A Lazy Attack on Restraint

Brands claims to know the defects of pro-restraint arguments without so much as linking to even one.

Hal Brands took some lazy swipes at what he calls “the restraint coalition” earlier this week:

But the perpetual problem with restraint is the corresponding unwillingness to consider what happens after America pulls back.

As Stephen Walt has pointed out in his response, there is no unwillingness among restrainers to consider the trade-offs and costs of pulling back and reducing U.S. commitments. That is why virtually all restrainers call for shifting the security burdens to capable allies and other states in a responsible fashion, because there is an understanding that the U.S. has to unwind its unnecessary entanglements carefully. Brands himself acknowledges that the U.S. is overstretched with too many commitments in too many places, but of course he has no interest in cutting back anywhere. One of the main problems in U.S. foreign policy today is not an excessive desire to pull back. On the contrary, it is the stubborn refusal to eliminate any commitment, no matter how peripheral to American security it may be.

It is not surprising that Brands does not engage directly with any arguments made by restrainers of any stripe. He says that “restraint is a broad church,” but it’s clear that he is not conversant with its creed.