The Hell of Good Intentions

1. Liberal Hegemony: The Flawed Post-Cold War Strategy

Instead of greeting the defeat of its principal rival as an opportunity to reduce America’s global burdens, why did both Democrats and Republicans embark on an ill-considered campaign to spread democracy, markets, and other liberal values around the world?

Misguided ambition. Following the Cold War, the United States, finding itself in an unprecedented position of global primacy, adopted a grand strategy termed "liberal hegemony." This approach, embraced by successive administrations (Clinton, Bush, Obama), aimed to actively reshape the world according to American preferences and political values, rather than reducing its global commitments. The core belief was that the U.S. must remain overwhelmingly powerful and use this power to defend, spread, and deepen liberal ideals globally.

Defining liberal hegemony. This strategy is "liberal" because it seeks to promote individual freedom, democratic governance, and market-based economies. It is "hegemonic" because it identifies the U.S. as the "indispensable nation" uniquely qualified to lead this global transformation. Proponents believed this was essential for U.S. security and prosperity, and beneficial for the entire world.

Costly failure. However, this ambitious strategy proved to be a costly failure. Instead of fostering an expanding zone of peace, it poisoned relations with Russia, led to expensive quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq, squandered trillions of dollars and thousands of lives, and encouraged resistance from both states and non-state actors. The strategy's inherent flaws meant America's superior economic and military assets could not rescue a fundamentally misguided approach.

2. A Dismal Record of Post-Cold War Failures

By almost any measure, and in nearly every key area of foreign policy, the United States is in worse shape today than it was in 1992.

Optimism shattered. The early 1990s were marked by immense optimism, with expectations of spreading democracy, human rights, and open markets under benevolent U.S. leadership. However, this hopeful vision was not realized. The "unipolar moment" proved surprisingly brief, and the strategic environment deteriorated sharply, leaving the U.S. in a weaker global position.

Worsening global landscape. Key areas of decline include:

• Great Power Relations: Relations with Russia and China have sharply deteriorated, pushing them closer together.
• Rogue to Failed States: Efforts against "rogue states" often resulted in failed states (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya) that became breeding grounds for extremism.
• Tarnished Military Reputation: Costly, unsuccessful campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan eroded the perception of U.S. military omnipotence.
• Liberalism in Retreat: Democracy promotion efforts largely failed, with many new democracies sliding back into authoritarianism, and liberal institutions eroding even in the West.
• Globalization's Discontents: While benefiting some, globalization led to financial crises and social disruption, fueling populist backlashes.

Persistent problems. U.S. efforts to solve global problems like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nuclear proliferation, and international terrorism also largely failed or exacerbated existing issues. The "war on terror," for instance, led to an expansion of extremist groups and conflicts, often as a direct result of misguided U.S. responses.

3. Flawed Assumptions Underpin Liberal Hegemony

Unfortunately, the theories that underpinned these optimistic expectations are flawed.

Theoretical weaknesses. Liberal hegemony rests on several flawed theories of international relations, leading its proponents to overestimate benefits and underestimate resistance. These include:

• Democratic Peace Theory: Assumes democracies don't fight each other, but newly democratized states are prone to conflict, and the theory offers little guidance for dealing with authoritarian regimes.
• Economic Liberalism: Believes interdependence reduces war, but history shows high interdependence doesn't prevent conflict and can even exacerbate it, as seen in financial crises and social disruption.
• Liberal Institutionalism: Posits strong international regimes facilitate cooperation, but institutions are tools of powerful states and cannot resolve deep conflicts of interest or prevent war.

Ignoring power dynamics. The strategy also overlooks the fundamental principle that power imbalances make other states nervous, especially when the strongest state acts with little regard for others' interests. This predictably led to:

• Balancing behavior: Adversaries like Russia and China moved closer to each other to counter U.S. dominance.
• Buck-passing: Allies free-rode on U.S. protection, shifting burdens onto Washington.
• Blowback: U.S. interventions, particularly in the Middle East, fueled anti-American extremism and terrorism.

Overstated utility of force. Proponents exaggerated what American military power could achieve. While capable of defeating armies, it proved a crude instrument for social engineering or dictating political outcomes in complex societies. Military interventions consistently took longer, cost more, and achieved less than promised, demonstrating the limits of force in remaking the world.

4. The Foreign Policy Establishment's Entrenchment

To put it in the bluntest terms, instead of being a disciplined body of professionals constrained by a well-informed public and forced by necessity to set priorities and hold themselves accountable, today’s foreign policy elite is a dysfunctional caste of privileged insiders who are frequently disdainful of alternative perspectives and insulated both professionally and personally from the consequences of the policies they promote.

