflict in the Middle East and South Asia, some Americans have concluded that the best thing to do is to pull back from the world and its troubles, arguing that America's role as guarantor of global order is no longer necessary, history having ended with the Cold War.
We disagree. A strong United States is essential to the maintenance of the open global order under which this country and the rest of the world have prospered since 1945. We recognize the failures as well as the successes of past policies, but while we believe that we must understand those failures and learn from them, we also believe that American power and influence has served our country and the world far better than American weakness and introversion.
Today, the United States faces a global system that is more complex and more volatile, if not always more dangerous, than that of the 20th century. In Asia we confront a rising China, whose growing economy may eventually equal or even surpass ours in sheer size; whose governmental system still rests on the foundation laid by one of the great totalitarian monsters of the past century; and whose aspirations run counter to our interests. In Europe we face a revived Russia whose frail democratic institutions have been undermined, silenced, or destroyed. The regime led by Russian President Vladimir Putin has invaded two neighbors and annexed part of their territory, while intimidating others.
The Middle East is aflame, as several of the states created in the aftermath of the world wars have dissolved in sectarian and ethnic bloodshed and civil war. The Syrian civil war -- which has cost nearly a quarter of a million people their lives -- has created millions of refugees. The conflict has emerged as a magnet for jihadists from around the world, including Europe -- jihadists who will eventually return, hardened by experience, to their homelands. The Persian Gulf is menaced by an Iran whose nuclear ambitions will not be blocked and, indeed, may even be eased by the Obama administration's misconceived nuclear agreement. Today, Tehran dominates four Arab capitals, and wages covert warfare from the Mediterranean coast to southern Yemen, attacking through indirect means America's allies from Israel to the Emirates.
Another hostile state, North Korea, is expanding its stockpile of nuclear weapons which, if left unchecked, will put them on missiles that can reach the United States. At the same time, non-state actors -- most notably, jihadist movements of several stripes -- vie with each other for primacy in waging holy war from Nigeria to Pakistan.
These and other challenges require a first-order rethinking of American foreign policy. The threats will not be resolved by rousing speeches and a substantial increase in defense spending alone, welcome and necessary though both would be. Rather, they will require both more resources and creative statecraft. We must reject the notion of foreign policy based exclusively either on ideals or interests. The truth is that the United States has always, and must by its nature, act on both. But we must be prudent and pick our battles thoughtfully.
At the heart of American foreign policy should be our conception of international order. Promoting free trade is a part of this, but most important is the freedom of smaller states to live without fear of invasion or military coercion; commitment to the rules that govern the great commons of mankind -- including sea and space -- and rights of free passage and peaceful use thereof. And it must include as well the maintenance of a world that is friendly to the existence of free peoples and limited government.
The United States does not seek to impose its form of government by conquest; but it should never stint in its defense of the basic ideas that have defined us: limited government, freedom of speech, religion, and assembly; protection of private property; an independent judiciary. The United States could not thrive in a world dominated by corrupt, authoritarian, or totalitarian regimes, and history suggests that although democracies have waged war against each other in the past, by and large free states can and do settle their differences amicably.
America cannot exert its influence by example alone. The first call on the U.S. government must be the reconstruction of our defenses after years of war and, recently and worryingly, a prolonged reduction in them below what is safe. The word "reconstruction" is important here: An American military redesigned for the 21st century will differ in material ways from that of the 20th.
In the same way, our instruments of soft power must be reconceived. Efforts to wage a "war of ideas" against radical Islam have, on the whole, failed. The U.S. government, working creatively with the private and nonprofit sectors, must find approaches that make the case for free governments and free societies, and that undermine or confront ideologies that oppose ours. There is a political contest here that requires the same energy and enterprising spirit that imbued American efforts at political warfare during the early Cold War.
A third effort must be directed at reshaping the American alliance system. Some old allies -- the United Kingdom, most notably -- have faded and withdrawn, while others have grown in importance and self-confidence. The NATO alliance will remain a bedrock of European security; indeed, its protection and maintenance in the face of Russian aggression is an imperative. But new alliance systems will emerge through treaties, informal agreements, bilateral and multilateral arrangements. And it is correct to say that, without slighting our European commitments, the United States must shift some of its foreign policy energy to Asia from its traditional focus on Europe and the Middle East.
