Other countries emulate an American example.

Some observers perceive that after remaining generally stable for a period of more than 70 years (i.e., since the end of World War II in 1945), the U.S. role in the world under the Trump Administration has undergone a substantial change. A change in the U.S. role in the world could have significant and even profound effects on U.S. security, freedom, and prosperity. It could significantly affect U.S. policy in areas such as relations with allies and other countries, defense plans and programs, trade and international finance, foreign assistance, and human rights.

The issue for Congress is whether the U.S. role in the world has changed, and if so, what implications this might have for the United States and the world. Congress’s decisions regarding the U.S. role in the world could have significant implications for numerous policies, plans, programs, and budgets, and for the role of Congress relative to that of the executive branch in U.S. foreign policymaking.

A variety of other CRS reports address in greater depth specific international issues mentioned in this report. Appendix A provides a glossary of some key terms used in this report, such as international order or regional hegemon. For convenience, this report uses the term U.S. role as a shorthand for referring to the U.S. role in the world.

Background

Overview of Traditional U.S. Role: Four Key Elements

While descriptions of the traditional U.S. role in the world since the end of World War II vary in their specifics, it can be described in general terms as consisting of four key elements:

global leadership;

defense and promotion of the liberal international order;

defense and promotion of freedom, democracy, and human rights; and

prevention of the emergence of regional hegemons in Eurasia.

The following sections provide brief discussions of these four key elements.

Global Leadership

The traditional U.S. role in the world since the end of World War II is generally described, first and foremost, as one of global leadership, meaning that the United States tends to be the first or most important country for identifying or framing international issues, taking actions to address those issues, setting an example for other countries to follow, organizing and implementing multilateral efforts to address international issues, and enforcing international rules and norms.

Observers over the years have referred to U.S. global leadership using various terms, some of which reflect varying degrees of approval or disapproval of this aspect of the U.S. role. Examples of such terms (other than global leader itself) include leader of the free world, superpower, indispensable power, system administrator, hyperpower, world policeman, or world hegemon.

The U.S. role of global leadership has resulted in extensive U.S. involvement in international affairs, and this, too, has been described with various phrases. The United States has been described as pursuing an internationalist foreign policy; a foreign policy of global engagement or deep engagement; a foreign policy that provides global public goods; a foreign policy of liberal order building, liberal internationalism, or liberal hegemony; an interventionist foreign policy; or a foreign policy of seeking primacy or world hegemony.

Defense and Promotion of Liberal International Order

A second key element of the traditional U.S. role in the world since World War II—one that can be viewed as inherently related to the first key element above—has been to defend and promote the liberal international order1 that the United States, with the support of its allies, created in the years after World War II. Although definitions of the liberal international order vary, key elements of it are generally said to include the following:

respect for the territorial integrity of countries, and the unacceptability of changing international borders by force or coercion;

a preference for resolving disputes between countries peacefully, without the use or threat of use of force or coercion, and in a manner consistent with international law;

respect for international law, global rules and norms, and universal values, including human rights;

strong international institutions for supporting and implementing international law, global rules and norms, and universal values;

the use of liberal (i.e., rules-based) international trading and investment systems to advance open, rules-based economic engagement, development, growth, and prosperity; and

the treatment of international waters, international air space, outer space, and (more recently) cyberspace as international commons rather than domains subject to national sovereignty.

Most of the key elements above (arguably, all but the final one) can be viewed collectively as forming what is commonly referred to as a rules-based international order. A traditional antithesis of a rules-based order is a might-makes-right order (sometimes colloquially referred to as the law of the jungle), which is an international order (or a situation lacking in order) in which more powerful countries routinely impose their will arbitrarily on less-powerful countries, organizations, and individuals, with little or no regard to rules.