Grand Strategy Contending Contemporary Analyst Views and Implications for the U.S
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Grand Strategy Contending Contemporary Analyst Views and Implications for the U.S. Navy Elbridge Colby CRM D0025423.A2/Final November 2011 Strategic Studies is a division of CNA. This directorate conducts analyses of security policy, regional analyses, studies of political-military issues, and strategy and force assessments. CNA Strategic Studies is part of the global community of strategic studies institutes and in fact collaborates with many of them. On the ground experience is a hallmark of our regional work. Our specialists combine in-country experience, language skills, and the use of local primary-source data to produce empirically based work. All of our analysts have advanced degrees, and virtually all have lived and worked abroad. Similarly, our strategists and military/naval operations experts have either active duty experience or have served as field analysts with operating Navy and Marine Corps commands. 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All other Table of Contents Table of Contents...................................................................................................................... i Executive summary .................................................................................................................. 1 A grand strategy of hegemony .............................................................................................. 1 A grand strategy of selective engagement............................................................................. 2 A grand strategy of offshore balancing ................................................................................. 2 A grand strategy of integrating U.S. strategy into international collective efforts................ 3 Isolationism and world government ...................................................................................... 3 Conclusion............................................................................................................................. 3 Introduction............................................................................................................................. 5 Purpose .................................................................................................................................. 5 Methodology.......................................................................................................................... 6 The importance of grand strategy.......................................................................................... 8 The landscape of the debate................................................................................................... 9 Four candidate grand strategies............................................................................................ 11 A grand strategy of hegemony ............................................................................................ 11 A grand strategy of selective engagement........................................................................... 20 A grand strategy of offshore balancing ............................................................................... 26 A grand strategy of integration of U.S. strategy into international collective efforts ......... 31 Dark horse candidates: Isolationism and world government............................................... 38 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................ 41 Utility of strategy and strategic debate................................................................................ 41 Role of the Navy.................................................................................................................. 41 i Executive summary A “grand strategy” is an overarching plan to employ all elements of national power to advance and fulfill a state’s security-related objectives in the foreign sphere. At its core, a grand strategy outlines the objectives a state seeks, and provides guidance on how the state will achieve them. In early 2011, the Chief of Naval Operations’ Strategic and Planning Division (OPNAV N51) requested that CNA review the ongoing academic debate pertaining to possible evolutions in US grand strategy. Discussions on this issue have taken on renewed salience in recent years, in light of the rapidly changing strategic environment.1 Proposals for the most appropriate American grand strategy fall into four categories: hegemony, selective engagement, offshore balancing, and integration of American strategy into collective efforts. These categories differ markedly in their implications for the country, the U.S. armed forces, and the U.S. Navy. Two other categories—isolationism (an oft-mentioned contender in political debate), and world government—both provide intellectually coherent approaches to a grand strategy but are not serious candidates in the current discourse. A grand strategy of hegemony Proponents of a grand strategy of pursuing hegemony argue that the international system can be stable and American interests effectively safeguarded only if the United States seeks to attain and maintain hegemony—that is, if it has the ability and willingness to dominate other states and thus dictate the “rules of the road” of the international system. The military requirements of this strategy are extremely demanding, as it means that the United States must be able to defeat and impose its will on any individual or combination of states in any contingency. Critics of the strategy contend that it is unnecessarily ambitious and will either cause or accelerate America’s decline. The strategy would place significant demands upon the Navy and would logically require substantial funding for 1 For a report on one such recent discussion, see Michael Gerson and Alison Lawler Russell, American Grand Strategy and Seapower, CNA Research Memorandum D0025988.A2/Final, Nov 2011. 1 maritime forces; it would, however, also require very strong ground and air forces and thus would not necessarily privilege naval priorities. A grand strategy of selective engagement Advocates of a grand strategy of selective engagement contend that the United States should maintain a strong military position in regions of vital interest to Washington designed to ensure stability there on favorable terms to the United States, but should eschew the goal of hegemony. The military requirements for the grand strategy of selective engagement would be very substantial, though less so than those for a strategy of hegemony: U.S. forces in East Asia, Europe, and the Persian Gulf would need to be able to help defend threatened allies and deter and defeat aggression by adversaries or rivals. The Navy would see a continuation of its existing very substantial obligations to command the oceans and to provide assured access to and protection for the key regions of U.S. interest. Critics of the strategy attack it from two sides: advocates of hegemony argue that it would be insufficient to secure stability and American interests, while advocates of more restrained strategies contend that it would embroil the United States in unnecessary and draining conflicts. A grand strategy of offshore balancing Defenders of a grand strategy of offshore balancing argue for a more aloof approach