Despite setbacks, trends still point to US foreign policy restraint

It’s been only a few days since Israel first struck Iranian nuclear and regime targets, but Washington’s remaining neoconservatives and long-time Iran hawks are already celebrating.

After more than a decade of calling for military action against Iran, they finally got their wish — sort of. The United States did not immediately join Israel’s campaign, but President Donald Trump acquiesced to Israel’s decision to use military force and has not meaningfully restrained Israel’s actions. For those hoping Trump would bring radical change to U.S. foreign policy, his failure to halt Israel’s preventative war is a disappointment and a betrayal of past promises.

Advocates of restraint should not give up hope, however, and observers abroad should not rush to prejudge the trajectory of U.S. foreign policy based on the events of the past week.

Trump can still avoid tarnishing his legacy by staying out of yet another long, costly adventure in the Middle East. This is best accomplished by eschewing any U.S. involvement in Israel’s war. But even if the United States is unable to immediately extricate itself from the conflict, there are compelling reasons to believe that the foreign policy consensus in Washington will ultimately shift in favor of those skeptical of U.S. military power and opposed to foreign interventions.

First, when it comes to U.S. foreign policy, Israel is a non-generalizable case. Though the United States does not have a formal mutual defense agreement with Israel, it offers the country a unique, de facto security guarantee and about $4 billion in military aid every year. When Israel’s security is threatened, Washington reliably surges air and naval power into the region, offering support to its partner’s air defenses even when Jerusalem acts against American interests.

Moreover, as the U.S. military commitment to Europe has come under increasing scrutiny, similar questions about the U.S.-Israel relationship have been muted. While Republican members of Congress pushed back on the Biden administration’s requests for additional Ukraine aid in 2024, there was little resistance to the related request for additional military assistance for Israel to support its wars against Hezbollah and Hamas.

In part, the resilience of Israel’s position in U.S. foreign policy reflects the powerful influence of U.S.-based Israel supporters who have for decades effectively used political donations and media pressure to shape U.S. strategy and commitments in the Middle East. While U.S. European and Asian allies also have influential advocates in Washington, none can rival Israel’s strength of support. No other tail will wag the dog this effectively.

Second, the recent push for greater restraint in U.S. foreign policy will continue to gain momentum due to an ongoing generational shift in attitudes about the limits of American military power and U.S. foreign policy priorities.

The voices pushing hardest for the United States to join Israel’s military campaign come from the “old guard,” including Reagan Republicans and Baby Boomers nearing retirement, including, for example Mark Levin of Fox News, long-time members of Congress like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and architects of the catastrophic U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, such as Ari Fleischer, Elliott Abrams, and John Bolton. Cold War crusaders and “end-of-history” triumphalists may retain some sway over Trump’s foreign policy today, but their careers are coming to an end.

Already, the advocates of endless war are being displaced by a younger generation that has had to pay its price. Anti-interventionist figures shaped by the failures of the War on Terror and the Iraq war occupy key positions in the current administration and increasingly staff mid-level positions in government. After watching the United States waste money, lives, and military power in the Middle East, this rising generation is eager to pursue a foreign policy more directly defined by the national interest.

Members of this cohort have already been pushing for changes to U.S. commitments abroad, especially in Europe, where the United States has signaled its intention to reduce its military involvement, and on Ukraine, where the Pentagon has indicated that it will cut military assistance to Kyiv in the coming months to focus on other priorities.

Finally, there are real structural limits to the ability of the United States to continue its pursuit of global preeminence, regardless of what happens in the Middle East in coming weeks. The most important of these is constrained resources. Washington simply does not have the monetary or military means to indefinitely sustain a strategy of American primacy.

Already the Pentagon is concerned about the depth of its munition stockpiles and the sufficiency of its air defense assets after years of supporting Ukraine and well over a year of battling the Houthis in Yemen and the Red Sea. At the same time, the military balance in Asia has shifted more in China’s favor in recent years, raising questions about Washington’s continued ability to credibly meet its commitments to allies and partners in that region.

Some argue that the solution for the eroding U.S. military advantage is higher defense spending. Roger Wicker (R-Miss), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and former Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), for instance, have called for defense spending of at least 5% of GDP. The Commission on the National Defense Strategy also called for large increases in the Pentagon budget to sustain U.S. military dominance. This group, however, helpfully admitted that to do so in today’s budget environment would require both tax increases and entitlement reform. With no political appetite for either, the level of spending needed for continued U.S. primacy seems unattainable.

Out of necessity, then, U.S. foreign policy goals will have to become more limited over time. Future presidents, if not Trump himself, will have to make hard choices about how to expend U.S. military power. This decision point may come sooner rather than later if Trump gives into pressure to join Israel’s war on Iran. The military expenditures required for such a war would greatly reduce what the United States has available to support security goals and commitments in Europe and Asia—certainly in the near term and perhaps for decades.

This could demand significant shifts in U.S. strategy in both theaters and lead to a forced, rather than managed, U.S. military retrenchment.

Movement toward a more restrained U.S. foreign policy is not inevitable, but it remains likely despite Trump’s acquiescence to Israel’s military campaign. For those in the United States who are pushing for this type of transformation, the priority over the next days and weeks should be to focus public attention on the hard tradeoffs that the United States faces when it comes to military resources and security commitments and to remind Trump and his advisors of the limits of American military power to solve problems in the Middle East—Iran’s nuclear program included.

Advocates of restraint should also hold Trump to account for the promises he has made repeatedly during his decade on the political stage, including his commitments to avoid starting new “forever wars,” to put America’s domestic interests first, and to be a peacemaker.

For those abroad uncertain about the direction of U.S. foreign policy or confused by recent inconsistencies, the best approach is patience. Neoconservatism has grown old. Although it has refused to learn new tricks, it’s no longer the only game in town.