US Grand Strategy in the 21st Century

US Grand Strategy in the 21st Century PDF

Author: A. Trevor Thrall

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-01-29

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1351620037

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This book challenges the dominant strategic culture and makes the case for restraint in US grand strategy in the 21st century. Grand strategy, meaning a state’s theory about how it can achieve national security for itself, is elusive. That is particularly true in the United States, where the division of federal power and the lack of direct security threats limit consensus about how to manage danger. This book seeks to spur more vigorous debate on US grand strategy. To do so, the first half of the volume assembles the most recent academic critiques of primacy, the dominant strategic perspective in the United States today. The contributors challenge the notion that US national security requires a massive military, huge defense spending, and frequent military intervention around the world. The second half of the volume makes the positive case for a more restrained foreign policy by excavating the historical roots of restraint in the United States and illustrating how restraint might work in practice in the Middle East and elsewhere. The volume concludes with assessments of the political viability of foreign policy restraint in the United States today. This book will be of much interest to students of US foreign policy, grand strategy, national security, and International Relations in general.

Rethinking American Grand Strategy

Rethinking American Grand Strategy PDF

Author: Elizabeth Borgwardt

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 513

ISBN-13: 0190695668

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What is grand strategy ? What does it aim to achieve? And what differentiates it from normal strategic thought--what, in other words, makes it "grand"? In answering these questions, most scholars have focused on diplomacy and warfare, so much so that "grand"? In answering these questions, most scholars have focused on diplomacy and warfare, so much so that "grand strategy" has become almost an equivalent of "military history." The traditional attention paid to military affairs is understandable, but in today's world it leaves out much else that could be considered political, and therefore strategic. Just as contemporary world politics is driven by a wide range of non-military issues, the most thorough considerations of grand strategy must consider the bases of peace and security--including gender, race, the environment, and a wide range of cultural, social, political, and economic issues. Rethinking American Grand Strategy assembles a roster of leading historians to examine America's place in the world. Its innovative chapters re-examine familiar figures, such as John Quincy Adams, George Kennan, and Henry Kissinger, while also revealing the forgotten episodes and hidden voices of American grand strategy. They expand the scope of diplomatic and military history by placing the grand strategies of public health, race, gender, humanitarianism, and the law alongside military and diplomatic affairs to reveal hidden strategists as well as strategies. --

American Grand Strategy and East Asian Security in the 21st Century

American Grand Strategy and East Asian Security in the 21st Century PDF

Author: David C. Kang

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-10-26

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 110716723X

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David C. Kang tells an often overlooked story about East Asia's 'comprehensive security', arguing that American policy towards Asia should be based on economic and diplomatic initiatives rather than military strength.

A Grand Strategy for America

A Grand Strategy for America PDF

Author: Robert J. Art

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2013-02-01

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 0801468442

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The United States today is the most powerful nation in the world, perhaps even stronger than Rome was during its heyday. It is likely to remain the world's preeminent power for at least several decades to come. What behavior is appropriate for such a powerful state? To answer this question, Robert J. Art concentrates on "grand strategy"-the deployment of military power in both peace and war to support foreign policy goals. He first defines America's contemporary national interests and the specific threats they face, then identifies seven grand strategies that the United States might contemplate, examining each in relation to America's interests. The seven are: •dominion-forcibly trying to remake the world in America's own image; • global collective security-attempting to keep the peace everywhere; •regional collective security-confining peacekeeping efforts to Europe; • cooperative security-seeking to reduce the occurrence of war by limiting other states' offensive capabilities; • isolationism-withdrawing from all military involvement beyond U.S. borders; •containment-holding the line against aggressor states; and •selective engagement-choosing to prevent or to become involved only in those conflicts that pose a threat to the country's long-term interests. Art makes a strong case for selective engagement as the most desirable strategy for contemporary America. It is the one that seeks to forestall dangers, not simply react to them; that is politically viable, at home and abroad; and that protects all U.S. interests, both essential and desirable. Art concludes that "selective engagement is not a strategy for all times, but it is the best grand strategy for these times."

Foreign Affairs Strategy

Foreign Affairs Strategy PDF

Author: Terry L. Deibel

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2007-07-23

Total Pages: 11

ISBN-13: 0521871913

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This book enables readers to think strategically about American foreign policy.

The New Grand Strategy

The New Grand Strategy PDF

Author: Mark Mykleby

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2016-06-14

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1250072301

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"Reimagines the American dream and provides a bipartisan plan to recapture the greatness of the past through addressing important economic, social and environmental issues by making sustainability our country's new strategic imperative, "--NoveList.

