In a Washington think tank removed from the noise of daily politics, Matt Duss is quietly advancing a foreign policy vision that challenges decades of American strategic orthodoxy. As executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, he argues that genuine security cannot be achieved at the expense of others — and that the United States' vast military presence may, in certain regions, produce the very instability it claims to prevent. His call for deeper cooperation with China and a consultative reassessment of global force posture reflects a broader progressive conviction that
U.S. Progressive Leader Advocates Greater China Cooperation, Military Reassessment
Our security cannot come at the expense of others' security
Mark
When you say progressive foreign policy prioritizes solidarity, what does that actually look like in practice with a country like China?
Mimi
It means starting from the assumption that we share a planet and face common threats—climate change, pandemics, economic instability. Rather than assuming competition is inevitable, you look for where interests align and build from there. That doesn't mean ignoring disagreements, but it means not treating every interaction as a zero-sum game.
Mark
But doesn't that risk appearing weak to adversaries who might interpret cooperation as concession?
Mimi
That's the framing we've inherited, and it's worth questioning. The idea that strength only looks like military posture or confrontation—that's been tested for decades. I'd argue it's created as many problems as it's solved, especially in places like the Middle East where our presence hasn't necessarily made us safer.
Mark
You mentioned reassessing the global military footprint. That's a massive undertaking. Where would you even start?
Mimi
You start by asking honest questions: What are these bases actually doing? Are they making those regions more stable or less? Are they serving current security needs or historical ones? And then you have those conversations with allies—not telling them what to do, but genuinely consulting about what serves everyone's interests.
Mark
Japan seems like the test case. How do you renegotiate a 70-year alliance without destabilizing the region?
Mimi
Exactly. Which is why you don't do it unilaterally or secretly. You sit down and say: the world has changed, our threats have changed, let's think together about what makes sense now. Japan has its own interests in regional stability. A real conversation respects that.
Mark
Is there a risk that this approach gets dismissed as naive idealism?
Mimi
Probably. But the alternative—assuming conflict is inevitable, spending trillions on military presence, treating every relationship as a potential threat—that's been tried. The question is whether we're willing to try something different.
The Pulse
- A growing progressive electoral wave is forcing a once-abstract foreign policy debate into urgent, practical territory — what does the left actually believe about American power?
- Duss challenges the foundational assumption that U.S. military dominance equals global stability, pointing to the Middle East as evidence that presence can deepen rather than resolve conflict.
- The framing of China as an adversary to be contained, rather than a partner to be engaged, is directly contested — Duss advocates dialogue and cooperation over confrontation.
- Rather than proposing unilateral withdrawal, he insists that any realignment of alliances, including with Japan, would proceed through close consultation — signaling pragmatism alongside principle.
- The post-Cold War consensus is being named, examined, and questioned aloud — and the conversation, once confined to think tanks, is edging toward the center of American political life.
In a Washington think tank removed from the noise of daily politics, Matt Duss is quietly advancing a foreign policy vision that challenges decades of American strategic orthodoxy. As executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, he argues that genuine security cannot be achieved at the expense of others — and that the United States' vast military presence may, in certain regions, produce the very instability it claims to prevent. His call for deeper cooperation with China and a consultative reassessment of global force posture reflects a broader progressive conviction that zero-sum thinking is not only morally insufficient but strategically self-defeating.
Matt Duss works in a Washington office where the reimagining of American foreign policy unfolds at a distance from cable news. As executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, he has spent years building an alternative framework for how the United States engages the world — one rooted in a deceptively simple idea: American security cannot be disentangled from the security of everyone else.
As progressive candidates continue to win elections across the country, the question of what progressivism means for foreign policy has grown harder to defer. Domestically, the agenda is familiar — wealth redistribution, healthcare, inequality. But its international dimension remains underexplored. Duss is among those working to change that. "Our security and prosperity should not come at the expense of the security and prosperity and safety of communities elsewhere," he said — a statement that sounds intuitive but marks a genuine break from how American power has historically operated.
On China, Duss rejects the adversarial framing that has come to dominate Washington's strategic imagination, calling instead for expanded cooperation and sustained engagement. On military posture, he goes further, questioning whether the United States' sprawling global presence — bases across dozens of countries, naval deployments spanning multiple oceans — actually delivers the stability it promises. In the Middle East especially, he suggests, American forces may be generating instability rather than containing it.
Yet Duss is careful to distinguish reassessment from abandonment. Any changes to arrangements with allies like Japan, he emphasizes, would be made through close consultation — not imposed unilaterally. The argument is not that commitments should be discarded, but that they should be examined honestly, and that better arrangements may be possible.
What Duss and others are ultimately contesting is the post-Cold War consensus itself — the assumption that American dominance, demonstrated through force, is the natural and necessary order. Whether a coherent alternative can be built, and whether it can survive contact with electoral and geopolitical reality, remains an open question. But the conversation, once confined to think tanks, has begun to move.
Matt Duss sits in a Washington office where the work of reimagining American foreign policy happens quietly, away from cable news cycles. As executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, a progressive think tank, he has spent years developing an alternative vision for how the United States might engage the world. That vision, he argues, begins with a simple premise: the security of Americans cannot be separated from the security of everyone else.
Duss has become one of the clearer voices articulating what progressive foreign policy actually means—a question that has grown more urgent as left-wing candidates have won elections across the country in recent years. Most people understand progressivism through its domestic agenda: taxing the wealthy, expanding healthcare, addressing inequality. But the foreign policy dimension remains less visible, less understood. In an interview this month, Duss began to sketch its outlines.
"As a progressive, I take the ethic of solidarity seriously," he said. "I think we live in an interconnected world. Our security and prosperity should not come at the expense of the security and prosperity and safety of communities elsewhere." The statement sounds almost obvious when said aloud, yet it represents a departure from how American power has often been wielded. It suggests that zero-sum thinking—the idea that American gain must mean someone else's loss—is not only morally wrong but strategically flawed.
This philosophy extends directly to China, a country that has become the organizing principle of American foreign policy debate. Rather than viewing the relationship as inherently adversarial, Duss argues for expanded cooperation. The specifics remain somewhat general in his framing, but the direction is clear: engagement rather than containment, dialogue rather than confrontation.
Perhaps more concretely, Duss calls for a fundamental reassessment of where American troops are stationed and what they actually accomplish. The United States maintains a vast global military footprint—bases in dozens of countries, naval deployments across multiple oceans, forces positioned in regions from Europe to the Pacific. Duss questions whether this presence genuinely enhances stability or undermines it. In the Middle East particularly, he suggests, the presence of American forces may create less stability than it provides. This is not an argument for immediate withdrawal or abandonment of allies, but rather a call to examine assumptions that have gone largely unquestioned for decades.
He is careful, though, to signal that any recalibration would not happen unilaterally. Japan, America's closest ally in Asia, would be consulted closely on any changes to their security arrangement. This matters because it suggests that progressive foreign policy, at least as Duss articulates it, is not about abandoning commitments but about rethinking them—asking whether current arrangements actually serve the interests they claim to serve, and whether there might be better ways forward.
The timing of this conversation is significant. As progressive ideas gain electoral traction in American politics, the question of what they mean for foreign policy becomes less academic and more urgent. Duss and others like him are essentially arguing that the post-Cold War consensus—maintain military dominance, contain rivals, assume that American strength must be demonstrated through force—has run its course. What replaces it remains to be seen, but the conversation has begun.
Notable Quotes
As a progressive, I take the ethic of solidarity seriously. We live in an interconnected world, and our security and prosperity should not come at the expense of others'.— Matt Duss, Center for International Policy
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