Historically, America’s leaders have faced inflection points on determining what our role in the world would be. After the moral binge of Woodrow Wilson’s mission to fight the war to end all wars and to make the world safe for democracy, the Senate rejected American membership in the League of Nations and the Harding administration favored a return to normalcy. Internationally, that meant again turning inward. Leadership on the world stage was not part of the American tradition of foreign policy, even though Harding’s Secretary of State, Charles Evan Hughes, sought to reduce arms competition and the risk of war internationally by hosting the Washington Naval Conference on disarmament. He understood he had limited means of coercion but sought to use moral suasion in a collective setting to create pressures to reduce a naval arms race—and while real limitations among the leading powers were achieved, there were no enforcement mechanisms and by the 1930’s no one was respecting these or other limits.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt aimed to correct the failure of collective security after the First World War with the creation of the United Nations and the Four Powers—the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China—providing the policing role. Here was a vision of the United States playing a new role in the world, but one in which we would work with others through international institutions to provide security, prevent protectionism, and promote economic development. Harry Truman, faced with a collapsing Europe, a Soviet threat, and an America that was the dominant economic power on the globe, explained that the United States must lead. This was a turning point for America. We would now assume a very different posture internationally and for the first time define a broad set of responsibilities globally. We had the means, and through the Marshal Plan, the Truman Doctrine, the founding of NATO, a security pact with Japan, the Bretton Woods financial institutions, and the formation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the Truman administration would lead and shape a rules-based system to counter the Soviets in the Cold War.

American power and its network of alliances, regional partners, and international financial institutions—and the inherent contradictions within the Soviet Union and its bloc—eventually led to the collapse of the USSR. The Cold War world had been a bipolar one. Suddenly, the world seemed to be unipolar. The United States had no rivals: Russia was in a state of transformation, upheaval, and loss of identity, and China was preoccupied with generating domestic economic development and wealth and saw the US-dominated system as facilitating its growth. Our leadership internationally not only seemed validated but also offered us the opportunity to spread our values. “Enlargement” and the expansion of NATO became objectives of the Clinton administration; President Bush’s “freedom agenda” in response to the scourge of terrorism sought to deny terrorists the breeding grounds they needed.

But over-reach, the high, unrelenting costs of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the economic collapse of 2008-9 combined to raise basic questions about America’s role in the world and the excessive burdens we were bearing. While Barack Obama was an internationalist and believed that U.S. leadership was still needed to shape the global agenda, he was mindful of the very real limits on our power and the high costs of interventions. Donald Trump, however, challenged the very idea of American leadership on the world stage. It was not just his slogan of America First that seemed to turn the clock back to the period before the assumption of U.S. leadership and responsibilities internationally; it was that he doubted the benefits of alliances—for him, we bore an unfair burden and assumed obligations that could also prove costly. His is a world not of values but of transactions and short-term gain. It is a world in which international institutions can only constrain us, and in which national sovereignty, not globalism, should govern every decision.

With his defeat, it might be easy to dismiss his view of the world, one in which his policies too often produced not America First but America Alone. But his instincts are rooted in a long-established strand of the American tradition of foreign policy, and it would be a mistake to dismiss the factors that produced him and led to basic questions about our role in the world during the Obama administration.

So once again we are at a point in which we need to define our role in the world, including what we may be called on to do to ensure that basic norms or rules will govern relations among states. President-elect Biden has a clear orientation. He sees the need for American leadership lest we face a far more dangerous “Hobbesian” world of every nation for itself. Note his words: “The world does not organize itself. For 70 years, the United States, under Democratic and Republican presidents alike, played the leading role in writing the rules, forging agreements, and animating collective security and prosperity.” As he added, “either someone takes our place or no one will and there is chaos.”

Biden instinctively is an internationalist who sees the dangers of retrenchment and the loss of American leadership. But there are real constraints on the US playing the role it did during and after the Cold War. The international and domestic landscapes are fundamentally different.

Constraints on America Playing Its Role Internationally

Internationally, we are not facing a bipolar or unipolar world but what some are calling “a non-polar” world. Power is more diffuse (militarily and economically), and we are now contending with rivals (China and Russia) who are not willing to play by our rules and are trying to impose their own.

