U.S. foreign policy is badly out of whack. There is a growing recognition that we’re trying to do too much with too little. The strains on our military personnel, and even on our diplomats, are on display for all to see. (For example, here and here, respectively.) Meanwhile, our persistent nation-building troubles are the subject of dozens of books and articles, including Christopher Coyne’s forthcoming After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy.

Many commentators would solve the problem by spending more – on the military, on the State Department, and on foreign aid, but also on entirely new institutions, including de facto (and in some cases, de jure) colonial offices. The logic is straightforward: If there is a mismatch between means and ends, expand the means.

Three recent articles apply exactly the opposite approach: If we’re doing too much, maybe we should do less.

This sentiment comes through most clearly in Justine Rosenthal’s lead column in the current issue of The National Interest. She begins with a simple 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.

Over at TNI’s distant half-cousin (and now rival), The American Interest, MIT’s Barry Posen delivers a definitive “Case for Restraint,” followed by more than a dozen (mostly skeptical) responses. (Kudos to Sameer Lalwani over at The Washington Note for his comments on the Posen article, and especially for his take-down of James Q. Wilson’s disappointingly facile reply.)

After documenting the several reasons why the United States is incapable of dominating the globe, despite (or perhaps because of?) our hyper-interventionism, Posen posits:

If more activism has not produced better policy, what is to be done? The United States should try doing less: It should pursue a grand strategy of restraint. Less is not nothing, however, meaning in essence that the United States should conceive ways to shape rather than to control international politics.

In detailing what “restraint” would actually entail, I was particularly encouraged by Posen’s willingness to say what most Americans inherently know, but what most so-called policy elites refuse to admit: “U.S. security guarantees and security assistance tend to relieve others of the need to do more to ensure their own security, and they often ironically enable others to pursue policies that are unhelpful to the United States.” Who can disagree? (Rajan Menon makes a similar argument in his outstanding book The End of Alliances.)

The third contribution to the “less is more” debate comes from Richard Betts in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. Betts focuses most of his attention on the bloated defense budget, but always with the understanding that the budget reflects (at some level) outsized and unrealistic strategic goals:

The last two U.S. presidents…have embraced ambitious goals of reshaping the world according to American values but without considering the full costs and consequences of their grandiose visions. The result has been a defense budget caught between two stools: higher than needed for basic national security but far lower than required to eliminate all villainous governments and groups everywhere. The time has come to face the problem squarely. The sole coherent rationale for increasing military spending — to try and run a benign American empire — is dangerously misguided. But a more modest and sensible national security strategy can and should be purchased at a lower price.

I am encouraged that three top-flight policy journals would give these authors so prominent a place to make their case. Their views track broadly with those of the public at large, which is skeptical of government-sponsored democracy promotion, tired of being the world’s policeman, and receptive to proposals that would reduce overall defense spending.

Given overwhelming public opposition to an imperial foreign policy, and the overgrown military establishment that is needed to sustain it, I’m puzzled that presidential candidates are unwilling to at least test the “less is more” thesis. Then again, maybe that is what the Ron Paul boomlet is all about?

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