The United States as an Offshore Balancer: How the Limits to the Amount of Geography That Technology Can Overcome Should Inform America's Grand Strategy

Abstract

This essay builds on Mearsheimer's description of U.S. grand strategy that led to the decisions to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. Global dominance, which uses unilateral action, is inherently flawed as it fails to respect the rule of self-determination and cultural geography as described by Collins and Kaplan. Offshore balancing respects the limits to the amount of physical geography that American technology and power can overcome and more adequately takes into account the tetra-decagonal complexity of cultural geography by working multilaterally through alliances and positioning U.S. forces over the horizon. Friedberg's maritime denial and distant blockade are offered as offshore balancing options.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 29, 2016
Accession Number
AD1176371

Entities

People

  • Peter C Tunis

Organizations

  • Marine Corps University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Foreign Policy
  • Geography
  • Governments
  • History
  • Middle East
  • Military Geography
  • Military Operations
  • Mobile Phones
  • National Security
  • New York
  • Physical Geography
  • Security
  • South China Sea
  • Special Forces
  • Terrorism
  • United States
  • Warfare

Readers

  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • Strategic Security Studies