Competing Visions of Restraint for U.S. Foreign Policy

Despite differences across administrations, the core of U.S. grand strategy for decades has broadly been described as deep engagement. Deep engagers call for the United States to remain a security leader in three key regions — East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East — through commitments to a vast network of allies and partners, a large forward military presence, and the use of force to enforce international norms and uphold U.S. interests, broadly defined. Many policymakers on both sides of the aisle, as well as foreign policy experts in Washington and academia, continue to support this U.S. approach to the world.^[1]

However, the Iraq War and the Global War on Terror gave rise to critiques of deep engagement from policymakers and experts on both the political left and right, as well as from strategists in academia. These groups highlighted damaged relations with other major powers, unhealthy alliance dynamics, failed military interventions, and dysfunction at home. Despite their political and intellectual differences, these unlikely allies converged on a grand strategic alternative, restraint, which calls for reducing or resolving conflicts of interest with U.S. rivals; rebalancing, downgrading, or ending U.S. alliances and security partnerships; reducing the U.S. forward military presence; and raising the bar for the use of force. Despite growing interest in this approach, restraint remains a minority view among policymakers in Washington.^[2]

How influential the restraint camp will be on the administration of President-elect Donald Trump remains to be seen. The first Trump administration maintained the core elements of deep engagement but rejected multilateralism and the liberal aspects of some prior administrations' strategies. Trump has also sometimes rhetorically supported or adopted policies that are consistent with restraint, such as calling on allies to do more for their own defense and negotiating the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Moreover, the end of U.S. unipolarity, the costs and risks associated with intensified great-power competition, and domestic priorities could draw more support for restraint and produce a shift in U.S. grand strategy.

In this context, restraint's underlying ideas are worthy of further scrutiny and attention. Understanding what motivates some people to support restraint is a first step toward predicting how their policy positions may change as international conditions evolve — and how much influence restrainers may be expected to have on U.S. grand strategy.^[3]

Three Pathways to Restraint

Restrainers can be defined as those who call for reducing U.S. military engagement in at least one of three key regions: East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. This intentionally broad definition includes people who promote restraint in one region even as they prescribe deep engagement in another.

There are competing visions of restraint. Strategists from diverse schools of thought — realism, conservativism, and progressivism — have converged on the idea that the United States should reduce military engagement abroad, but their underlying motivations differ. As a result, they disagree on the details of where, how, and when the United States should retrench. (See Table 1.)

Realist restrainers argue that deep engagement has been counterproductive. U.S. military presence, security relationships, and uses of force lead U.S. rivals to strengthen their militaries and cooperate to resist U.S. policies, making it more difficult for the United States to achieve its objectives. These realists believe that letting U.S. allies take the lead in balancing, especially against Russia and Iran, would present fewer downsides for the United States. In their view, only if allies are too weak to collectively prevent a powerful aggressor from dominating East Asia, Europe, or the Middle East should the United States abandon restraint.

Conservative restrainers oppose deep engagement because they think that it undermines their definition of the American way of life. Some conservative restrainers think that U.S. militarism undermines civil liberties, raises taxes, and threatens republicanism at home. Other conservative restrainers focus on how U.S. globalism interferes with their vision of U.S. culture and society. Both camps are skeptical of the United States' ability to manage events far from its shores, as deep engagement requires. Conservative restrainers would only support deep engagement to prevent an outside power from influencing the American way of life.

Progressive restrainers have a more expansive view of U.S. interests — they see global equality, human rights, and environmental sustainability as vital — but believe that deep engagement relies on military tools for problems that require alternative solutions. Progressives want to stand in solidarity with other democracies against authoritarian aggression, but they also worry that U.S. alliances and forward presence provoke adversaries and fuel U.S. militarism.

Subgroups of realists, conservatives, and progressives weigh competing considerations differently, producing important within-group policy differences. For example, differences in how conservatives define the American way of life lead some to support free trade and liberal immigration laws, while others call for protectionism and an immigration crackdown.

A Mix of Policy Agreement and Discord

Opposition to the Global War on Terror enabled realists, conservatives, and progressives to converge on restraint, and restrainers continue to call for U.S. retrenchment from the Middle East. However, developments in Europe and Asia have surfaced policy differences.

Restrainers are united in opposing the United States' entering the war in Ukraine as a combatant. Most restrainers want the United States to use its leverage to bring an end to the conflict and to condition or reduce aid to Ukraine. However, one group of progressive restrainers — progressive pragmatists — supports the Biden administration's policy of providing military and economic support to Ukraine with few conditions; see Table 2.