Both have become far more assertive in their neighborhoods and beyond with little concern for traditional norms. To name but a few of their actions, China is ignoring international law and continues its land reclamation projects in the South China Sea; cracks down on Hong Kong, removing even the semblance of autonomy; carries out threatening military maneuvers close to Taiwan; provokes skirmishes on the border with India; and has interned in re-education camps a million Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang. For its part, Russia, directly and indirectly, supports the separatists in eastern Ukraine; militarily intervenes in Syria and Libya (tilting the military balances without being able to end the wars); seeks to disrupt elections here and in Europe; and uses dangerous nerve agents like Novichok to poison domestic critics and former Russian spies who have sought refuge overseas.  

But we are not only facing great power rivals who challenge norms. Is today’s Turkey an ally or a rogue state? As Turkey’s economy declines, President Erdogan has become far more aggressive in the region and his near abroad—using his own military, along with proxies and mercenaries, in northern Iraq, northern Syria, Libya, the eastern Mediterranean, Somalia, and Azerbaijan. He both competes with the Russians and acquires advanced weapons like the S-400 from them. He offers passports for members of the military wing of Hamas, hardly an act designed to promote stability. And, he aims to achieve dominance among Sunni Muslims internationally—something that given China’s treatment of the Uighurs may yet trigger tensions in their relationship. 

Of course, there are true rogue states like Iran and North Korea and there are also non-state actors like Hezbollah, al Qaeda, and ISIS that by definition defy or resist international rules. (There are also corporate non-state actors who collect data, shape preferences, affect privacy, and often seem beyond the control of state actors.)

In short, we are now contending with a very different reality internationally in which others will not be inclined simply to follow the American lead, especially before the US re-establishes some degree of credibility. If that were not enough, we are not out of our “forever” wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—and all this creates an understandable impulse to focus on our domestic, rather than international, needs. That impulse won’t be lessened by COVID-19, its economic implications, and the likelihood that we won’t have a widely available vaccine before the mid-to-late spring of 2021.

Domestic fatigue and its relationship to the lack of a domestic consensus on America’s role in the world will surely be another constraint on the Biden impulse to restore American leadership internationally.  Wrestling with America’s role in the world and offering prescriptions for it has become almost a cottage industry. But there does seem to be a consensus on the need for America to change its approach. Put simply, we need a new concept or framework to guide us in a world where America remains strong but is one among a number of powers.

Different Concepts for America’s Role in the World

President Trump offered his concept, America First. But its fundamental rejection of international institutions and alliances could not have been a worse fit for dealing with a pandemic. With no one having immunities and borders offering no safety, COVID-19 demanded a well-coordinated international response. A common approach, with common standards and practices, agreed-upon rules on travel and trade, and collaboration on developing anti-viral treatments and a vaccine that could be distributed even to the poorest, most vulnerable states was not simply desirable, it was necessary.

Instead, America First offered a go-it-alone approach with every nation for itself—an approach that failed the test of the pandemic even as it ignored the reality that in, at least, the medical-scientific community the sharing of data and collaboration between labs took place naturally across the globe.  Still, in the absence of U.S. leadership, the international community was not mobilized to deal with a common danger and international institutions such as the World Health Organization were found wanting.

Ironically, some of Trump’s critics shared with him the view that our approach to the world has been based on fundamentally flawed assumptions. They may have rejected America First in a narrow sense, but they saw the United States as too willing to use force, too inclined to think in “hegemonic” terms, and too indifferent to inequalities generated by globalization. These so-called “restrainers”—from Bernie Sanders on the left to Rand Paul on the right—might differ on issues of humanitarian assistance, the role of government, and international institutions, but they share the view that America’s pursuit of hegemony is to blame for much of the world’s disorder. In their eyes, if only the US would demilitarize its foreign policy and dramatically cut back on its military presence and base structure overseas, the world would be a far more stable place. What is striking about this group is that they are essentially blind to the aggression of predatory powers: the actions of China, Russia, and even Iran are seen as largely defensive and a reaction to the insecurity our military presence provokes. Great power ambition—or regional dominance in the case of all three—apparently doesn’t exist. History and their behaviors suggest otherwise.

Others who see danger in our over-reach and the inability to sustain our posture internationally fall into two different categories: there are those who advocate the concept of “spheres of influence” and there are those whose framework is “off-shoring balancing.” The former fear that the rise of China and Russia’s need for stature on the world stage will increasingly risk great power conflict unless we recognize their respective spheres of influence. Such spheres would, they argue, satisfy the Chinese and Russian psychological and perceived security needs and would, therefore, yield stability comparable to that which existed during the Cold War. Unfortunately, the spheres of influence approach would mean Chinese and Russian dominance of the regions near them and submission of the states and peoples to their dictates. While that itself might produce resistance in these areas, there is also the question of the definition of the spheres’ precise dimensions: are they really static and not expanding? Won’t the boundaries of the spheres constantly be tested and produce points of friction and potential conflict?

