To call these three principles a grand strategy, of course, is not to say that they explain everything that the Obama administration has done, or that these ideas are flawlessly correct or cohesive. What it means is that these principles have generally anchored the administration’s thinking about big-picture global issues, that they cut across key strategy documents and policy statements, they relate to one another in fairly coherent ways, and their influence can be seen across a broad range of actual initiatives. That is the essence of grand strategy—or at the very least, it indicates that there are grand-strategic concepts guiding American actions.

Is It a Good Grand Strategy?

At a broad level of analysis, this set of strategic principles makes a great deal of sense. It's undeniable that the post–Cold War order has been very good to the United States, and that America should want to maintain that order well into the future. It’s certainly correct to judge that the rise of China as a potential peer challenger is the most significant strategic problem that Washington faces over the long term, and that if the United States seeks to play the long game—which is what grand strategy is all about—then its geographical priorities have to shift accordingly.

The Obama administration’s general emphasis on strategic restraint also has its strengths. The administration was certainly accurate in assessing that there was a degree of American strategic overstretch in 2008-2009, that avoiding huge mistakes is a worthwhile objective in its own right, and that the costs of American engagement have to be made bearable if that engagement is to be sustained over the long-term. Indeed, given the downward trajectory of the American defense budget and other resource limitations that the country currently faces, this emphasis on prudence seems quite compelling. On the surface, then, Obama’s grand strategy seems altogether quite reasonable.

This is the upside of American grand strategy today—that there are grand-strategic principles anchoring U.S. policy, and that those principles have a good deal to be said on their behalf. The downside, however, is that grand strategies can be both reasonable and problematic. And that, unfortunately, is certainly the case here.

Obama’s grand strategy may be plausible enough, but it also carries within it five important problems and dilemmas. Some of these issues reflect the way that the strategy has been implemented; some are inherent to the strategy itself; and some have to do with factors that policy makers can’t fully control. Viewed collectively, however, these five dilemmas raise some fairly serious questions about the prospects of American grand strategy going forward.

No Rhetorical “Oomph”

The first dilemma, which was clearly apparent from the president’s West Point speech in May, is that this strategy simply lacks rhetorical punch. Preserving the status quo and avoiding big mistakes are worthy objectives, but there’s nothing stirring or sexy about them. To put it another way, “Don’t do stupid sh*t” is not an inspiring rally cry.

This may seem like a minor quibble, or a problem that can easily be solved through better rhetoric, but it is neither. All grand strategies rest on a foundation of domestic support, and domestic support is easier to come by when presidents can describe their strategies in terms that are intuitively appealing to Americans who don’t spend much time thinking about foreign affairs. And all things being equal, strategies that can be justified in terms of achieving some great goal or defeating some massive, overriding danger tend to sell better than those that can’t.

This was something that the Clinton administration discovered when it was seeking to devise a post–Cold War grand strategy in the 1990s, and it is something that the Obama administration is learning at present. A risk-averse, status-quo-preserving grand strategy is likely to be a rhetorically and politically punchless grand strategy, and this constitutes a first key dilemma for American officials today.

Means and Ends

A second and even more difficult dilemma is that while the ends of American grand strategy are generally sound, the means simply may not be there anymore. In other words, the objectives of preserving American primacy and sustaining the post–Cold War order are valuable ones, but they are endangered by the climate of fiscal austerity in which the country increasingly finds itself.

This dilemma stems from the fact that the goal of preserving the favorable post–Cold War environment rests on having not just the world’s strongest military, but one that is dramatically stronger than its rivals’ militaries, and one that is so strong that it can shape events and maintain stability in regions around the world. That being the case, it is difficult to avoid worrying about whether this aspect of U.S. strategy will continue to be feasible if the defense budget remains on its current trajectory. Even existing budget cuts are forcing shifts in the defense strategy outlined as recently as 2012, and they are raising questions about whether there is any military substance to the Asia pivot. If the cuts go deeper and subsequent rounds of sequestration hit, these problems will only worsen, and the means-ends gap will continue to grow.

To be clear, the United States will not soon find itself in the position of having the second-strongest military in the world; but it could discover that it has jeopardized the margin of dominance that makes American grand strategy viable. Reconciling means and ends is always a central dilemma of grand strategy, and it is one that is particularly pronounced today.

Europe and the Pivot

The ends-means gap relates to a third dilemma, which has to do with the question of how a less-tranquil European security environment may complicate the Asia pivot in the years ahead. A central premise of the pivot—if an often-unstated one—was that Europe was a basically stable and peaceful region, and that it could therefore be treated as a relative economy of force by American planners. That premise, in turn, was based on the notion that relations between the United States and Russia would remain fairly calm and productive.

Needless to say, both of these judgments are becoming hard to sustain. It is impossible to predict how events in Kiev and Moscow will unfold in the coming months and years, but there is already an increased sense of insecurity hanging over Eastern Europe, and U.S.-Russian relations have become more explicitly competitive than at any time since the Cold War. This does not mean that the United States will be going back to Cold War-levels of military commitment to Europe, but it is already forcing American officials to reconsider what level and form of commitment will be necessary to maintain the climate of reassurance and stability that Washington has grown accustomed to having on that continent.

To the extent that more resources and attention are needed—and they very well may be—it will only become more difficult to square the imperatives of the Asia pivot with the requirements of security and stability in other key regions. Grand strategy invariably entails difficult tradeoffs across geographic priorities; in the current environment, those tradeoffs may be getting even harder for American strategists to make.

Pivoting from Strength or Weakness?

The fourth key dilemma—and one that pertains chiefly to the Middle East—is that it matters how the United States pivots from one theater to another. There is little question that U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has been less productive than many Americans hoped, or that reducing that involvement was and remains essential to refocusing on the Asia-Pacific over the long term.

It is also true, however, that a pivot that consolidates existing gains is stronger than one that undermines them by refocusing too quickly. And so one of the trickiest aspects of the Obama grand strategy has been—and continues to be—balancing the need to reduce military exposure in the Middle East with the need to do so in ways that do not convey weakness or undercut progress made to date.

This was never going to be an easy balance to strike, but in implementing its grand strategy, this administration has not struck it nearly as well as it might have. Looking back at the Iraq drawdown (and the more recent unraveling of that country), or looking at the Afghanistan drawdown today, it is hard to argue that this administration has made—or even tried hard enough to make—those incremental investments that might protect the stability that was gained along the way. And that is a real source of tension within the Obama grand strategy, because if the United States exits the Middle East and Southwest Asia in ways that encourage instability rather than stability, it will only undermine its own ability to be effective in other regions. Thriving in one theater means getting out of another in relatively good order, which is a fourth dilemma of current American strategy.

Overreach and Underreach

All of these issues tie into a fifth and final dilemma, which is that “underreach” can ultimately be as dangerous as overreach. Grand strategy is about calibrating the use of power—using it energetically enough to be effective, but not so hyperactively as to be draining or self-defeating. The Obama administration is certainly attuned to the second half of this challenge, for it clearly recognizes the value of strategic prudence, and it understands that a period of erring on the side of discretion was probably warranted after the experiences of the past decade.