"The Blob" defined. The foreign policy community, or "the Blob," comprises individuals and organizations (government agencies, think tanks, media, academia, interest groups) that actively engage with international affairs. This community is highly networked, with permeable boundaries, where prominent figures often move between different sectors without changing professions. This creates a self-reinforcing echo chamber.

Activist bias. This community exhibits a strong, bipartisan consensus in favor of extensive U.S. global involvement and liberal hegemony. Organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations and major think tanks consistently advocate for active U.S. leadership, often funded by entities with a vested interest in an expansive foreign policy (e.g., defense contractors). This bias ensures that the debate is heavily skewed towards interventionist approaches.

Self-serving incentives. While many professionals are patriotic, the system inherently rewards an ambitious global agenda. More foreign policy problems mean more jobs, greater influence, and higher status for experts. Challenging the prevailing consensus is often a career risk, leading to conformity and a reluctance to question established dogmas, even in the face of repeated failures.

5. Selling the Narrative: Threat Inflation and Concealed Costs

In fact, selling liberal hegemony is easier than one might think, as debates on foreign and national security policy are not a fair fight among the competing alternatives.

Rigged marketplace of ideas. The foreign policy establishment effectively manipulates public discourse to maintain support for liberal hegemony. Citizens lack direct access to reliable information, relying on officials and experts who can classify information, leak selectively, and prosecute whistleblowers. This asymmetry allows the executive branch to control the narrative and diminish public accountability.

Exaggerating dangers. A time-honored method is threat inflation, portraying the world as brimming with imminent dangers that only active U.S. engagement can counter. This involves:

• "Delay means defeat": Claiming swift action guarantees victory, while inaction leads to catastrophic consequences.
• Overstating enemy capabilities: Depicting minor powers as major threats (e.g., Iraq, Iran, ISIS).
• Demonizing adversaries: Portraying enemies as irrational, irredeemably hostile, and impossible to deter, thus justifying their removal.
• "Axes of Evil": Lumping diverse adversaries into unified, menacing coalitions.
• Allied fecklessness: Claiming allies are weak and unreliable, requiring continued U.S. protection.
• Exploiting uncertainty: Hyping hard-to-measure threats like terrorism or cyberwarfare.

Concealing true costs. The establishment also downplays the financial and human costs of liberal hegemony. Wars are often financed through borrowing, hiding immediate costs and shifting burdens to future generations. The all-volunteer force insulates the public from the human toll, and the Pentagon often underreports civilian casualties. This lack of transparency makes it easier to initiate and perpetuate costly, unsuccessful interventions.

6. The Accountability Deficit: Failure Without Consequence

This worrisome tendency applies to both ideas and policies and to the people who conceive and implement them.

Systemic lack of accountability. In U.S. foreign policy, failed policies often persist, and discredited ideas are frequently revived. Individuals whose actions have repeatedly backfired are rarely penalized; instead, they often "fail upward," gaining more influence. This contrasts sharply with the accountability expected in competitive sectors like business or sports.

Excusing malfeasance. Accountability aversion starts at the top. Following the 9/11 attacks, the commission investigating the incident avoided blaming any specific officials, attributing failures to "structural flaws." Similarly, reports on the Abu Ghraib torture scandal blamed low-level personnel, exonerating top civilian officials. The Obama administration's decision not to prosecute Bush-era officials for torture further entrenched this pattern.

Rewarding failure. Neoconservatives, who conceived and promoted the disastrous Iraq War, largely retained their influence, returning to well-funded think tanks and media positions. Similarly, officials involved in the consistently unsuccessful Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" were repeatedly recycled. In the intelligence community, despite significant failures (9/11, Iraq WMD, Snowden leaks), top officials like James Clapper and John Brennan faced no serious repercussions for misleading Congress or the public.

Marginalizing dissent. Conversely, those who correctly predicted failures or challenged the consensus often faced marginalization. Scholars who warned against the Iraq War or analysts who offered nuanced views on Iran found their careers hampered. This system discourages critical thinking and reinforces conformity, making it nearly impossible to learn from past mistakes.

7. Trump's Failed Revolution: Incompetence Over Ideology

Unfortunately, Trump’s impact has been almost entirely negative.

Unfulfilled promises. Donald Trump campaigned on an "America First" platform, promising a radical break from liberal hegemony by questioning NATO, condemning "nation-building," and challenging global trade agreements. However, his presidency largely failed to deliver on these promises, instead exacerbating existing problems.

Capture by the Blob. Despite initial unorthodox appointments, Trump's foreign policy team quickly normalized. Key figures like H.R. McMaster and James Mattis, committed to mainstream views, worked to temper his radical instincts. This internal resistance, combined with Trump's lack of a coherent alternative strategy, meant that many core elements of liberal hegemony remained intact.

