War and Grand Strategy in the Age of American Hegemony

2021 ◽  
pp. 152-164
Author(s):  
Rebecca Lissner
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Future Research ◽  
American Hegemony ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Cross National

This chapter summarizes the main findings and conclusions of the book, discusses the cross-national generalizability of the informational theory of strategy adjustment, considers directions for future research, and reflects on the implications of this book for American foreign policy in the 2020s.

American Grand Strategy and Political Economy Theory

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Narizny
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Defense Spending ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
International Economy ◽  
Rust Belt ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
American Grand Strategy

Nearly everything a state does has distributional consequences, including grand strategy. Societal groups with different stakes in the international economy and defense spending often have conflicting strategic priorities, and these groups pursue their parochial interests by supporting the nomination and election of like-minded politicians. Thus, grand strategy is a product of political economy. An overview of American foreign policy over the last several decades illustrates this logic. In the 1980s, the Democratic and Republican coalitions had conflicting interests over the international economy, so the two parties diverged on grand strategy. The recovery of the Rust Belt in the 1990s and 2000s, however, brought increasing convergence. Political discourse over foreign policy was fiercely partisan, but, with the notable exception of George W. Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003, the two parties shared essentially the same view of America’s role in the world. The disastrous outcome in Iraq led the Bush administration back to the middle ground in its second term, and Obama followed the same course. In contrast, the election of Donald Trump augurs change. Trump’s electoral coalition consists of a different balance of interests in the international economy than that of past Republican presidents, so he is likely to pursue different strategic priorities.

scholarly journals Contemporary Problems of a “Grand Strategy” in the US Foreign Policy

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-39
Author(s):  
S. Kislitsyn
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Leadership ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Expert Community ◽  
Policy Elites

The research examines the main problems of a grand strategy in the US foreign policy. Attention is paid to the conceptual understanding of this term, its historical development, and the current state. The article analyzes the positions of American foreign policy elites and the expert community regarding the problem of the US self-positioning in the outside world. The article consists of three parts. The first analyses the main conceptual provisions of the “grand strategy” as a term. It describes its development from a military term, reflecting the general tactics in interstate confrontation to its comprehensive understanding as a coordination principle of long-term and medium-term goals with short term actions. The second part of the article focuses on the American foreign policy elites, their approaches, as well as public opinion on this issue. It is noted that the ideology of global leadership has become an important component of the establishment's thinking. It largely impedes the development of new foreign policy concepts and, as a result, reformatting the grand strategy. The third part is devoted to the positions of the expert community on the issue of grand strategy. Four main versions are considered: "Offensive", "Selective engagement", "Offshore Balancing", "Zero-sum". The author comes to a conclusion that the US foreign policy mixes several types of strategies at the moment. It is noted that as China strengthens, the United States faces a new competition, which, unlike the Soviet threat, implies not military-political, but economic confrontation. The implementation of the scenario of a "new Cold War" between Washington and Beijing can define the new goals of the grand strategy. At the same time, this also creates an ideological dilemma of recognizing a new challenge, an increasing alternative for American global leadership - the idea of which is still popular among representatives of American foreign policy elites.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Melvyn P. Leffler
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
National Security ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Democratic Capitalism ◽  
Perception Of Threat ◽  
The Individual

This introductory chapter chronicles how the author's study of American foreign policy over the decades gravitated toward an analysis of the meaning of national security. This was not intentional. It resulted from a long struggle to wrestle with evidence that led to attempts to synthesize the three levels of analysis that scholars of international relations often talk about: the individual, the domestic/state, and the international. By using the concept of national security, the author was able to analyze the motives shaping U.S. policymakers, examine their perception of threat and opportunity, assess their willingness to incur commitments and responsibilities abroad, study their readiness to employ military power, and gain an appreciation of how they saw the links between external configurations of power and the preservation of democratic capitalism at home. As the author embraced complexity, studied the evolving literature on grand strategy, and grappled with contingency, his empathy for the policymakers grew.

