The leading danger to the United States in 2024 “is not an overseas conflict or foreign threat but a homegrown one,” Paul Stares explains in a summary of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Preventive Priorities Survey. The Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer similarly warns of “the US vs. itself,” and Robert Manning and Mathew Burrows of the Stimson Center count the possibility of political violence in the United States as among the top risks this year, along with fights over combating climate change and “out of control AI.”

And yet, U.S. foreign policy seems stubbornly fixed on autopilot, with a sprawling security apparatus postured for confrontation. The deep polarization of American society cannot be cured by foreign war, just as climate change and infectious diseases cannot be deterred by bombs and bullets, but the United States continues to overinvest in military capabilities. This disconnect between our urgent priorities and the tools needed to attain them can only be solved by a fundamental rethink of U.S. grand strategy.

The dominant strategic paradigm – what some call primacy or others call liberal hegemony – hinges on overwhelming potential rivals, chiefly through the threat or use of force, in order to reassure allies and partners who might otherwise be inclined to defend themselves. According to this view, the United States is “the indispensable nation,” the lynchpin of global order. Unsurprisingly, primacy requires vast expenditures on military personnel and equipment. The Pentagon’s budget is approaching $1 trillion annually — and spending on national security already exceeds that amount if one counts care for the nation’s veterans in the total (as we should).

The fixation on military power and foreign entanglements exacerbates the already yawning divide between the American people and the elites who purport to represent them. This, too, partially explains the perilous state of U.S. politics. Americans are increasingly focused on problems at home and want resources redirected accordingly. Advocates for the strategic status quo dismiss such concerns, claiming that there is no alternative to U.S. global dominance, and calling for education campaigns to cure the public of its ignorance. Americans can be excused for thinking that they are being talked down to.

But the so-called experts are wrong. The United States should, above all else, set priorities, with a laser focus on the overarching goals of advancing security, prosperity, and freedom for the American people. In other words, policymakers should be thinking of ways to achieve a narrower set of objectives while minimizing costs and risks. The United States now operates in a multipolar world of many capable actors. As such, the time is ripe for redistributing defense burdens and costs, including by calling on allies and partners to do more.

U.S. policymakers should also rebalance the U.S. foreign policy toolkit by elevating nonmilitary instruments of national power. Specifically, the United States should:

• Invest in Diplomacy, Including Public Diplomacy. For most of American history, U.S. leaders relied on diplomacy to extend U.S. influence and secure vital U.S. interests. Today, too few Americans even know what diplomacy is. That must change. The United States also needs a new approach for communicating U.S. purpose to foreign audiences, a unique challenge in an age of persistent misinformation and disinformation. Expanded person-to-person interactions and cultural exchanges can help.
• Lean Into US Economic Power. U.S. economic power can be an instrument of leverage, for example through sanctions or punitive tariffs, but the positive aspects of trade should not be neglected. And while some blame foreign competition for the loss of manufacturing jobs, a dynamic economy constantly sheds old jobs and creates new ones. After all, the vast majority of Americans once grew their own food; now a tiny fraction of the population feeds not just this country, but much of the rest of the world. Erecting barriers to trade to save certain jobs is as foolhardy as banning the reaper. A diversity of trading partners enhances supply chain resilience and is thus advantageous to both U.S. security and U.S. prosperity.
• Restore the United States as a Magnet for the World’s Talent. Generations of Americans migrated here to be educated, find employment, and raise families. Those who now want to slam that door shut would forfeit one of the United States’ greatest advantages. If U.S. universities, for example, are forced to turn away foreign students, that would cripple U.S. innovation. Most new startups are begun by immigrants, many of whom first came to the United States to get a high-quality education. Achieving consensus on immigration reform to ensure that the United States continues to attract a young, skilled population, is critical for economic growth and global competitiveness.

Unifying Americans and addressing challenges at home is an admittedly hard task in today’s highly partisan atmosphere. But a new foreign policy agenda that advances U.S. national interests, sets priorities, and shares burdens with other global actors, can help close the gap between the American people and U.S. elites. Untangling domestic problems is not a distraction from U.S. objectives abroad: It is a necessary precondition to a credible U.S. grand strategy that aligns ends and means.  

Christopher Preble is a senior fellow and director of the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center. He is the principal author of the just-released Stimson paper “A Credible Grand Strategy: The Urgent Need to Set Priorities” from which this essay is adapted.