According to a Pew poll last November, 52 percent of Americans believe the US "should mind its own business internationally". Some argue that the US is making strategic adjustments to its diplomacy, as manifested in the way it has dealt with issues of Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine. In this article, experts from China and abroad offer their opinions regarding such perceived adjustments and the direction of future US foreign policy.

Joseph Nye, political scientist at Harvard University, former US Assistance Secretary of Defense.

Douglas Paal, Vice President for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Ding Gang, senior reporter of People's Daily.

Yuan Peng, Vice President of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

I. Strategic retreat? What lies below the surface?

"The US is not turning inward and becoming isolationist; US military needs to recover from ill-conceived and ill-conducted conflicts and address the challenges of the future; the US is the ablest nation in terms of transforming its own strategic aims into ones shared with other countries; the most powerful country is bound to make a comeback once its wounds are healed."

Joseph Nye: The US is not turning inward and becoming isolationist. According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center and the Council on Foreign Relations, fifty-two percent of Americans believe that the US "should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own." About the same number said that the US is "less important and powerful" than it was a decade ago. Americans feel that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were a mistake, and I think there's a feeling that the first decade of the 21st century was wasted on these wars, and that it's time to be more selective in our engagements, though the reason I don't see it as isolationism is because it still involves considerable American presence overseas. But the US is more selective in the areas it chooses to engage in.

Douglas Paal: America is experiencing combat fatigue, which is not the same as retreat. American hard power is not in decline, but it is temporarily resting, as it needs to do. The American economy is in the early stages of a recovery, as seen from the stock market performance last year. US interests remain far-flung and quite defensible, but our military needs to recover from ill-conceived and ill-conducted conflicts and address the challenges of the future.

Ding Gang: The strategic adjustment of the US entails two things. First, outsourcing work it has been doing to other countries. The US is indeed putting more emphasis on cooperation, rather than going it alone today, but the purpose of that is to better achieve its own strategic interests. The US is trying to turn missions impossible to missions possible through cooperating with other countries.

Another thing is that the US is repositioning its resources. The US has withdrawn or is withdrawing its military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is gaining strength in other areas. For instance, according to its naval plan, by the year 2020, 60 percent of its military force will be deployed in the Pacific region, and the number of ships will be raised from 50 to 65. The US is also implementing its joint air-sea battle strategy in cooperation with its Asian allies, especially Japan. On a global scale, the US is the ablest nation in terms of transforming its own strategic aims into ones shared with other countries, especially among its allies.

The reason behind this strategic adjustment is that the US realizes it cannot manage affairs across the whole world on its own. Inevitably, under the framework of cooperation, the US has to share benefits with other parties involved - in other words, it has to pay a certain price to ensure sustained cooperation. It may look like a strategic retreat on the US side, but in fact the US is looking further forward by taking a step back.

Yuan Peng: The Obama administration has shown a diplomatic style of restraint in issues like Syria, Libya, and most recently Ukraine, which stands in contrast with the style of its predecessor, or even that of the Clinton administration. The Obama administration has drawn a bottom line for itself, and that is to stay out of war if possible. In that sense, the US is undergoing a period of strategic contraction. Two wars and a financial crisis have left it crippled, and although the reforms being undertaken have generated some results, the US is still miles away from full recovery; therefore, it has to make a careful calculation of the risks involved before plunging itself into anything that could spell trouble.

In addition, the US has also realized that threats and challenges come multi-faceted in this new era, and therefore it needs to reevaluate the situation. That's why we're seeing "strategic retreat" in the traditional sense, but also "strategic expansion" in new areas such as the Internet, space, new technology, new energy, and establishing new trade rules and alliances. In the meantime, geopolitically speaking, the US is still expanding its influence in the Asia Pacific region. "Turning inward" is only temporary. As the most powerful country in the world, it is bound to make a comeback once its wounds are healed.

On the domestic front, economic recovery and social stability remain top priorities, with the problem of unemployment still crying out for solution; on the international front, in the face of the collective rise of new powers, the US has to redraw its strategic map with new international rules and new competitive edges in mind. Besides, the Obama administration's reluctance to be involved in the issues of Syria and Libya, although attacked by conservatives, met little opposition among the American public, which seems to suggest that an anti-war sentiment still prevails in US society.

The article is edited and translated from《美国外交——战略收缩还是以退为进？》, source: People's Daily.

Read more: Where is US diplomacy going? Part II: Smart power