American foreign policy has failed repeatedly since the Cold War ended, and Stephen Walt argues that a bipartisan consensus on liberal hegemony bears the blame. Both Democrats and Republicans have embraced the project of spreading democracy and free markets worldwide, using military force when necessary. The results include costly quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq, failed interventions in Libya and Syria, the rise of ISIS, and diminished American influence. Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard, draws on realist theory to diagnose what went wrong. Liberal hegemony assumes that American values are universal, that other nations will welcome their imposition, and that the costs of enforcement are sustainable. All three assumptions have proven false. Nationalism remains a more powerful force than liberalism, democracy cannot be installed at gunpoint, and the forever wars have exhausted public patience. Walt traces how the foreign policy establishment, a network of think tanks, media figures, and former officials, perpetuates failed strategies by punishing dissent and rewarding conformity. He advocates offshore balancing, a strategy of restraint that would concentrate American power in regions vital to national security while avoiding unnecessary interventions elsewhere. Critics will note that Walt's prescriptions require judgments about interests that reasonable people dispute. But readers seeking to understand why American foreign policy keeps repeating the same mistakes will find this book a bracing corrective to conventional wisdom.