STRATEGIC

CHAPTER SEVEN
Option I: “Come Home America”: Domestic
Renewal, International Restraint
. . . In the new world disorder, America needs national security
policies that begin and end by asking what’s in these policies for
Americans, not what foreign nations long dependent on our protection
might think about them. There is no reason for us to continue
to shoulder burdens others can now bear. We should build
our strength while holding it in reserve. We should act only when
it’s in our interest to act.
Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. 1
The United States has been fighting Salafi-jihadist terrorists for nearly
15 years—the longest foreign war in U.S. history and an inconclusive
one. 2 A restrained conception of America’s role in the world begins with
the premise that both economic vitality and political cohesion, which
have underwritten U.S. involvement and influence in world affairs for
decades, have been stretched to the breaking point. 3 The view that the
1 Chas W. Freeman, Jr., “America in the New World Disorder,” remarks at the Watson
Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, February 11, 2016.
2 The United States fought repeated skirmishes and wars with various Native American
tribes over a much longer period, however. Smithsonian National Museum of American History,
“Western Indian Wars,” web page, undated.
3 Foreign affairs columnist Ian Bremmer, who termed his version of this posture “Independent
America,” argued that the United States must “declare independence from the need
to solve other people’s problems and . . . finally realize our country’s enormous untapped
potential by focusing our attentions at home.” Ian Bremmer, Superpower: Three Choices for
America’s Role in the World, New York: Portfolio (Penguin Group), May 2015, p. 6.
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