Washington's Many Bad Foreign Policy Habits

The U.S. remains stuck in these ruts even when it makes the situation worse, and policymakers are unable or unwilling to make necessary changes that could yield better results.

Stephen Walt takes aim at some of Washington’s worst foreign policy habits:

Rich and powerful countries like the United States can do the same things over and over, even when they aren’t working, without facing immediate and severe consequences. The White House can change hands, presidential appointees can come and go, and new crises can erupt without warning, and the same well-worn responses get pulled out of the drawer, dusted off, and put into practice once again. Sometimes familiar approaches are so deeply entrenched that they become almost reflexive: People in power rarely question them and dissenters face an uphill battle if they try to convince superiors to do something different. In extreme cases, nobody even questions them. It’s foreign policy on autopilot.

Walt covers some good examples of things that the U.S. does abroad out of habit despite their frequent failure to achieve stated goals and advance American interests. He focuses on different coercive means that the U.S. falls back on automatically, including the use of air power to compel targets to yield to U.S. demands, using force to “restore deterrence,” and sanctions. He also includes the dead-end pursuit of denuclearization of North Korea as an example of a failed policy that Washington refuses to abandon long after it has been proven to be useless. The U.S. remains stuck in these ruts even when it makes the situation worse, and policymakers are unable or unwilling to make necessary changes that could yield better results.

He is right that the U.S. sticks with failed measures because it is easier than devising alternatives that would require more effort. I would add that they all reflect Washington’s inability to see the world as its targets and adversaries see it.