Latin American Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Below
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Latin American ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Future Research

Latin American foreign policy has drawn the attention of scholars since the 1960s. Foreign policy–related literature began to surge in the 1980s and 1990s, with a focus on both economic and political development. As development in the region lagged behind that of its northern neighbors, Latin American had to rely on foreign aid, largely from the United States. In addition to foreign aid, two of the most prevalent topics discussed in the literature are trade/economic liberalization and regional economic integration (for example, Mercosur and NAFTA). During and after the Cold War, Latin America played a strategic foreign policy role as it became the object of a rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union hoping to expand their power and/or contain that of the other. This role was also explored in a considerably larger body of research, along with the decision of Latin American nations to diversify their foreign relations in the post–Cold War era. Furthermore, scholars have analyzed different regions/countries that have become new and/or expanded targets of Latin American foreign policy, including the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Despite the substantial amount of scholarship that has accumulated over the years, a unified theory of Latin American foreign policy remains elusive. Future research should therefore focus on the development of a theory that incorporates the multiple explanatory variables that influence foreign policy formulation and takes into account their relative importance and the effects on each other.

Grand Strategy of the Master Class

2021 ◽  
pp. 106-122
Author(s):  
Matthew Karp
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Strategic Culture ◽  
Antebellum Era ◽  
Fugitive Slave

This chapter discusses the role of Southerners and slavery in US foreign policy from the antebellum era to the Civil War. Studies that explore slavery's specific impact on foreign policy have generally confined themselves to the ways that slaveholders worked to secure fugitive slave laws, enact restrictions on black sailors, or, at most, fight to add new slave states to the Union. However, the kind of domination that slaveholders desired went beyond the need to reinforce their narrow property rights, or even the desire to expand the amount of territory under slave cultivation. Antebellum slaveholders assumed national Cabinet posts to command the power of the entire United States, and then, crucially, to use that power to strengthen slavery in world politics. If grand strategy is “the intellectual architecture that gives form and structure to foreign policy,” slaveholding leaders were not merely provincial sectionalists but bold and cosmopolitan strategic thinkers. Their profound ideological commitment to slavery did not merely affect domestic politics within a divided republic; it left a deep imprint on the “strategic culture” of American foreign policy.

scholarly journals The Trump Divide and Partisan Attitudes Regarding US Foreign Policy: Select Theoretical and Empirical Observations

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shah M. Tarzi
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
American President ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Internal Coherence

This article presents select data, recent trends and empirical analysis concerning American voters’ attitudes on American foreign policy in the Trump era. Accordingly, it addresses several vital questions: (a) whether and to what extent Trump Republicans hold views that are distinct from non-Trump Republicans and from average US voters?; (b) how widespread is support for President Trump’s foreign policy?; and (c) whether partisanship has intensified? Importantly, the study deduces preliminary theoretical observations and highlights select new pathways for future research. The key findings of the article are: (a) Trump supporters hold distinct views from the general public; (b) President Trump’s positions are not popular; (c) partisanship has intensified under Trump; (d) on the broad contours of American foreign policy, the American public, including the non-Trump Republicans, express noteworthy continuity, stability and support in spite of a deeply polarizing American president. The article offers select theoretical insights, including recognition of the role of core value in ordering belief systems, thereby offering a modicum of internal coherence, stability and structure to foreign policy views of American mass public, thus transcending the traditional Almond–Lippmann theoretical consensus regarding the content of American public opinion.

scholarly journals Populism and foreign policy: An assessment and a research agenda

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-233
Author(s):  
Wouter Lammers ◽  
Michal Onderco
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Detailed Understanding ◽  
Future Research Agenda ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Cross National

Populist parties are often seen as a threat to liberal democracy domestically, and in the international arena, they are often accused of unwillingness to support a liberal international order. We study how what we know about foreign policy preferences of populist parties is driven by how we study the phenomenon; and how we can fix the shortcomings which exist in the literature. To sketch a future research agenda, we first conduct a systematic review of the literature on the foreign policy views of populist parties in Europe and investigate how what we know is driven by how we know it. We look at the themes of foreign policy, research methods, as well as the parties and countries in researchers' focus. Our findings indicate that skewed focus on particular countries and parties combined with a uniform use of methods contributes to a lack of detailed understanding of populist views on foreign policies. We propose future avenues of research into the foreign policy views of populist parties, including a diversification of methods and more in-depth empirical and cross-national studies on specific themes.

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