• NATO: Trump reversed his "obsolete" stance, reaffirming U.S. commitment.
• Russia/China: Policy remained wary and competitive, with new sanctions on Russia and tariffs on China.
• Middle East: Continued support for traditional allies, military action in Syria, and a return to confrontational Iran policy (abandoning the nuclear deal).
• Afghanistan: Despite "nation-building" rhetoric, troop levels increased.

Self-inflicted wounds. Trump's personal traits proved his greatest undoing. His chaotic management style, poor judgment in appointments, frequent lying, and impulsive, insulting tweets undermined U.S. credibility and alienated allies. His "art of the deal" approach often resulted in "giveaways," as seen in the TPP withdrawal and the North Korea summit, which yielded little concrete benefit for the U.S.

Weakened global standing. Trump's actions eroded international confidence in U.S. leadership, pushing allies to hedge their bets and rivals to expand their influence. His "illiberal hegemony" embraced the worst aspects of the old strategy (militarism, unilateralism) while abandoning its positive aspirations (human rights, open trade), accelerating America's decline rather than reversing it.

8. Offshore Balancing: A Better Way Forward

Fortunately, a superior alternative is available—offshore balancing—which is America’s traditional grand strategy.

America's traditional strategy. Offshore balancing is a grand strategy focused on protecting vital U.S. interests by preventing other states from dominating key regions. It calls for deploying U.S. power abroad only when direct threats to these vital interests emerge, rather than attempting to reshape the entire world. This approach prioritizes American security and prosperity.

Focus on vital regions. Offshore balancing identifies only a few areas as vitally important to U.S. security:

• Western Hemisphere: Where the U.S. already holds a dominant position.
• Europe, Northeast Asia, and the Persian Gulf: These regions contain key centers of industrial power, military potential, or critical resources (oil/gas).
  The primary goal is to prevent any single state from becoming a regional hegemon in these areas, which could eventually challenge U.S. power globally.

Leveraging local forces. The strategy advocates for the U.S. to rely on local powers as the first line of defense, expecting them to uphold their regional balance of power out of self-interest. The U.S. would provide material assistance but generally refrain from deploying significant forces unless local actors cannot contain a potential hegemon. Once a threat is defeated, U.S. forces would withdraw, minimizing entanglement.

9. The Virtues of Offshore Balancing

Offshore balancing would also reduce the tendency for other states to “free-ride” on U.S. protection, a problem that has grown in scope since the end of the Cold War.

Resource optimization. Offshore balancing significantly reduces the resources Washington must devote to distant regions, allowing for greater investment in domestic priorities like education, infrastructure, and R&D. This approach would prolong U.S. primacy by strengthening its internal foundations, much like China's strategy over the past three decades.

Reduced burdens and risks:

• Less free-riding: Allies would be compelled to contribute more to their own defense, as the U.S. would no longer disproportionately shoulder global security burdens.
• Lower terrorism risk: By eschewing large-scale social engineering and minimizing military footprint, it reduces nationalist resentment and the inspiration for anti-American extremism.
• Fewer casualties: Limits putting Americans in harm's way for trivial or ill-considered reasons.

Historical precedent and diplomatic emphasis. This strategy aligns with America's historical foreign policy, which saw intervention only when the balance of power in vital regions was threatened (e.g., World Wars). It shifts the focus from military coercion to diplomacy, requiring a sophisticated understanding of global trends and flexible engagement with all states, rather than dictating terms or maintaining "special relationships."

10. The Path to Reform: Challenging the Blob

The only way to broaden public debate on these topics, therefore, is to create a countervailing set of organizations and institutions that can do battle in the marketplace of ideas.

Overcoming resistance. The foreign policy community is deeply entrenched in liberal hegemony, making meaningful reform difficult. External pressures alone are insufficient; a strong, sustained political movement is needed to challenge the "Blob's" influence and its resistance to change. This requires a "fairer fight" in the marketplace of ideas.

Building a countervailing movement. Advocates for offshore balancing must:

• Establish institutions: Create well-funded organizations (think tanks, lobbies) to conduct research, organize conferences, and disseminate alternative ideas.
• Cultivate talent: Recruit, mentor, and support younger experts who favor restraint, providing them with viable career paths outside the mainstream consensus.
• Form coalitions: Build alliances with other groups whose agendas are compatible with a more restrained foreign policy.

Emphasizing core values. The movement must frame offshore balancing as deeply patriotic, respecting the military by using it judiciously, and ending "Uncle Sucker" policies that burden American taxpayers. It should also defend the moral high ground, stressing that peace is in the U.S. national interest and that setting a good example is the most effective way to promote liberal values globally.

The messenger matters. For offshore balancing to become America's default grand strategy, it needs articulate, well-informed, and credible champions who can overcome the negative baggage associated with past "outsider" critics. Such leaders, by connecting foreign policy choices to domestic well-being, can tap into widespread public desire for a smarter, less interventionist approach.