ABSTRACT
I n the post-Cold War world, American decisionmakers still have incentives to pursue an active, engaged foreign policy, yet at the same time are confronted with greater domestic pressures to lower the costs of foreign policy commitments. The dilemma that decisionmakers faced in the early postWorld War II period is thus still relevant, and perhaps stronger than before. The events of September 11th have temporarily quelled the criticism regarding high spending on foreign policy. “The war on terror” seems to have engendered a domestic consensus around the need for high spending on foreign policy. However, as the realization of the long-term nature of the war on terrorism is sinking in, as well as the growing need for serious investment in homeland defense, American decision makers will also have no choice but to invest in cooperation strategies that would enable them to reconcile their various policy goals at a lower cost. Unilateral action is likely to prove over time to be unable to satisfy the American goal of fighting terror effectively, as well as to become too costly for the American public to accept.