As for the offshore balancers, they want to cut back on our extensive military presence overseas and have our allies and partners carry the main burden of their security and defense. Yes, cost and sustainability guide the offshore balancers but so, too, does their view that our military presence is what tempts us to intervene far too much. They see the value of preventing a hegemonic power from gaining dominance in Europe or Asia (or the Middle East), but believe we don’t need most of our current overseas bases and we can intervene at the exact moments when our allies or partners can no longer handle threats. Maybe, but power projection requires real logistic support, ongoing training with local forces, and bases that are compatible and allow interoperability. Moreover, withdrawal from US bases inevitably will also send a political and psychological message that our allies and partners are much more on their own. No doubt, some are likely to believe that they will not be able to count on us in the crunch, and may, therefore, feel driven to find ways to accommodate the very hegemonic powers the off-shore balancers want to contain.

All these conceptual approaches are motivated by the feeling that the United States has been over-stretched, carried too much of the burden internationally, intervened far too much militarily with high costs and dubious results—and our allies and partners free-loaded, failing to pay their fair share or assume the major responsibility for their own security. All are right, at least, to a certain extent.

But what they miss is that American leadership is still needed unless we want to face a world that, as Biden observed, is far more chaotic or even hostile to our values and interests. In one way or another each of these concepts involves American retrenchment, and what we have already seen is that when the US withdraws, vacuums are created, and those vacuums are inevitably filled by the worse forces. Yes, the war in Iraq was a terrible mistake, but fearing another Iraq led us to resist more limited steps that might have contained a horrendous conflict in Syria that has resulted in more than 600,000 dead, 11 million displaced, refugee flows to Europe that helped to produce Brexit and the growth of Right-wing populists, tolerance of war crimes, and the emergence of ISIS. The threat posed by ISIS drew us back in. The irony is that in the process of combating the ISIS caliphate we hit on a model that can be used in the future: we had a local partner, the Syrian Democratic Forces, which was ready to bear the brunt of the fighting but needed logistic, intelligence, and air support from us. We provided that support and the SDF succeeded in rooting out ISIS on the ground while losing over 11,000 of its forces. We did lose six of our special forces, but ISIS was defeated (not destroyed) and it was a victory led by a local partner willing and able to fight for itself.

A Different Framework for America’s Role in the World

So, what is the right framework for our role in the world: one that prevents vacuums from forming, that is sustainable politically, militarily, and economically, and secures our interests and our values? Henry Kissinger has said: “What is new about the emerging world order is that for the first time the United States can neither withdraw from the world nor dominate it.” Given that, and given the diversity and diffusion of power, we need a mix of two concepts—Kissinger’s balance of power approach and a liberal, rules-based order. The former recognizes the role of hard power in balancing international rivals like China and Russia and regional rogue states like Iran. The balance of power has always been based on the principle of equilibrium or offsetting power with power and fostering deterrence as a way of setting limits without going to war. In doing so, it established certain rules of the game. It is driven by interests, not values—though, of course, preventing or limiting war is a value.

A liberal, rules-based system places far greater emphasis on values. It is rooted in free societies with free media, a free and fair trading system, support for human rights, and alliances of democratic states all working with international institutions. We have a stake in preserving this system—whose creation we spearheaded in the aftermath of World War II—because it reflects our values and our foreign policy will be easier to sustain when it reflects our basic values. 

One way to describe the mix of the balance of power with a liberal international order is to think of hard power and soft power. Both are essential. In a world of only hard power our interests might be respected but we will attract few to follow us or join with us as we define objectives. If we rely only on soft power, we may be a model for others and others will be drawn to our objectives, but few will think they can count on us. Few will expose themselves by joining with us and sharing the burdens of defense. Soft power must always be backed by hard power, but the application of hard power is made far more credible and legitimate because of our soft power.

During the Trump years, the American brand suffered mightily. We walked away from our values, and the image of our incompetence, especially on COVID-19, also damaged the American model. A Biden administration must be able to re-establish our soft power by standing for something and by showing it can achieve what it sets out to do.  Values and competence matter. But so do reliability and the credibility to stand by allies and partners and meet their security needs when called on to do so.