American Grand Strategy and Corporate Elite Networks

American Grand Strategy and Corporate Elite Networks PDF

Author: Bastiaan Van Apeldoorn

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-10-23

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 1135011206

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This book presents a novel analysis of how US grand strategy has evolved from the end of the Cold War to the present, offering an integrated analysis of both continuity and change. The post-Cold War American grand strategy has continued to be oriented to securing an ‘open door’ to US capital around the globe. This book will show that the three different administrations that have been in office in the post-Cold War era have pursued this goal with varying means: from Clinton’s promotion of neoliberal globalization to Bush’s ‘war on terror’ and Obama’s search to maintain US primacy in the face of a declining economy and a rising Asia. In seeking to make sense of both these strong continuities and these significant variations the book takes as its point of departure the social sources of grand strategy (making), with the aim to relate state (public) power to social (private) power. While developing its own theoretical framework to make sense of the evolution of US grand strategy, it offers a rich and rigorous empirical analysis based on extensive primary data that have been collected over the past years. It draws on a unique data-set that consists of extensive biographical data of 30 cabinet members and other senior foreign policy officials of each of the past three administrations of Clinton, G.W. Bush and Obama. This book is of great use to specialists in International Relations – within International Political Economy, International Security and Foreign Policy Analysis, as well as students of US Politics.

What Good Is Grand Strategy?

What Good Is Grand Strategy? PDF

Author: Hal Brands

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2014-01-24

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0801470277

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Grand strategy is one of the most widely used and abused concepts in the foreign policy lexicon. In this important book, Hal Brands explains why grand strategy is a concept that is so alluring—and so elusive—to those who make American statecraft. He explores what grand strategy is, why it is so essential, and why it is so hard to get right amid the turbulence of global affairs and the chaos of domestic politics. At a time when "grand strategy" is very much in vogue, Brands critically appraises just how feasible that endeavor really is. Brands takes a historical approach to this subject, examining how four presidential administrations, from that of Harry S. Truman to that of George W. Bush, sought to "do" grand strategy at key inflection points in the history of modern U.S. foreign policy. As examples ranging from the early Cold War to the Reagan years to the War on Terror demonstrate, grand strategy can be an immensely rewarding undertaking—but also one that is full of potential pitfalls on the long road between conception and implementation. Brands concludes by offering valuable suggestions for how American leaders might approach the challenges of grand strategy in the years to come.

American Grand Strategy and National Security

American Grand Strategy and National Security PDF

Author: Michael Clarke

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783030301767

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This book explains the grand strategic behavior of the United States from the Founding of the Republic to the Trump administration. To do so, it employs a neoclassical realist framework to argue that, while systemic change explains the broad evolution of US grand strategy, the precise shape and content of the grand strategies pursued has been conditioned by domestic political culture and interests. The book argues that distinct political cultures of statecraft (Hamiltonian, Jeffersonian, Jacksonian, and Wilsonian) have acted as permissive filters through which policy-makers have interpreted and responded to systemic stimuli, making some grand strategy choices more likely than others in the pursuit of national security. In particular, this book demonstrates that the American pursuit of primacy was facilitated by the predominance from the mid-19th century onward of the extroverted and vindicationist Hamiltonian and Wilsonian forms of statecraft, which reached a peak of influence at the end of the Cold War. The grand strategic overreach of the George W. Bush administration, however, stimulated the resurgence of the long dormant, introverted, and exemplarist Jeffersonian and Jacksonian forms of statecraft under the Obama and Trump administrations, respectively resulting in grand strategies of "decline management" and decline "denial." Ultimately, the return of exemplarist sentiment suggests a breakdown in elite consensus about the nature and purpose of American power in the 21st century. Dr. Michael Clarke is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Defence Research, Australian Defence College, and Visiting Fellow at the Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney, Australia.

The End of Grand Strategy

The End of Grand Strategy PDF

Author: Simon Reich

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-01-15

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 1501714643

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In 'The End of Grand Strategy', Simon Reich and Peter Dombrowski challenge this common view. They eschew prescription in favour of describing and explaining what America's military actually does. They argue that each presidental administration inevitably resorts to each of the six variant of grand strategy that they implement simultaneously as a result of a series of fundamental recent changes - what they term 'calibrated strategies.' Reich and Dombrowski support their controversial argument by examining six major maritime operations, stretching from America's shores to every region of the globe. Each of these operations reflects one major variant of strategy. They conclude that grand strategy, as we know it, is dead.