Vance urges shift in US foreign policy at Naval Academy

May 31, 2025, 09:50:26 pm

The shift away from nation-building represents a significant reversal in American foreign policy that has been building for years. Since the end of the Cold War, and particularly after 9/11, the United States embraced ambitious projects to transform countries like Afghanistan and Iraq into stable democracies, operating on the assumption that "state-building is a sufficient condition for creating a nation."[1] However, the costly and often unsuccessful outcomes of these interventions have led to widespread "state-building fatigue" among the American public.[2]

This pendulum swing away from nation-building crosses party lines, with both Republican and Democratic administrations gradually retreating from such commitments. President Biden explicitly marked this transition in his speech on the Afghanistan withdrawal, stating it meant the end of major military operations "to remake other countries."[2] Yet experts caution that this may not be permanent—the United States will likely be called upon again to stabilize failing states, as many security threats including "terrorism, pandemics, the global refugee crisis, and international drug trafficking" continue to emerge from unstable regions.[3] The challenge for American policymakers now is to develop more limited, focused approaches with "clear exit strategies" rather than open-ended commitments.[4]

Citations:
[1] https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/07/strategic-change-us-foreign-policy
[2] https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2021/0916/Why-end-of-Afghan-war-is-not-end-of-US-led-nation-building
[3] https://orionpolicy.org/nation-building-is-dead-long-live-nation-building/
[4] https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-death-of-usaid-heralds-the-end-of-nation-building/
[5] https://news.wfu.edu/2021/08/25/u-s-lessons-from-afghanistan-move-away-from-nation-building/
[6] https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/carpenter_nation-building-terrorism.pdf
[7] https://jstribune.com/silverman-when-nation-building-works/
[8] https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/94670/Audit_11_08_Allouche.pdf
[9] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-globalization-of-politics-american-foreign-policy-for-a-new-century/
[10] https://www.csis.org/analysis/nation-building-any-other-name
[11] https://www.noemamag.com/the-end-of-nation-building