All this means that the incoming Biden administration will have its work cut out for it to re-establish the appeal of America even as it makes clear it will assume again a leadership role internationally. Of course, there is no American leadership role on the outside if we cannot put our own house in order on the inside, meaning we must be strong at home if we are going to be strong abroad. As such, for the Biden administration to put into practice this hybrid model of the balance of power and a liberal rules-based system internationally, and to be orchestrating at its center a network of alliances and partnerships, it will need to act both domestically and internationally.

Domestic Priorities and Their Connection to Our Role Internationally

Domestically, the new president must shore up the foundation of our power; that, alone, will send an important message internationally. His first priority will necessarily be to show his administration is implementing his plan for containing COVID-19 by producing systematic testing and tracing; isolating hot-spots and vulnerable populations to permit the safe re-opening of schools and work-places, and ensuring the efficient distribution and widespread availability of both therapeutic treatments and the vaccines when they are ready.

Similarly, he will need to work quickly with the Congressional leadership to work out a stimulus, recovery package for the economy; he led the effort in 2009 to deal with the “great recession” so he is experienced here. He must also work quickly to change the toxic political climate on a number of issues. Fortunately, he can do what comes naturally to him: be a convener and a conciliator. He has already said he will convene law enforcement and judicial officials, police chiefs, African-American leaders, and community activists at the White House to first discuss and then develop a serious and practical approach for addressing the issues of systemic racism and necessary reforms in policing. He should do much the same on immigration as well as on the broad but important issue of innovation and ensuring American competitiveness.  

The latter is necessary to compete with China which, with its national strategic plan of “Made in China 2025,” seeks to become the world leader in high tech areas, including quantum computing, robotics, and biotech. This is both a domestic and national security issue—and it is here where a President Biden must try to restore bipartisanship in foreign policy. On China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, he should bring in the Congressional leadership and the chairs and ranking members of the Foreign Relations and Arms Services Committees to discuss our objectives toward each of them. He will find little disagreement on objectives, and he can pledge to consult with them as the administration develops its policies and takes its initial steps. His Secretary of State will need to follow up and the Secretary and the national security team must reflect Biden’s readiness to reach across party lines. (It will surely help if the Secretary is someone who has a track record of doing that. I watched how effectively Jim Baker worked with Democrats on the highly charged issue of Central America at the outset of the George H.W. Bush administration. As someone who was a political appointee for Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, and Obama, I know that much can be done if there is the will to do it.)

This won’t make disagreements disappear but bringing the Congress in and demonstrating a commitment to bipartisanship is surely necessary for beginning to restore a consensus domestically on our role in the world. But the president must also use his bully pulpit to explain what we are going to do. Leadership requires explanation and repetition of the message on all issues, including foreign policy. Such an early speech should follow the consultations with the Congress in order explain our broad goals, the desire to restore bipartisanship in foreign policy, build public support for the administration’s approach, and raise the costs to those on the Hill of opposing a president seeking to restore unity.

Building an Alliance of Democracies

Showing domestic leadership in this fashion will resonate at home and abroad. If combined with rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate and the World Health Organization, the Biden administration will signal to everyone that the US is again a good global citizen. These signals should be reinforced by an early emphasis on our commitment to our alliances and our readiness to discuss rejoining the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trade issues, however, will be more complicated, especially in a world reeling from the ongoing economic effects of COVID-19 and all countries intent on protecting critical sectors of their economies. Starting on those issues on which there is much more consensus with our allies like climate change, combating COVID-19, and putting in place the infrastructure for dealing with future pandemics will re-establish baselines of cooperation and create more of a context for dealing with more contentious issues like trade.

Iran and the JCPOA fit in the broader category of rejoining multilateral agreements. While we cannot simply return to it so long as Iran is not in compliance, and the administration will rightly have other concerns about Iran’s ballistic missiles and regional behavior, this is an issue where the administration should work out a common position with the British, the French and the Germans. Once it has done so, it can then go to the Russians and Chinese and only then engage the Iranians—whose message is almost certain to be “you owe us—you must first give us sanctions relief.” While the Russians and Chinese are likely to be supportive of the Iranian argument, they continue to share the goals of Iran not acquiring nuclear weapons and reducing the risk of a war in the Middle East. (And, Iran’s effort to put precision guidance on rockets it provides to Hezbollah and brings into Syria clearly risks a war with Israel that could escalate vertically and horizontally.) Here is a reminder that although a competitive relationship with the Russians and Chinese is inevitable, there are areas where cooperation is possible and in our mutual interests.

