The closer: every major presidential candidate is asking for more, more, more when it comes to foreign policy. Maybe what we need is less.

• Author: Rosenthal, Justine A.
• Position: The Realist - Essay

A PROPOSITION:

AMERICA USED to be the world's relief pitcher. The secret weapon trotted out in the ninth inning to shore up the win. With all this talk of great-power fatigue, the end of the American era, the squandering of U.S. power and resources, maybe it's time to return to truer and more tried methods. Taking a breather and solidifying our position as global leader--not giving it away by acting as the much-resented world policeman--may serve the United States well.

Ensuring our primacy means selectivity over promiscuity. It doesn't seem lately that we've asked ourselves: Where's the real competitor, and what's the real threat? We're consumed by every problem, every slight. Our vision is too clouded to see where we're welcome, where we're not and where someone else may solve the problem just as well--even if not exactly to our liking. This doesn't mean that we return home with our tail between our legs, but rather that we figure out where our fundamental interests lie before we decide to throw our weight around. It is not about giving up our position. Quite the contrary, it is about picking and choosing our engagements so that our leadership in the world is enhanced, not diminished. The current course seems unsustainable and often counterproductive.

It should come as no surprise then that rising and resurgent powers are looking to balance against us. This is realpolitik in the most classic sense. The threat of American power and our recent willingness to use force has created an environment ripe for associations where the United States is obviously absent from the guest list. Let's take a brief survey: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), encompassing China, Russia and much of Central Asia, with Iran and Pakistan hoping to become full participants; the Africa-South America Cooperative Forum and the fledgling hedging consortiums in South and Central America---our own backyard no less--with Iran knocking at the door for admission there as well. There are some older, standby competitors too: the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the African Union and the various initiatives in the Arab world. Most of these organizations don't have bite yet, but intentions count. Besides, some of them are hardly toothless. The recent SCO summit in Bishkek was preceded by joint China-Russia military exercises, the first ever held in the former Soviet Union.

Even the EU's growing influence now limits the American ability to have its way. As countries like China replace their dollar reserves with euros...