When judging the “foreign policy” of American presidents, we’re constrained by history: Most national security challenges were (mostly) imposed on the United States from outside and required a response that could not be tampered with or postponed. This is why many of the best known presidential foreign-policy makers—Washington, Monroe, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Wilson, Truman, Reagan—can be ranked highly or lowly depending on where they stand in the hierarchy of responding to the threats posed by German U boats, Hitler, the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Korean war, 9/11, and more.
Ensuring that a commitment to democracy and open markets triumphs on a global scale requires four broad strategies:
1. Sustain and strengthen the bases of American power.
This includes ensuring the American economy’s fundamentals remain sound and avoiding spending more than America can afford in the long run; maintaining a military edge, both technologically and in terms of overall capacity to bring force to bear at a time of Washington’s choosing; and maintaining a persistent diplomatic engagement that demonstrates awareness that what happens abroad matters to Americans.
2. Expand and adapt proven international institutions and arrangements.
This includes building up NATO, which grew from a collective defense alliance to Europe’s main security institution; developing new relationships with Russia and China; and strengthening the rules-based international system that supports free trade and global prosperity. It also means addressing humanitarian crisis and conflict exacerbated by climate change; adversaries seeking influence and exerting power; autocrats seeking to undermine democracy from within and without, and emerging technologies that both amplify the magnitude of existing threats and create new ones.
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