We will have to be able to compete in a way that also increases the Russian and Chinese incentive to widen the areas of cooperation. China represents the more potent challenge, with its belief that it is time for its geopolitical influence and weight to reflect its growing economic might. This is not a passive position of the Chinese; they are acting to make it a reality. Apart from building its military dominance and denial capabilities in the Asia-Pacific, China is using its economic muscle to build dependencies largely through its Belt and Road initiative (BRI): an initiative that has China building infrastructure throughout South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and even parts of Europe. BRI extends China’s reach, creates new trading relationships, and pushes countries in which China is building transportation infrastructure deeply into debt to Beijing. While seeking to gain leadership positions in different UN agencies, the Chinese are also creating alternative financial institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to existing regional development banks.

All this reflects not just China’s aim to build dependent relationships and alternatives to the US and its allies; it is presenting an alternative model based on its economic development and authoritarian political system. China is offering the prospect of economic progress without political liberalization and the provision of political rights. Now, they are also able to contrast their control of COVID with the Trump administration’s botched and incompetent response to it. Along with the Russians, who also reject liberal values, and the emergence of Right-wing populist leaderships in Hungary and Poland, there is a fundamental challenge to what we and our democratic allies represent.

But the United States and our allies have the means to counter the efforts of the Chinese and other illiberal actors, provided we work together. To begin with, the US and its democratic allies in Europe and Asia represent 75 percent of the world’s economy. China’s economy may be growing, but it is still smaller than America’s, and it is dwarfed by the combined economic might of the US and our democratic partners. Moreover, Beijing’s provocative behaviors toward its neighbors are also producing the potential for even stronger alignments against it.

Mobilizing such opposition may feed China’s sense that we are determined to prevent its rise rather than manage it. To be sure, President Xi and others in the leadership should understand that continuing aggressive behaviors in the region or efforts to punish those like Australia who criticize China or to gain unilateral advantage over us will produce strong counter-reactions. But our aim should be to cooperate where we can and compete where we must.

On issues of trade, the Trump administration was right to challenge unfair and coercive Chinese practices. Aside from focusing too narrowly on the trade imbalance, President Trump’s real mistake was not recognizing that China engaged in all the same practices against our European and Asian allies. They have just as much of a stake in changing Chinese trade behavior as we do. We should be forming a common front to negotiate trade accords with the Chinese; that would provide far greater leverage and put China at a disadvantage.

In addition, one of the fundamental mistakes of the Trump administration was to undervalue political isolation as a form of leverage. With Iran, it succeeded in putting enormous economic pressure on the Islamic Republic, but by going it alone, it politically isolated the US and not the Iranians. A collective negotiating posture toward China on trade is not just smart economically, it sends the message to China that it is isolating itself. For sure, the Chinese will try to divide any common front, but this is where a skillful, extremely active diplomatic effort is required. Alliance and coalition management require constant attention, being alert to potential problems, making sure there are no misunderstandings, identifying who within the coalition can be most helpful in addressing issues that arise, and adjusting postures when necessary.

Again, this is a reminder that together America and its European and Asian democratic allies have tremendous power. Despite all their challenges, they still offer a far more attractive model than the Chinese/authoritarian one. America’s incoming president intuitively understands this. During the presidential campaign, Biden said if elected he would convene a summit of democracies. The ostensible purpose was to declare common principles and address issues ranging from climate change to the economic dislocations of COVID-19. Such a summit should aim at restoring confidence and trust among the democracies. It should also provide the embryo of a mechanism for enhancing our collective ability to compete with China, Russia, and others.

In this connection, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has become an advocate for turning the G-7 into a new grouping of the ten leading democracies, by adding Australia, South Korea, and India to it. In Johnson’s eyes, the grouping, the D-10, would be a platform to coordinate on COVID-19 and on telecom policy, especially given concerns about the security issues related to Huawei’s potential dominance of 5G technology. Ash Jain and Matthew Kroenig, in writing about the concept in 2019, envisioned a much broader agenda, stating that the D-10 would “serve as the primary platform for Democratic states to discuss and develop common strategies and policies to deal with global challenges.” In their words, whether coordinating on China, Russia or Iran, it could be a venue “to formulate collective responses” to current and future political or security crises.

