No direction home.

• Author: Bresler, Robert J.
• Position: STATE OF THE NATION - US foreign policy

FOREIGN POLICY DEBATE often is framed by windy pundits as a simplistic alternative between globalism and isolationism. Slogans such as "we cannot be the world's policeman" or "nation building begins at home" are misleading oversimplifications. As the saying goes, "A good slogan can stop analysis for years."

We never were the world's policeman. Historically, there never has been such a policeman--nor is it likely there will be one. No great power can fix every problem or shape every political revolution or uprising. At the same time, a great power cannot pretend it is something else and that the world will take care of itself. At these extremes lies treacherous terrain. Great powers, if they are to remain so, must design policies to protect their national interests and values, establish a strategy to attain them, and do so within the means available. This is the central lesson of Carl Von Clausewitz, the great Prussian strategist. It is at the heart of political realism, an approach developed in the U.S. in the writings of Hans Morgenthau, Walter Lippmann, George Kennan, and Henry Kissinger.

This approach advises against crusades to spread democracy and change the historic behavior of nations. It recognizes that nations always will pursue their national interests, even though many will miscalculate those interests. A cautious approach to international politics, realism seeks equilibrium in a dangerous world of conflicting interests. Essential to equilibrium is a stable balance of power.

In the 20th century, the U.S. sought to prevent hegemonic powers from destroying the balance of power in Europe and Asia. These regions of vital interest to American political, economic, and military security required stopping Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in Europe and Japan in Asia from becoming hegemonic powers. At its core, the U.S. was acting as an offshore balancer, not as a conqueror or another hegemonic power. This was the essence of America's success.

At the peak of its power, when the rest of the world was digging out from the rabble and horror of World War II, the U.S. could not control the destiny of other nations. The Roosevelt and Truman administrations could not prevent the Eastern European nations from suffering under Joseph Stalin's boot or keep the Communists from sweeping into power in China.

Short of reshaping the entire international order, America used its power to great advantage and demonstrated a middle ground between isolationism...