Ash Jain
Foreign policy is likely to feature prominently at the Republican presidential primary debates. At the debate in August, a question on whether the candidates would support continued U.S. assistance to Ukraine produced a firestorm. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had previously suggested that Russia’s war in Ukraine was not a “vital” national interest, appeared skeptical, calling on Europe to do more instead. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy was more direct in opposing such aid, calling it “disastrous” for the United States to be “protecting against an invasion across somebody else’s border.” Former Vice President Mike Pence and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, on the other hand, expressed strong support for assisting Ukraine, effectively standing behind President Joe Biden’s efforts to counter Russian aggression while imploring the United States to do even more.
On the other side of the aisle, some Democrats have been wary of Biden’s policy on Ukraine, as evidenced by a letter (that was later retracted) sent to the president by progressive Democrats, calling for a diplomatic end to the conflict and potential sanctions relief for Russia.
In today’s polarized political atmosphere, such cross-cutting views may appear confounding. On most domestic policy issues, whether political leaders have an R or a D next to their name is often a pretty good guide to their take on any particular issue. But when it comes to foreign policy, the normal rules of politics do not apply. Instead, of much greater relevance is where a political leader falls on the foreign-policy ideology spectrum.
The schools of thought that make up this spectrum, reflecting fundamentally different views about the U.S. role in the world, are highly influential but not very well understood.
In seeking to differentiate between foreign-policy positions, the media often resorts to cliches, such as “hawks versus doves,” or buzzwords, such as “isolationist” and “neoconservative.” However, these terms tend to be oversimplified or exaggerated and convey little useful information. International relations theories are not all that helpful either. “Realism” is routinely conflated with an academic concept that predicts how nations can be expected to behave, rather than how they should. And other theories, such as “idealism” and “constructivism,” offer limited utility in understanding real-world decision-making.
Yet there are critical differences in how policymakers view the world and are seeking to influence the direction of U.S. foreign policy. There is a clear dichotomy, for instance, between those who believe that U.S. influence is mostly positive and that the United States should play an active role in global affairs and those who believe that U.S. hubris more often leads to bad outcomes and want to scale back the country’s overseas commitments.
There is a significant divide between those who believe that the United States should prioritize efforts to advance democratic values and norms and those who believe in defending more narrow strategic interests. And there are disparate views on whether the United States should stand firm against adversaries, such as Russia and China, or should seek to find common ground.
I have delineated six distinct foreign-policy camps that represent the dominant strains of thinking on the U.S. role in the world. These camps can be placed along a spectrum of international engagement. Four of them fall on the more assertive side of this spectrum, constituting “internationalists,” who believe that the United States should exercise its influence and be actively engaged in global affairs. And two of the camps are “non-internationalists,” who believe that the United States should scale back its global commitments and adopt a less forward-leaning foreign policy.
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