"With (one) paragraph military planners signaled an abrupt end to the post-9/11 era of intervention"

"... For proof, you need look no further than the Pentagon’s new “strategic guidance” document, issued last month in the wake of Mr. Obama’s pledge to cut $485 billion from the defense budget over the coming decade. It repeats many of the core objectives of recent American national security strategy: defeat Al Qaeda, deter traditional aggressors, counter the threat from unconventional weapons.

But it also states, “In the aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States will emphasize nonmilitary means and military-to-military cooperation to address instability and reduce the demand for significant U.S. force commitments to stability operations.” It goes on to note that “U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations.”

With this paragraph military planners signaled an abrupt end to the post-9/11 era of intervention........ The era we have now entered will be a less ideologically charged one. The questions raised by China’s growing ambitions are categorically different from those provoked by 9/11. China is an emerging power, and once having found their footing, emerging powers usually seek to expand at the expense of their neighbors. ... WHATEVER policy the Obama administration or its successor adopts toward China, the broader East Asian region, unlike the Middle East, is filled with stable, and largely democratic, states. The United States does not have to defend liberty and justice there. Regime change, democracy promotion and nation-building will be off the table. So, for that matter, will war. America is not about to go to war with China, or with anyone else in Asia. The struggle to balance Chinese ambition will be left mostly to the Navy and Air Force, and our allies in the region. ....   

Finally, there is the elemental fact that America can no longer afford its own ambitions. ....... In his 2010 book, “The Frugal Superpower,” Michael Mandelbaum argued that the contraction of the American economy meant that “the defining fact of foreign policy in the second decade of the 21st century and beyond will be ‘less.’ ” Mr. Mandelbaum, himself a leading realist, suggested that the chief victim of the new austerity will be “intervention.” It may be so, though the NATO air campaign in Libya shows that humanitarian intervention is neither defunct nor doomed to failure. Such ventures, however, will be very rare, as the current stalemate over Syria implies. The coming years may well be a period of at least relative austerity, modesty and realism. Should we feel relieved?..."