Rethinking Grand-Strategic Change

2021 ◽  
pp. 538-555
Author(s):  
Rebecca Lissner
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Change ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Definitive Answer ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
National Power ◽  
Grand Strategies ◽  
New Framework

Is the United States in the midst of a massive grand-strategic reorientation? IR scholarship cannot provide a definitive answer because the sources of grand-strategic change remain poorly understood. This chapter highlights the deficiencies of the existing literature and proposes a new framework for conceiving of and operationalizing grand strategy. This framework distinguishes between two levels of grand strategy. The first level is a state’s orientation toward the international system, while the second level examines subordinate levels of foreign policy behavior: assumptions about current and prospective threats and opportunities, and the availability and relative utility of the tools of national power. The chapter then illustrates how this framework advances the debate about grand-strategic change by setting up a distinction between grand-strategic overhauls (changes to grand strategy’s first level—or changes between grand strategies) and grand-strategic adjustments (changes to grand strategy’s second level—or changes within grand strategies). Theoretically, this distinction illuminates systemic shifts as a necessary but insufficient cause of overhaul, whereas adjustment results from more diverse causes. Empirically, this distinction permits a more nuanced treatment of the co-occurrence of continuity and change, as demonstrated in the chapter’s case study of US grand strategy in the early 1990s. Finally, the chapter concludes by discussing the implications for the future course of US grand strategy.

Strategy on the Upward Slope

2021 ◽  
pp. 456-473
Author(s):  
Joshua Shifrinson
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Upward Slope ◽  
Grand Strategies ◽  
The Rise Of China ◽  
Substantial Interest ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
New Framework

When a great power rises, what strategies does it adopt and why? Despite substantial interest in these questions due to concerns surrounding the rise of China and concomitant decline of the United States, research on rising state grand strategy remains underdeveloped. Not only do analysts lack a consistent way of describing how risers’ grand strategies vary, but insight into the drivers of rising state strategy remains inchoate. Accordingly, this chapter analyzes existing research, highlights the problems rising states confront in crafting grand strategy, advances a new framework for discussing strategy, and suggests avenues for future research.

The United States of America

2019 ◽  
pp. 25-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Dombrowski ◽  
Simon Reich
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
The United States ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Grand Strategies ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
American Grand Strategy

The study of American grand strategy is dominated by historians who describe former grand strategies, and international relations scholars who prescribe what it should be. In contrast to either approach, this chapter has three components: First, it identifies the national cultural influences, the key elements of the mythic “American Creed,” that provide the emblematic foundations of contemporary American grand strategy. Second, it describes the historical evolution of the institutional mechanisms that both formulate and implement American grand strategy, and how those institutions actually operate in the modern era. And third, relating these elements, it explains the parameters of American grand strategic planning—how it operates in practice. This includes an overt reliance on military instruments and a conscious sensitivity to field conditions in implementation that may undermine the most grand strategic designs. The chapter concludes by contemplating the prospects for continuity and change in American grand strategy.

Hegemonic instability: complex interdependence and the dynamics of financial crisis in the contemporary international system

2020 ◽  
pp. 135406612096704
Author(s):  
Heather Ba
Keyword(s):  
Financial Stability ◽  
International System ◽  
Banking System ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Banking ◽  
Complex Interdependence ◽  
The Us ◽  
National Power ◽  
International Power ◽  
Political Norms

International Relations scholars have long recognized the need to study the complex interdependencies of the international economy in order to understand the economic sources of national power and influence. Renewed interest in the patterns of international economic interdependencies and the structure of globalization has led scholars to a better, more empirically grounded understanding of the significance of complex interdependence for the evolution of international power. This paper examines the effect of one important and persistent characteristic of complex interdependence, American centrality within the international banking system, and argues that changes in the US financial cycle drive international financial volatility and crisis. These dynamics comprise the underbelly of American financial hegemony and pose a fundamental challenge to US leadership in the contemporary liberal international order. Financial stability is key to economic growth, which in turn perpetuates liberal political norms and institutions. Financial instability, on the other hand, breeds political discontent, which may take the form of populism or nationalism. The ability and willingness of the United States to reign in its own financial system may be key to ensuring that the liberal international system it established 75 years ago survives and thrives in the coming decades.

American neutral rights reappraised: identity or interest in the foreign policy of the early Republic?

2000 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 599-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES SOFKA
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Early American ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Relationship Of

This article analyses the early American commitment to maintaining its neutral rights from several theoretical perspectives. Rejecting recent constructivist interpretations as unsubstantiated by the empirical evidence, it concludes that early American leaders largely mirrored traditional eighteenth century mercantilist practices to suit the interests of the United States. In particular, Jefferson's ‘two-tiered’ approach to the international system was based on astringent calculations of power rather than prevailing notions of ‘republicanism’. This ideology, while manifest in partisan rhetoric, had little measurable impact on the conduct of early American neutral rights policy. By focusing on the relationship of theory and practice in this context, this article offers a case study of the role of norms and ideology in the shaping of foreign policy in a republican state.

