From the ideological liberalism of Obama to Trump’s ambition to Biden’s traditionalistic restraint (and back to Trump again), U.S. foreign policy has swung like a pendulum between the polar ends of ideals and instinct, all the while clinging to the illusion that it can remain dominant in the international order.

In truth, American foreign policy needs to learn to embrace a pragmatic realism that sustains global leadership without succumbing to isolationism or overreach.

For the American people, that illusion has become costly. Obama’s faith in diplomacy and sanctions revealed America’s struggle to sustain leadership while avoiding the costs of intervention ( Unger, 2016) . His reliance on economic pressure — from Iran to Russia — projected power without troops, but it also underscored

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