US Foreign Policy and Presidential Leadership in an Age of Strategic Uncertainty

As America’s global dominance faces mounting challenges, debate intensifies over her future strategy. A growing group of “restrainers” views the continuation of US hegemony as a perilous path toward confrontation with other nuclear powers and calls for a policy of minimal engagement. Their opponents argue that retrenchment could erode the US-led liberal order, create a global power vacuum, and prompt illiberal forces to fill the void. This book presents a fresh classification of contemporary U.S. foreign policy approaches and assesses their effectiveness in maintaining international peace and security. By examining the foreign policies of Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, the study highlights the role of presidential leadership in navigating US transnational relations in an era of strategic uncertainty.

Dr. Sergey Smolnikov teaches International Relations at York University, Canada, and is a former Professor of International Relations at the Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, Japan. His research focuses on international security, global governance, great-power competition, leadership in global affairs, and the interaction between geopolitics and geo-economics. Smolnikov’s earlier book, Great Power Conduct and Credibility in World Politics (2018), develops the theory of power credibility, arguing that as great powers enter periods of relative decline, they face structural pressures to maximize credibility of their images of power and importance.