Grand strategy in a post-bipolar world: interpreting the final Soviet response

1992 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 355-375
Author(s):  
Raymond Taras ◽  
Marshal Zeringue
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
International Environment ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Grand Strategies ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
Do So

All great powers have a grand strategy—including great powers on the verge of collapse. Each power develops its code of national security ends and means differently. Among the myriad factors which explain particular grand strategies, the most important consideration is the distribution of power capabilities in the international system. Regardless of each state's desire to operate independently—to be master of its own grand strategy—the structure of world politics offers little latitude to do so. As in the case of decision-making processes in organizations and bureaucracies, the international system imposes its own constraints and incentives on the security goals of individual states. Primarily addressing the international environment, however, systems theory ‘provides criteria for differentiating between stable and unstable political configurations.’ The first objective of this essay is to explore the role of structure as an indirect influence on the behaviour of its constituent actors, in this case, states. ‘The effects [of structure] are produced in two ways: through socialization of the actors and through competition among them.’

American Grand Strategy

2021 ◽  
pp. 447-458
Author(s):  
Fredrik Logevall
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
Grand Strategies ◽  
Containment Policy ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
American Grand Strategy

This chapter assesses how grand American grand strategy has been. If the containment followed by the United States in the Cold War is the most successful, or at least most celebrated, grand strategy the United States has ever pursued, it is worthy of a closer look. This chapter considers two foundational writings from the early Cold War: George Kennan's “X” Article, published in Foreign Affairs in 1947 (under the pseudonym “X”), which laid out the containment policy—that is to say, the containment of Soviet power—and National Security Council Memorandum 68 (NSC-68) of April 1950. Both of these documents are held to have played major roles in shaping the grand strategy that helped the United States deal successfully with the Soviet threat and ultimately win the Cold War. Each has indeed been referred to as the “blueprint” for US policy in the struggle. The chapter then addresses a second question: How much does grand strategy matter in the context of American history? History suggests that grand strategies do not alter the trajectory of great-power politics all that much. In the case of the United States, even radically imperfect strategies have not fundamentally affected its rise and fall.

The Benefits of Alliances

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakub J. Grygiel ◽  
A. Wess Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International System ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
The United States ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Important Benefit ◽  
Global Reach

This chapter assesses the benefits of frontier alliances for the United States both historically and today. The most important benefit that the United States derives from alliances is through their use as tools of geopolitical management that enhance its ability to compete against other states. For the United States as a maritime power of global reach, using forward-deployed alliances in the rimlands of Eurasia is a cost-effective tool for managing the international system that is preferable to the strategic alternatives now being presented for U.S. foreign policy. From this emerges the main imperative of U.S. grand strategy: to prevent the emergence of a power or combination of powers within the Eurasian landmass that could invade or economically dominate the United States. America has three basic options for how it does so: direct containment, retreat and reentry, and alliances.

Comparative Grand Strategy

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Global System ◽  
Regional Powers ◽  
Convergence And Divergence

The study of grand strategy has historically been confined to a few great powers—preponderantly, the United States, China, and Russia. In contrast, this volume introduces readers to the novel field of “comparative grand strategy.” Its co-editors offer a framework that expands the analysis beyond a traditional rationalist approach to incorporate significant cultural factors that influence strategists as they prioritize threats and opportunities in the global system. This framework then combines these factors with domestic political influences often understated or overlooked in the international relations literature. It considers both how grand strategy is actually formulated and the varied instruments used to implement it. Applying this framework, the volume’s remaining contributors then examine how grand strategy is conceived, formulated, and implemented by ten states. These consist of the United Nations G5 members and five other states “pivotal” to global or regional economic development and security. This group is composed of Brazil and India—two regional powers operating in very different security environments—and Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, who confront each other in a truly existential conflict. Departing from a state-based analysis, an eleventh case study examines the European Union—an organization that lacks many of the trappings of a conventional state but which is able to call upon more resources than most. The volume’s concluding chapter points to both the theoretical and empirical areas of convergence and divergence highlighted by these chapters, and the prospective questions for future analysis in the emergent field of comparative grand strategy.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Christopher McKnight Nichols ◽  
Andrew Preston
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Strategic Culture ◽  
Interconnected System ◽  
National Values ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Grand Strategies ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Relationship Of

This introductory chapter provides an overview of grand strategy. Grand strategy is best understood as a holistic and interconnected system of power, encompassing all aspects of society in pursuit of international goals “based on the calculated relationship of means to ends.” It is not simply about winning wars or attaining specific foreign-policy objectives, important as these priorities are; it is not only an answer to the question of what power is meant to achieve. Grand strategy is also about creating a durable peace that follows a war and then maintaining the stability of that peace long after the war has faded into a distant memory. It is—for the United States especially, with its global ambitions, widespread commitments, and enormous capabilities in all forms of power—about trying to shape world conditions so as to ensure the protection of national security and the flourishing of national values. The chapter then studies the grand strategies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Ultimately, this book argues for the relevance and usefulness of grand strategy, and builds on the concept of strategic culture.

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