The Adjustments of US Foreign Policy in the Context of Strategic Retrenchment by WANG Fan and WEN Yinghui
The US strategic adjustment reflects a paradoxical unity of “retrenchment” and “control”.
Welcome to the 80th edition of our weekly newsletter! I am SUN Chenghao, a fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, Council Member of The Chinese Association of American Studies and a visiting scholar at Yale Law School (fall 2024).
ChinAffairsplus shares Chinese academic articles focused on topics such as China’s foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, China-European relations, and more. This newsletter was co-founded by me and my research assistant, ZHANG Xueyu.
Through carefully selected Chinese academic articles, we aim to provide you with key insights into the issues that China’s academic and strategic communities are focused on. We will highlight why each article matters and the most important takeaways. Questions or criticisms may be addressed to sch0625@gmail.com
Today, we have selected an article written by Wang Fan and Wen Yinghui, which focuses on The Adjustments of US Foreign Policy in the Context of Strategic Retrenchment.
Summary
The United States’ adjustments in its foreign policy exhibit new logic and characteristics against the backdrop of overall strategic retrenchment and mark a turning-point significance amid the current international landscape. This round of US strategic retrenchment does not represent a simple return to isolationism; rather, under the dual pressures of domestic political and economic structural woes and a relative decline in international influence, it constitutes a strategic recalibration aimed at cutting hegemony maintenance costs, prioritizing core interests, and more effectively constraining strategic competitors.
The US strategic adjustment reflects a paradoxical unity of “retrenchment” and “control”: on one hand, the US seeks to curb overseas spending through selective intervention, promoting burden-sharing among allies, and reducing direct engagement in secondary regions. On the other hand, it intensifies targeted containment of emerging powers such as China by restructuring alliance networks, abusing non-military instruments of competition, and competing for dominance in emerging strategic frontiers.
Changes in the balance of power, domestic economic challenges, a slowdown in technological innovation, and reduced internal political constraints jointly constitute the four core driving forces of this round of US strategic retrenchment. This adjustment will not only undermine the liberal international order long dominated by the United States, but also exert multidimensional impacts on major-power strategic relations and regional power structures, thereby exacerbating the instability of the international order.
Why It Matters
As the United States places greater emphasis on coercive allied burden-sharing, cross-regional strategic resource reallocation, and sustained long-term competition with China, grasping the substantive connotation of “strategic retrenchment” has become essential to accurately assessing the direction of U.S. foreign policy.
We selected this article because it cautions against assuming that reduced commitments abroad necessarily signal a weaker international role or diminished competitive intent; they may instead reflect a change in how the United States seeks to preserve its advantages.
By situating retrenchment within the broader context of domestic political and economic constraints, shifting alliance relationships, and changes in the international order, the article helps explain why Washington may appear more restrained in some regions while becoming more concentrated and assertive in areas tied to its core strategic interests. This perspective also helps readers understand why Chinese scholars often view U.S. retrenchment not simply as a sign of moderation, but as a development with potentially far-reaching consequences for major-power relations, regional stability and international rules.
Key Points
1. Manifestations of the Adjustment in U.S. Foreign Policy
(1) Reordering Geographic Priorities
The United States is not withdrawing comprehensively from international affairs, but selectively redistributing its constrained strategic resources across distinct geopolitical blocs. Homeland defence and the U.S. traditional sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere have gained prominence, while the Indo-Pacific remains the central arena of great-power competition. In Europe, Washington seeks to make allies assume greater responsibility for their own security, but the Russia–Ukraine conflict and Europe’s limited defence capacity constrain any large-scale withdrawal. In the Middle East, the United States adopts a primary retrenchment strategy supplemented by tactical partial redeployment; it increasingly relies on precision limited military strikes, backed by regional proxy allies, and phased temporary troop surges to safeguard vital interests including energy supplies and maritime chokepoints, to prevent re-entering the costly quagmire of full-scale ground warfare.
(2) A Shift toward “Low-cost Competition”
The United States is scaling back costly large-scale direct ground military intervention and relying more heavily on alliance networks and non-military instruments of competition. On the one hand, it is promoting burden-sharing among allies by transferring more defence and regional security costs to European and Indo-Pacific partners. On the other hand, it is using minilateral arrangements such as AUKUS and the Quad to build flexible and exclusive networks around military affairs, technology, supply chains, and maritime security. Export controls, financial sanctions, technological standards, long-arm jurisdiction, and narrative shaping are also being used to intensify targeted containment of China.
(3) Expanding Competition in “New Strategic Frontiers”
The United States is extending great-power competition beyond traditional land and maritime spaces into critical sea lanes, the Arctic, and the deep sea. These domains matter not only for military deployment and strategic mobility, but also for access to critical resources, supply-chain security, and the formulation of future international rules. Washington adopts three sets of competitive measures to advance its layout: continuously intensifying regular military control over global sea lanes, comprehensively expanding military and resource-exploration presence across the Arctic, and advancing unilateral deep-sea mining unrestricted by the International Seabed Authority, in an attempt to pre-emptively draw new strategic advantage boundaries favorable to its own hegemony and restrictive to rival powers.
