The Clinton administration was the first to project this imbalance as it focused heavily on domestic policy (i.e., the first principle) but with minimal cases of action guided by the second principle of restraining sources of disorder. His administration arguably was more successful with the third principle of building strong alliances (e.g., NATO expansion) but this policy saw multilateralism used as a catchphrase more than as an essential instrument for articulating and implementing a shared grand strategy, as we saw in the West during the Cold War. After 9/11, President Bush shifted to the second principle of confronting sources of disorder (i.e., terrorism). With his policies, he elevated the second principle of restraining sources of disorder above the other two principles—building foundations of power and sharing burdens with other states and institutions—while simultaneously calling for a crusade against the ideology of terrorism and tyranny rather than simply fighting against a specific enemy, Al Qaeda, and its direct sponsors. President Obama is once again shifting this balance, but the question is: Can he avoid the problem of over-correction? Will he swing back to the first principle by implementing a foreign policy that largely deemphasizes the necessity of the second and third principles?[6] A central argument in this study is that presidential administrations must balance between these principles but cannot run the risk of overemphasizing one principle over the others. The world is too complex and the relationship between domestic and foreign policy is too close for one principle to dominate to the exclusion of the others.

Moving from Traditions to Principles

These traditions in American grand strategy served the nation well in the past and should form the basis for principles that will help guide the next generation of U.S. policymakers.[7] Indeed, one challenge in the 21st century is how to build on these traditions in ways that make sense for the world that we confront today. We cannot throw out these traditions because they are too deeply embedded in our political culture, people, and institutions. Nor can we blindly follow them because they arose out of a different time. One question is how do we take what is best from these traditions so that they become an asset in American foreign policy decision-making, while another question is how do we discard what is outdated or reactionary.

These three traditions are embedded in what scholars define as American political culture, yet American grand strategists rarely articulate them explicitly.[8] This is the case for several reasons. First, tracing of the evolution of American grand strategy in Part II outlines the extent to which American grand strategy is not something created by a few select foreign policy elites behind closed doors. In American diplomatic history, we see that the nation’s grand strategy has been formed as much through, by, and for the people as it has been by Washington politicians. American grand strategy is a collective endeavor, a constant process of articulation and re-articulation as the American public senses what is consistent with its own values and traditions. Grand strategy is governed by the nation’s surrounding political culture, particularly in a democracy.

The second reason is that these traditions operate across multiple presidential administrations. No one president can articulate and implement a grand strategy. Containment, for example, was not solely a Truman, Eisenhower, or Johnson grand strategy, but it was a grand strategy that guided the deliberations of the eight Cold War presidents, from Truman to Reagan. One of its greatest strengths was providing specific and consistent guidance to inform the foreign policy of successive administrations, while also providing the flexibility to compensate for varying problems and shifting emphases policies that occurred across those administrations. Eisenhower emphasized the limits imposed by economic costs on national security policy, while Kennedy expanded the range of strategic tools available to respond to Soviet expansion, and Nixon moved to exploit the Sino-Soviet split. Each president had a different angle but they all worked toward the same goal. Grand strategy, then, is not something that can be found in one document drafted under one president, but it is, so to speak, a living document that is constantly evolving in response to events and personalities.

Lastly, the third reason these traditions are more implicit and unstated is historical in nature. The United States is still so young relative to many other great powers. Unlike states whose institutions and traditions trace back for centuries if not millennia, the United States is still in the throes of forming the traditions that will govern its grand strategy.

In practice, these implicit traditions should become conscious and explicit principles of American foreign policy because they are invaluable in forming the basis of a coherent grand strategy. For American policymakers to convert these traditions into principles, they must become more aware of and heed the lessons of American diplomatic history. They also must be willing to leave behind the ideal of emulating containment, which was and remains a grand strategy that remains, as a product of the Nuclear Era, largely a historical anomaly. At present, the structure of the international system is no longer bipolar while the threats do not connect in a pervasive or systematic sense to one adversary. In the history of American grand strategy, the threats are more often myriad in a largely multipolar world. The better model on which to guide the articulation and implementation of grand strategy may be to draw from the period between the founding of the republic in the late 18th century and the early 20th century.

As the United States looks to the future, a reevaluation of its grand strategy is in order. As these shifts in the global order continue to cascade upon each other, there are many questions that the society and its policymakers can no longer avoid. How should the United States move to articulate a grand strategy for managing a world that shows signs of increasing disorder? What choices should this society make in order to create order out of the emerging chaos? Answering these and other questions is the central challenge if today’s policymakers want to ensure peace, freedom, and security. Today, the United States lacks a strategic framework within which to answer these critical questions that, to cut to the heart of the matter, define its role in world, what the nation seeks to achieve, and how to bring that role into balance with the nation’s resources and public will. Above all else, American society needs to answer one basic question: what principles should govern U.S. policy in an increasingly unstable world? What, in effect, should America’s grand strategy be today?

But before turning to these questions, the next section discusses the evolution of grand strategy as America emerged from the Cold War, the very different world that we confront today, and the lack of solid principles to address effectively current threats to international peace and security. While the current void in American grand strategy is palpable, how to move forward with a new vision is an area marked by contending ideas among scholars and policymakers.          

Consensus on Problem, Disagreement on Solution

Demise of Containment

While grand strategy has undoubtedly required a makeover since the end of the Cold War, American grand strategy since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as examined in earlier chapters, is dramatically less coherent. The strategy of containment was replaced by a series of episodic and reactionary grand strategies as successive administrations attempted to develop compelling principles to guide American foreign policy. The Cold War period, as examined in this study, was atypical for the deep consensus in American society and among its allies on the overall direction of the nation’s grand strategy. Consequently, a defining feature of the Cold War was that the United States and its allies debated less about the ultimate ends of grand strategy and more about the details of implementation.

In the absence of clear and decisive threats along the lines that societies faced during the Cold War, the once-solid organizing principles of grand strategy simply are no longer relevant or useful. Policymakers now face a world characterized by vastly greater unpredictability, often colored by the false belief that the risks are so low and dispersed among many global actors that the world is somehow less dangerous.

The inescapable conclusion, however, is that the old grand strategy of containment no longer fits our world. Where it once worked, containment no longer aligns with how the modern world is organized politically and economically. Simply put, it no longer offers practical guidance in a highly interconnected global economy in which states do not face a singular ideological threat. What has replaced the clear-cut nuclear deterrence balance between countries is a wide range of inchoate and uncertain risks that emanate from both unstable states and non-state actors alike.

Despite the need for organized and coherent principles for confronting a rapidly changing world, there is no such consensus within the United States on the importance of thinking about grand strategy.[9] This is a dangerous development, given the sources of disorder in the world. The United States has adopted policies that rely on the residue of containment or on piecemeal and halfhearted responses to challenges, while the nation on occasion has a propensity to ignore challenges altogether. Take the war currently raging in Syria, or the rapidly evolving chaos of the Arab Spring movements, as prime examples. Now more than ever, if the nation is going to act decisively and effectively, American policymakers must develop coherent principles that provide guidance and consensus on the challenges posed by the modern world and how the nation should navigate in its foreign policy.