Restrainers are largely united in calls for U.S. retrenchment from Europe, though renewed Russian aggression may lead progressive pragmatists to oppose such a policy for now. Prior to the war in Ukraine, realists, conservatives, and another group of progressives — anti-hegemonists — agreed that Russia was weak and could be checked by U.S. allies in Europe. Russia's relatively poor military performance against a much weaker Ukraine has reinforced those beliefs and these strategists' commitment to U.S. military retrenchment from Europe. Some go so far as to support U.S. withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), while others propose downgrading the United States' role in NATO instead. Progressive pragmatists have historically called for a smaller U.S. presence in Europe and greater burden-sharing and equality among allies. However, these progressives might not join calls for postwar retrenchment from Europe, since they weigh anti-authoritarianism and democratic solidarity more heavily than the negative effects of U.S. alliances and forward presence; see Table 3.

The most-significant schisms among restrainers concern U.S. strategy in East Asia. Some realist and conservative restrainers believe that the hard-line U.S. approach is increasing the risk of great-power war. They also believe that such a strategy is unnecessary, since there are many impediments to China dominating its region, much less projecting power against the United States. In addition, anti-hegemonist progressives see competition as undermining U.S.-China cooperation on the urgent threat of climate change. These groups, therefore, continue to call for U.S. restraint in the region. However, other realist and conservative restrainers call for deep engagement in East Asia now, fearing that states in the region are too weak and divided to check China. These restrainers are joined by progressive pragmatists, who want to stand with democratic allies.

Restrainers are similarly divided on whether the United States should intervene if China attacks Taiwan. Most realist and conservative restrainers, as well as anti-hegemonist progressives, oppose direct U.S. involvement in a conflict over Taiwan; they believe that the United States does not have sufficient interests at stake to justify a high-intensity great-power war and risk potential nuclear escalation. However, other realists, conservatives, and progressives who already argue for containing China are willing to see the United States fight for Taiwan's independence.

Restraint's Influence on Policy May Vary by Region

At the end of the Cold War, unipolarity meant that the costs and risks of deep engagement were tolerable, and the debate in Washington focused on how much more ambitious the United States should be. Restrainers did not significantly shift U.S. grand strategy in this context. More than three decades later, restrainers have gained prominence in the grand strategy debate, but they also face headwinds.

Some international and domestic trends will lead many restrainers to double down and attract new converts to the cause. The passing of unipolarity and the intensification of great-power competition could lead more Americans to see deep engagement as too risky, while mounting domestic and fiscal challenges may also cause some to see deep engagement as unsustainable. In this context, the multiple entry points to restraint — through progressive, conservative, and realist ideas — could lead to a large coalition in favor of strategic change, at least on policy in Europe and the Middle East, where most restrainers align.

But the existence of competing visions of restraint is a double-edged sword. Divergent views on U.S. strategy in East Asia could inhibit restrainers' ability to provide a compelling alternative to current U.S. strategy in the region. Moreover, policymakers and the public may hesitate to shift strategy in the face of Russia's aggression in Europe, China's growing power in Asia, and instability in the Middle East.

Trump's emphasis on alliance burden-sharing creates the possibility that restrainers' ideas will gain influence on grand strategy in the next administration. But deep engagers' policy recommendations may resonate with Trump's hard-line instincts as well. More broadly, there are both deep engagers and restrainers within the conservative camp. Domestic political differences between conservatives and progressives are so stark that coalition-building across the aisle on foreign policy may be difficult.

Ultimately, given these countervailing considerations, the extent of restrainers' influence in the next administration is unclear. What can be said is that, all else equal, restrainers may have the most influence on U.S. strategy in the regions on which they are most united: Europe and the Middle East.

Notes

• [1] For more details on deep engagement, see Stephen G. Brooks, G. John Ikenberry, and William C. Wohlforth, "Don't Come Home, America: The Case Against Retrenchment," International Security, Vol. 37, No. 3, Winter 2012–2013.
• [2] For a prominent proposal for restraint, see Barry R. Posen, Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy, Cornell University Press, 2014.
• [3] This research brief summarizes detailed analysis and findings found in Miranda Priebe, John Schuessler, Bryan Rooney, and Jasen Castillo, "Competing Visions of Restraint," International Security, Vol. 49, No. 2, Fall 2024, https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00498.

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• China
• Geopolitical Strategic Competition
• Military Strategy
• Russia
• Taiwan
• Ukraine
• United States