2. Main Drivers of US Strategic Retrenchment
(1) Shifts in the Balance of Power and an Imbalance in Strategic Commitments
The rise of China and other emerging powers has weakened America’s relative advantages in economic, technological, and military terms, while the long-term costs of maintaining a global base network and fighting overseas wars have placed severe pressure on US resources. Strategic contraction is therefore intended to reduce commitments in secondary areas and redirect limited resources toward core interests and principal strategic competitors.
(2) Domestic Economic and Industrial Difficulties
Federal debt, rising interest payments, manufacturing decline, and supply-chain vulnerabilities have constrained Washington’s capacity to invest in defence, research, and infrastructure. Reshoring, friend-shoring, and the restructuring of critical industrial chains have consequently become important components of US strategic adjustment.
(3) A Slowdown in Technological Innovation
Although the United States retains considerable technological strength, the growth of its research investment has slowed, while China has rapidly narrowed the gap in artificial intelligence, quantum technology, robotics, clean energy, and semiconductors. The article argues that technological restrictions alone cannot preserve US advantages over the long term and may instead damage American firms while accelerating Chinese indigenous innovation, making a broader strategic recalibration necessary.
(4) Reduced Domestic Political Constraints
The foreign-policy establishment that traditionally supported deep global engagement has lost influence, while officials favouring “America First,” sharper strategic prioritization, and competition with China have entered key positions. At the same time, a stronger bipartisan recognition that US grand strategy requires reprioritization has created a more favourable domestic political environment for strategic contraction.
3. International Impacts of US Strategic Adjustment
(1) The Liberal International Order is being Undermined
As the United States places greater emphasis on cost-benefit calculations and domestic interests, its willingness to provide international public goods, uphold multilateral rules, and assume global responsibilities is declining. This transformation generates two-tier shocks to the global system: on one hand, it continuously depletes U.S. global leadership credibility accumulated since World War II; on the other hand, it fuels the wide global proliferation of trade protectionism, unilateral power politics and zero-sum game mindsets, while impairing the operational effectiveness of multilateral cooperation institutions.
(2) Major-Power Strategic Relations and Regional Power Structures are being Reshaped
US contraction in some regions does not imply weaker competition with China. On the contrary, resource concentration may make China an even more clearly defined and enduring strategic competitor. Meanwhile, US demands that allies bear greater costs and serve American strategic objectives may weaken trust and cohesion within alliance networks, while encouraging allies to pursue greater strategic autonomy.
(3) Power Vacuums may intensify Regional Instability
As the United States reduces direct engagement in secondary regions, regional powers may compete to fill the resulting power vacuums, increasing security rivalry, conflict, and fragmentation. The article stresses that strategic contraction does not necessarily create stability and may instead amplify existing regional tensions.
(4) The Domesticization of Foreign Policy ncreases Uncertainty
US foreign policy is increasingly subordinated to domestic industry, electoral politics, and partisan competition, making it more transactional and reversible. Sharp policy changes across administrations not only damage US credibility but also add uncertainty to global governance and the international order.
Conclusion
The ongoing U.S. strategic retrenchment represents neither a return to isolationism nor a comprehensive decline in American global influence, but a reallocation of strategic objectives, regional priorities, and policy instruments under growing resource constraints. Its central logic is to reduce costly overseas commitments while preserving influence and containment over key regions and strategic competitors through selective intervention, burden-sharing among allies, non-military instruments of competition, and competition for dominance in new strategic frontiers.
Yet this strategic retrenchment remains constrained by domestic politics, congressional restrictions, continuing regional conflicts, and existing alliance commitments; even where the United States reduces its traditional military footprint, it can continue to exercise influence through alliance networks, technological dependence, infrastructure, and institutional advantages.
U.S. foreign policy adjustment is therefore unlikely to take the form of a sustained and comprehensive withdrawal, but will instead remain a limited, uneven, and long-term process of strategic recalibration that further accelerates great-power competition, alliance restructuring, and changes in the international order while adding uncertainty to the global strategic environment.
About the Author
WANG Fan王帆：Wang Fan is Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at China Foreign Affairs University. He concurrently serves as Vice President of the China National Association for International Studies and Vice President of the Chinese Association of American Studies. He is a recipient of the State Council Special Government Allowance. His primary research interests include China–U.S. relations, Chinese foreign policy, international security, and the security strategies of major powers.
WEN Yinghui温盈晖：Wen Yinghui is a Ph.D candidate in the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign Affairs University.
About the publication
The Chinese version of this article was published in International Studies. （《国际问题研究》）International Studies is a comprehensive academic journal of international affairs under the supervision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China and published by the China Institute of International Studies. Committed to serving China’s diplomacy, the journal integrates strategic, forward-looking, and policy-oriented perspectives and seeks to provide theoretical support for China’s diplomatic practice.
