The U.S. Needs to Take Off the Cold War Blinders

Adapting to a multipolar world where the U.S. is no longer dominant is the smart thing to do, but there is intense resistance in Washington to acknowledging that this world even exists.

Justin Winokur urges Americans to take their lessons for foreign policy from other periods besides the Cold War:

These and other such histories can help sensitize Americans to a different way of seeing the world: one based on tolerable tradeoffs, not intransigence; on the difficult prioritization of goals, not total victory; on practical policy, not zealotry; on the integration of military and economic power with diplomacy, not brute force; and on coexistence with people whom Americans can neither change nor ignore.

U.S. policymakers would do well to listen to Winokur’s advice, but to act on it they will need to abandon a lot of the assumptions they hold about the U.S. role in the world. Adapting to a multipolar world where the U.S. is no longer dominant is the smart thing to do, but there is intense resistance in Washington to acknowledging that this world even exists. If the U.S. can’t even see the terrain accurately, it has little chance of getting to where it wants to go.