The Future of American Grand Strategy

Foreign policy is a continuous process, and in the last few weeks we have discussed the intellectual frameworks that are used and the structural stakeholders in the American foreign policy process (see here and here). This week we will assess foreign policy going forward as the Republic is currently debating the appropriate grand strategy for the 21st century. American grand strategy can broadly be broken up into three previous iterations: the Founding to World War II, the Cold War, and Unipolar Moment. At America’s Founding, the young Republic did not have sufficient economic and military power for any grand strategy beyond that of restraint. When World War II lead to the Cold War, it showed isolationism was no longer a functional grand strategy to manage the threat of the Soviet Union. After America's victory in the Cold War, the United States took on its Unipolar Moment and engaged in aggressively spreading liberalism in the belief this would lead to "peace."

The Great Recession, Iraq war, rise of China, Russia's illegal war in Ukraine, rapid technological development, the pandemic, etc. over the last 15 years have moved geopolitics into a new era, and the United States as the world's only superpower (right now) will have to decide on the future of its grand strategy to manage the problems of this century. There are four possibilities that the US could take: Liberal Internationalism, Strategic Competition, Restraint, and Strategic Primacy. Whatever the US decides will determine the direction of international relations and geopolitics for decades to come.

Liberal Internationalism

Liberal Internationalism is considered the dominant view of grand strategy within government, academia, and think tanks, and the fundamental concepts can be traced back to President Woodrow Wilson and the advent of international institutions. However, the fundamentals of the view stem from Immanuel Kant’s “perpetual peace” and the belief that markets, international institutions, and democracy can significantly mitigate conflict. President Trump is the only real exception to this grand strategy in the last fifty years, and it still frames most foreign policy conversations. As a grand strategy, Liberal Internationalism focuses on achieving multilateral agreements (regional and global), supporting and upholding rules-based order, and promoting liberal democracy at every opportunity (via civil society, foreign aid, anti-corruption campaigns, etc.). Military intervention under Liberal Internationalism is not about stability or balance of power, but rather it is for primarily humanitarian reasons and only as a last resort (e.g., to stop genocide).

Strategic Competition

The grand strategy of Strategic Competition recognizes that US global hegemony has waned and that the return of multipolarity means that the Republic needs to focus on great power competition at the expense of several others possible priorities. Essentially, this grand strategy recognizes that even the United States cannot be all things because of limited resources and so it is most important to manage the competition with great powers like China. China is axiomatically the most important in this grand strategy because it is the only true peer competitor, and the CCP continues to pursue regional hegemony, power projection capabilities in the Indian Ocean, and deeper ties with Latin America. There are a few possible versions of this competition, much like the debate at the beginning of the Cold War when the United States sought to contain the Soviet Union. What “containment” means depends on the person advocating it, but the essential elements remain relatively constant because the goal is to prevent China from being a revisionist power that upsets the global balance of power. Importantly, this grand strategy does not reject all of the tenets of Liberal Internationalism, but it does place great power competition at the center of its strategic considerations.

Restraint

America has always had an isolationist streak because of its insulation from the rest of the world. Only two countries border the United States, and neither one is capable of threatening the security of the Republic. Also, two vast oceans historically prevented other countries from having successful power projection capabilities to the threaten America. This isolationism dominated American grand strategy until after World War II, and it is why the US did not enter World War I or II until later than other countries, specifically after being directly harmed or attacked. Now some see this as a better option for an American grand strategy, and we now see a resurgence in what is called the grand strategy of Restraint because of decades of military intervention that have come to naught.

Professor Barry Posen (a Restraint advocate) put it as such, “The United States has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on unnecessary military preparations and unnecessary wars, billions that it can no longer afford. The wars have needlessly taken the lives of thousands of U.S. military personnel and hurt many thousands more.” Such a grand strategy would revert the US back to its pre-Cold War posture and would require the country to “adopt a more cooperative approach toward other powers, reduce the size of its military and forward military presence, and end or negotiate some of its security commitments.” Essentially, Restraint is an approach that emphasizes diplomacy to resolve conflicts with only the use of force for “vital interests,” and it would leave much of the rest of the world to fend for itself.

