The Return of Geopolitics: The Changing Role of Complex Interdependence and Its Impacts on American Foreign Policy

We are now witnessing the end of the post-Cold War era in which the United States had the freedom to prioritize democratic enlargement, global free trade, and international cooperation through global institutions without having to prepare for the use or the threat of force to outcompete geopolitical rivals. How has the return of great power competition and the decline of the post-Cold War peace affected U.S. foreign policy decisions that were embedded in ideas of complex interdependence? Our research explores how notions of complex interdependence have made way for a return to geopolitics in American policy toward China and Russia through three key departures from the post-Cold War framework of engagement and interdependence. First, preparations for war define American policy in its strategic competition with Beijing and Moscow. Second, there is an increasing hierarchy between high and low politics with security alliances, military preparedness, and strategic competition topping the policy agenda. Finally, the United States as an actor on the global political stage has seen its role expanded even more as strategic competition and security confrontation require states to mobilize, organize security alliances, and boost their defense preparedness. Therefore, strategic competition and geopolitical rivalries are now more important determinants of U.S. foreign policy than more benign and cooperative assumptions of complex interdependence.