Jain and Koenig understood such a mechanism would be unwieldy without a permanent secretariat. It will need more than that; it will need working groups divided into different issue areas. It will need ministerial meetings and summits in which the agenda is worked out in advance with critical decisions readied for the leaders to make. Its initial meeting should issue a declaration of principles and aims that those assembled embrace. In essence, the D-10 would constitute our collective commitment to democratic principles and a new practical mechanism for coordination among the world’s leading democracies.

The D-10 could certainly ease the concerns of our allies in Europe and Asia who have seen America’s retrenchment and reorientation and wondered whether we could be counted on. Our commitment to making the D-10 a serious new forum for coordination among the world’s leading democracies should be reassuring about our role in the world, our willingness to listen, and our readiness to compete with the Chinese et al. Of course, in parallel, we need to be working in a coordinated fashion with the G-20. After all, the Chinese and Russians, and other significant countries like Brazil, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia, are part of it. And, they must play a role in dealing with COVID, its economic implications, and also climate change.

The D-10 is not a substitute for what the United States must do bilaterally and multilaterally with China and Russia—or with key regional players in the Middle East who see their security affected by what and how we intend to deal with Iran. As noted above, we have an interest in cooperating with China and Russia on a range of fundamental challenges: COVID, future pandemics, climate change, terrorism, the proliferation of non-conventional weapons, arms control, etc. The more daunting the challenge, the more their cooperation is necessary and the less there is any hope of real progress without them.

But at the same time, we need to arrest the image of America in decline and unable to lead in a more chaotic world of diffuse power. Retrenching now will feed that perception and make our reduced relevance a self-fulfilling prophecy. We cannot dominate the world, but we are not powerless to affect it. While recognizing our limits, no one else is as capable of mobilizing international responses to global challenges. Domestic critics of our over-reach (on the left and the right) are not wrong that our posture has to change. They are wrong in their prescription; we can lead the democracies in a way that makes the world safer and is more sustainable. Like it or not, Trump has made it far easier to say to our treaty allies and regional partners that they have to bear a greater part of the burden for their security and take more account of our needs on trade if we are to sustain a leadership role. And, the reality is, they all recognize they are less safe in a world where the US does not play a leading role, shaping, organizing, mobilizing, and acting in responses to threats.

One last word on security threats and intervention. The statement that the use of force must be a last resort and diplomacy must be the first is a truism. It is a slogan. The use of force has never been a first resort for any administration. In different presidencies, we can say diplomacy has not been effectively conducted or that there was too much faith in the ability to use force to affect political outcomes. Even if in Bush 43 there was too much hubris and too little questioning about the implications of the use of force and the consequences of leaving a vacuum with regime change, it is wrong to say that diplomacy always took a backseat.

I am afraid that the slogan on making diplomacy a first resort is used as a justification to never intervene militarily. It should be a given that we cannot and must not use force without thinking through all the consequences, both intended and unintended. But diplomacy not backed by force or the credible threat of it is often doomed to fail. John Kerry worked out several understandings with the Russians on Syria, none of which they upheld because they knew his hands were tied and his threats were merely rhetorical. By contrast, Richard Holbrooke used our bombing campaign against Serbian forces very effectively to get Slobodan Milosevic to lift the siege of Sarajevo and to bring the Bosnian Serbs to the negotiating table after denying he could do either.

Clearly, the use of force and interventions depend on the stakes, the conflict, the definition of objectives, the potential costs and prospects for success, and the necessity of having credible local partners. They also must not be thought of in binary terms: either we intervene with a hundred thousand boots on the ground or we do nothing. There are many gradations in-between, and as our support for the SDF in Syria shows, our costs can be kept low.

Why raise interventions? Because in statecraft all the tools in our toolkit must be available. Moreover, in a world that combines both the balance of power and liberal norms, America must have soft and hard power. Should a Biden administration produce the right mix of both, and create new mechanisms with our democratic allies, it will be able to restore America’s guiding role internationally.

Ambassador Dennis Ross is counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and teaches at Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization. Ambassador Ross’s distinguished diplomatic career includes service as special assistant to President Barack Obama and National Security Council senior director for the Central Region, special advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Middle East Envoy to President Bill Clinton, and Director of Policy Planning for President George H.W. Bush.

Image: Reuters.