The plight of TPP is a perfect example of how things have gone wrong. It was an extraordinary achievement for U.S. negotiators, working with twelve Pacific Rim countries, to lower barriers to trade in key sectors such as pharmaceuticals and automobiles. And no single initiative is currently more important to the United States’ effort to rebalance its foreign policy toward the most dynamic region of the world. But TPP requires Congressional approval to come into force, and that is now unlikely. Political support for trade has to be rebuilt from the bottom up, and the deep antipathy to Wall Street that Bernie Sanders has exposed demonstrates that Bill Clinton’s strategy of embracing Wall Street to promote American economic engagement is not the place to start. Unless American workers see their government providing assistance to those whose jobs are being lost to global forces, a free-trade approach is politically dead. Liberal internationalism requires that domestic economic policy account for the rough-and-tumble of global market forces that disadvantage many—through no fault of their own.

Progressives have veered wildly over the past six decades regarding the appropriate use of military force. Democratic presidents launched American involvement in Vietnam under the banner of anticommunism and the national interest, and by the early 1970s, many in the party responded to the disaster that had unfolded by viewing the U.S. military as the problem in world affairs, not a solution. Two decades later, Bill Clinton, who had opposed the Vietnam War, led NATO in its war against Serbia, on the grounds that leaders such as Slobodan Milosevic cannot invoke the norm of sovereignty to do as they wish to their own populations. Progressives in the United States and Europe argued the international community has a “responsibility to protect” populations under threat, enabling Democrats to support the use of force for humanitarian purposes; this support was made easier in the late 1990s by the seeming ability of the United States to go to war without suffering casualties, given the supremacy of its air power. But after the George W. Bush administration’s Iraq War debacle, a reckless adventure to which a number of liberal internationalists lent their support on the grounds that Saddam Hussein was a dictator whose removal would serve Iraq and the world’s interests, progressives once again grew wary of unleashing American military might, and Barack Obama’s channeling of that antiwar sentiment contributed to his winning the presidency in 2008.

Living in a state of war since September 2001, Americans are understandably suspicious of using military force. The experience with Libya, a country that remains in chaos since the 2011 war that toppled Muammar el-Qaddafi, cemented an attitude stemming from the Iraq experience. But there is a difference between viewing the use of force with suspicion and viewing it with humility. The United States cannot impose its will by force, nor should we rush to war as the first instrument of choice. But there are occasions when the use of force in coalition with others is necessary to contain threats and when the use of force (or at least the threat to use force) can support diplomatic objectives. Not using force, when it seems that very limited military action would have been needed to stop the genocide in Rwanda, left a moral stain in the 1990s. While it is difficult to know whether military force could have been effective in stopping Bashar al-Assad’s murderous rampage without leading to another Iraq or Libya, American sluggishness in responding to ISIS’s consolidation of power exacerbated the Syrian Civil War, further dangerously destabilizing the region and contributing to the refugee crisis that threatens European unity and, in turn, American national interests.

Many liberals are now, more than ever, rightly skeptical of the false promise of quick and easy military solutions to complex international problems and, confronted with economic stressors, instinctively search for imagined shelter from the tumult of global market forces. But a truly progressive foreign policy is one that is deeply engaged with the rest of the world—which is not easy, but which is essential for our security and prosperity. Progressive internationalism (which traces its roots to Roosevelt and Truman) seeks to embrace, and even guide, a thriving international economy while recognizing that active domestic policies are essential to assure that unmediated market forces do not overwhelm our national values and social purpose. And progressive internationalism also understands that although our ability to shape political and societal outcomes in countries around the world is severely limited, nevertheless the sober marshalling of American power, through the provision of robust security assurances for crucial allies, and even at times the judicious deployment of force, will be necessary to assure a safer world. Without strong American engagement in the world, we invite the erosion of peace and prosperity at home and abroad, without offering any real hope to those struggling communities in our society who will remain vulnerable and exposed to the disruptive forces of globalization.

James Goldgeier is Dean of the School of International Service at American University. Jonathan Kirshner is Stephen and Barbara Friedman Professor of International Political Economy in the Department of Government at Cornell University.

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