The United States is in yet another crucial presidential election cycle. Both tickets offer largely contrasting stances for America's position on the international stage. However, must America's approach to its role on the international stage be one of two extremes, or can it be more nuanced?

America's History of Complex Foreign Policy

Examining American history reveals various ways in which the country has approached its foreign policy. In his farewell address, President George Washington advocated for a noninterventionist approach to European affairs. And thanks to two massive oceans serving as menacing barriers to would-be belligerents, the United States was largely able to refrain from bloody wars and colonial clashes across the globe. The twentieth century, however, would challenge the United States' relative abstention from international affairs.

In the lead up to both world wars, as in today's America, the United States was largely divided into two camps: interventionists (also referred to as internationalists throughout this article) and isolationists. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson narrowly won re-election, thanks in part to the slogan “he kept us out of the war.” Less than a year later, the United States would find itself sending its doughboys across the Atlantic to support the Allied cause, and Wilson changed his tune, going from ardent isolationist to American peacekeeper. 

After the Great War, his emphasis on American shaping of the international order led to the creation of the short-lived League of Nations. The U.S. Congress never ratified American membership in the League, leading it to become an ineffective international body while the United States retreated once more into relative isolationism in the 1920s and 1930s.

Examining American history reveals various ways in which the country has approached its foreign policy.

Prior to U.S. involvement in the Second World War, President Franklin Roosevelt's internationalist ambitions were often at odds with the greater American public, leading him to curtail these efforts to a large degree. Despite this, Roosevelt demonstrated early on that he was keen on broadening U.S. foreign policy. Within his first term alone, he established official ties with the Soviet Union and made a failed bid for U.S. membership in the World Court—while also enacting the Good Neighbor policy, which reinforced the United States' noninterventionist position towards Latin America. Congress passed multiple Neutrality Acts in an effort to prevent the United States from being drawn into a second international conflict in less than three decades, but it wasn't until 1941 that Roosevelt and Congress enacted the Lend-Lease program, arguably the most overt internationalist policy of his Presidency up until that point.

As with many examinations of foreign policy approaches, there is a great deal of nuance in both of these case studies. Neither Wilson nor Roosevelt were isolationists or interventionists in the most extreme meaning of the terms. Under Wilson, the United States supplied the British, French, and Italians with food, munitions, and various other materials prior to entering the war in 1917. And Roosevelt displayed selective approaches to U.S. foreign policy, advocating for greater U.S. involvement in Europe while actively working to decrease U.S. presence in Latin America. 

Both examples represent the varying degrees of isolationism and interventionism that have been emblematic of U.S. foreign policy throughout the years. And these lessons shouldn't be lost as the world moves into 2025 and beyond. A dynamic foreign policy approach—one tailored to support varying degrees of U.S. foreign policy objectives across the globe—should be the way ahead, regardless of the victor in this year's election.

Currently, foreign policy debates in the lead up to the election have been centered around the extremes of retrenchment and internationalism. Retrenchment is the strategy designed to reduce a country's international and military costs and commitments. Severe retrenchment could pull the United States out of the international order and systems that it has pioneered, such as NATO. 

Pulling out would indicate that the United States—and by extension, the American people—no longer believe, value, or are invested in the world that they spent decades helping construct. This policy would also provide the United States' competitors and adversaries with a vacuum to fill. Internationalism, on the other hand, is the strategy that advocates for greater political and/or economic investment in and cooperation among states and nations. In an era of costly defense budgets, the United States can no longer afford to project its power everywhere all at once. 

The resources needed to execute the purely internationalist vision are astronomical and unsustainable in the long term. Therefore, complete internationalism may not be possible either. A middle of the road, dynamic foreign policy approach may be the best option to ensure the United States maintains its strategic vision while not stretching its resources too thin.

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