After Failure: American Foreign Policy at the End of the Post–Cold War Era

Abstract

The close of the Obama presidency prompted considerable thinking about the state of American foreign policy. With the election of Donald Trump, it appeared as if the United States and the world were on the brink of a new relationship. Decades-old language of American international leadership was replaced with a doctrine of America First. In other words, the post–Cold War era had come to an end. This review essay addresses five texts published at this inflection point in American foreign policy history, when the core assumptions are being challenged by domestic and global forces. It accounts for the parlous state of American foreign policy in the post–Cold War era, the causes of foreign policy failure, where the world might be heading, and what it means for American foreign policy scholarship.