Why Donald Trump Should Embrace Offshore Balancing

Tom Switzer

Security,

The Donald would be wise to listen to the realists. 

Great sea changes of foreign policy thought are rare in American public life. But there’s abundant evidence that the US is experiencing one now.

Polls show that the American people are tired of the world, with a majority believing that it’s high time for the nation to concentrate on its own neglected internal problems. The defense budget has fallen and will continue to fall, and there’s a strong aversion to seeing US soldiers killed and wounded. To the extent that such views prevail, they’re inimical to the post-Cold War consensus that the US should impose its will and leadership across the globe.

Enter Donald Trump, whose divisive rhetoric and rude-and-crude behavior shouldn’t disguise the fact that he has caught the significance of the new mood. Like Bernie Sanders, Trump found a receptive primary campaign audience whenever he questioned America’s propensity for promoting democracy and subsidizing allies’ defenses. And, unlike Hillary Clinton, he recognizes that US military interventions in the Middle East all too often make a bad situation worse, getting America bogged down in sectarian wars while radicalizing a new generation of jihadist.

If a foreign policy keeps hurting US interests and making the world a far more dangerous place, then some new thinking is in order. Unfortunately, Trump’s failed to match his shrewd instincts with any policy substance. He could do worse than consult an important article in the latest Foreign Affairs magazine.

John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt from Harvard University are two of America’s most distinguished scholars of international relations. Neither will vote for Trump or work for his administration if he’s elected in November.

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