Three Illusions of US Foreign Policy

The United States, and more broadly, the West, is prone to be surprised. We are surprised by China’s pursuit of hegemony through economic and military means; by Russia’s engaging in the largest conventional war in Europe since 1945; by the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. We think that economic sanctions will fundamentally alter the calculus of our enemies—even deter a potential attack—and we are puzzled when they do not. The recent streak of surprises is not a fluke of history, an unlucky combination of events. This article contends that our surprise is due to a series of illusions that characterize our foreign policy vision. These illusions stem from a mistaken series of assumptions about the causes of political order and about the drivers of political behavior.