Columbia University scholar Stephen Sestanovich has long argued that U.S. foreign policy tends to alternate between cycles of assertive international engagement, which he calls “maximalism,” and retrenchment.
“What puts an end to retrenchment is almost always some sort of shock,” he told me last week, something that “makes people think that downsized policies, however desirable they might have seemed a few years earlier, just won’t cut it in a more dangerous world.”
“Putin’s war has been exactly that sort of mind-focusing stimulus, and its effects are likely to be lasting ones,” he said.
If he’s right, the broader effects of the Ukraine crisis could include a Cold War-style division of the world into two blocs, one led by the United States, the other by China and Russia; long-term pressure from Congress for higher defense spending; and perhaps even a modest revival of bipartisanship in foreign policy.
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