The Promise and Pitfalls of Grand Strategy
Abstract
This monograph offers a critical examination of the idea and utility of "grand strategy." The concept is very much in vogue these days, with commentators of all stripes invoking it in one way or another. But what the term actually means often remains unclear, and discussions of the issue too often muddle or obscure more than they illuminate. The purpose of this monograph, therefore, is to provide a more precise understanding of the meaning, importance, and challenges of American grand strategy -- not to recommend any single grand strategy that the U.S. Government should follow, but to illuminate the promise and limitations of grand strategy as a national endeavor. To this end, the monograph addresses three principal tasks. First, it offers a general discussion of what grand strategy actually is, and why it is simultaneously so essential and so difficult to do. Second, it further fleshes out these issues by revisiting the doing of grand strategy at key inflection points in the history of U.S. foreign policy -- during the Harry Truman years of the early Cold War, and during the Richard Nixon/ Gerald Ford/Henry Kissinger years between 1969 and 1977. Third, this monograph offers several basic suggestions for how U.S. policymakers might approach grand strategy as an intellectual and geopolitical pursuit.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA565486
Entities
People
- Hal Brands
Organizations
- United States Army War College