The Cure for Overstretch Is Reduced Ambition

The U.S. should reduce its ambitions in every region.

Stephen Wertheim warns about U.S. overstretch:

The burdens and dangers will continue to mount unless the US makes difficult strategic adjustments.

That hardly means withdrawal from the world. It means the US should combine pulling back (from the Middle East) with shifting the burden (to European allies) and seeking competitive coexistence (with China). The US and its allies should aim for balances of power, not overmatching power.

I have said many times that the U.S. has too many commitments around the world, so I agree that the strategy has to change by reducing those commitments and shifting the burden to other states. A critical part of reducing commitments is identifying dispensable commitments that may have been useful at some point but no longer matter for U.S. security. It is equally important to define U.S. interests narrowly to avoid locking the U.S. into expansive roles in multiple regions with no end in sight. The U.S. should reduce its ambitions in every region.