Strategic Primacy (Liberal Hegemony)

The final possible grand strategy is Strategic Primacy in which the US deliberately pursues global hegemony to maintain a global balance of power, eliminate possible threats, and promote liberal values (when possible). In this grand strategy, the US would prioritize having the military capabilities to defeat any other state and provide security guarantees to its allies. In addition, the US would lead the rules-based international order and enforce the rules as necessary. Critical to this grand strategy is deep commitments in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia because these are the quintessential regions for global stability due to great power competition, economic and resource importance, and consistent threats emanating from them. This grand strategy requires the United States to keep a forward presence in much of the world to have power projection capabilities in every strategic region, and it means being deeply connected to an alliance network (NATO, the Quad, SEATO, etc.).

The Problems of Grand Strategy

Each grand strategy option has costs and benefits to both the United States and the international order, and it is important to understand the problems that each one will face.

Liberal Internationalism would attempt to maintain the status quo in US foreign policy, but the real problem with this grand strategy is that it has a teleological understanding of world history and rejects the basic nature of humanity. Despite the US adhering to this grand strategy for decades, it has proved relatively useless at achieving its aims. Democracy is in retreat, markets have not halted conflict, and international institutions like the UN are corrupt and impotent. It is a sentimentalist approach to international relations rooted in the idea that if one simply hopes enough for a better future then it is possible. Finally, the evidence in support of Liberal Internationalism is generally based on profoundly flawed assumptions about the world. Take for example the “democratic peace theory” that argues democracies have never gone to war with each other. While technically true, the explanatory variables and hypotheses as to why are fundamentally weak within the theory. Better explanations exist (e.g., shared perceptions of threats, lack of time, European-centric); if those better explanations are true, then Liberal Internationalism has no real foundation.

Strategic Competition and Restraint have many of the same problems together. By making China and great power competition the primary focus, Strategic Competition deprioritizes other issues in the world, but long term that can lead to many difficulties. The Cold War showed what happens when the United States focused solely on the Soviet Union and did not take other issues into consideration. Coups in the Middle East and Latin America, proxy wars in Africa and Asia, supporting authoritarian regimes, and interventions that came to nothing all caused future problems for the United States even though the short-term goal of ending the evil empire was successful. This is not to say that the United States should not have taken every action necessary to secure its interests, but the myopia of the Cold War strategy created problems that America is still trying to manage today. A broader and more long-term view could have been imminently helpful.

Restraint has similar problems. There are realist and progressive restrainers who oppose the application of American power, but both versions absolutely misunderstand global politics. Revisionist powers, for example, will not be assuaged because the US does not directly intervene. Now, restrainers will retort that even if revisionist powers upend regional stability, that is still not the concern of the US. However, this ignores the interdependence of the international order, and what happens in one corner invariably impacts the other corners. Although the example is often used to exaggeration, it is still true that World War II could have been prevented if Western powers had not taken a restrained approach with the rise of the Nazis. That is the biggest example, but it is far from the only one in history. Relatedly, the restrainers also exaggerate the ability to re-militarize should there be another revisionist power like Nazi Germany. It took the United States several years to reach military capacity in World War II, and another threat like that (i.e., China) would be beyond devastating if America has to take years to prepare itself after war begins.

The Only Real Option...

There is only one real option for the United States when it comes to grand strategy in the 21st century, and that is Strategic Primacy. The world faces a myriad of problems that can descend into war at a moment’s notice, and the interdependence of the global economy means disruptions anywhere can have harmful impacts to the Republic. Because the world is moving towards multipolarity as well, the United States needs to be prepared to confront and contain any number of possible threats. In addition, there are no alternatives to America if the West wants to keep a rules-based international order and global balance of power. Europe is too weak to challenge them, has a declining population, and the continent’s military capabilities are anemic. No other country has the financial resources, industrial base, ingenuity, population, and military capabilities to confront and contain the likes of Chinese totalitarianism or Russian revisionism. This grand strategy comes with costs, such as having to fund a sufficient military and having other parts of the world hate American hegemony, but those costs are worth upholding the international order and stability because they bring the greatest benefits to the Republic.