Vance, delivering the commencement address at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, also said that the United States faces serious threats from China, Russia and other countries and will have to maintain its technological edge.
"The era of uncontested US dominance is over," Vance said to the graduates, who will become officers in the Navy and Marine Corps.
Vance said Trump's order to use force against Houthi rebels in Yemen ultimately led to a ceasefire as part of a deal in which the group agreed to halt attacks on US shipping targets in the Gulf.
"We ought to be cautious in deciding to throw a punch but when we throw a punch, we throw a punch hard, and we do it decisively," Vance said.
Vance, a former Ohio senator who served in the Marine Corps, said some recent presidents got the United States involved in conflicts that were not essential to the country's national security.
Vance did not identify past presidents for criticism.
But his comments suggested he was talking about former president George W Bush, a Republican who launched US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his successor Barack Obama, a Democrat who kept up the war in Afghanistan.
A chaotic US withdrawal in 2021 after Joe Biden became president continues to be sharply criticised by Trump.
"We had a long experiment in our foreign policy that traded national defence and the maintenance of our alliances for nation building and meddling in foreign countries' affairs, even if those foreign countries had very little to do with core American interests," Vance said.
"No more undefined missions, no more open-ended conflicts," he said.
Vance said the United States enjoyed a period of dominance after the fall of the old Russian-led Soviet empire and that US policies aimed at the economic integration of competitors had backfired.
Vance's sharp rhetoric echoed the isolationist tendencies of Trump, who has badgered members of the NATO military alliance to spend more on their own defence to ease the burden on the United States.
Trump has called for increased US military spending and this week ordered the construction of the Golden Dome missile defence system, a vast network of satellites and weapons in earth's orbit set to cost $US175 billion ($A269 billion).
Trump will speak to graduates of the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, on Saturday.
