New Perspectives on American Grand Strategy New Perspectives on Colin Dueck American Grand Strategy a Review Essay

New Perspectives on American Grand Strategy New Perspectives on Colin Dueck American Grand Strategy A Review Essay

Robert J. Art, A Grand Strategy for America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003) G. John Ikenberry, ed., America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002) Charles A. Kupchan, The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-ªrst Century (New York: Knopf, 2002) Henry R. Nau, At Home Abroad: Identity and Power in American Foreign Policy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002) Joseph S. Nye Jr., The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) Shortly after the end of the Cold War, a number of leading structural realists such as Kenneth Waltz, John Mearsheimer, and Christopher Layne predicted that America’s “unipolar moment” was likely to be short lived.1 Drawing on traditional balance of power theory, they suggested that America’s unparalleled status as the world’s only superpower would soon trigger widespread counterbalancing on the part of other major states. The policy implication was that Americans ought to play down their hegemonic pretensions and accommodate the inevitable transition toward a multipolar world order. Not only was a certain degree of strategic disengagement a policy prescription: It was the structural realist prediction for American grand strategy in the post–Cold War era. One decade later, a multipolar world order has yet to appear. Granted, American foreign policy is widely resented abroad, and other countries are de-

Colin Dueck is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

1. Christopher Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise,” International Security, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Spring 1993), pp. 5–51; John J. Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Summer 1990), pp. 5–56; and Kenneth N. Waltz, “The Emerging Structure of International Politics,” International Security, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Fall 1993), pp. 44–79.

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veloping new techniques with which to frustrate American preponderance.2 Yet great power balancing, in the traditional sense, has not occurred since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and neither has the United States disengaged from its forward presence overseas. Instead, American forces are engaged in a remarkably ambitious project of nation building in Iraq, and the George W. Bush administration has openly adopted a national security strategy that centers on the assumption of American primacy. Clearly, structural realist predictions of American decline or disengagement were premature. But the basic issue of an appropriate grand strategy for the United States remains unsettled. For more than ten years now, America has oc- cupied a unique position in the international system as the world’s predomi- nant power. There is simply no precedent in the modern era for the successful exercise of worldwide, comprehensive, hegemonic inºuence on the part of any single state. Some observers feel that the United States cannot sustain such a role without either provoking great resistance or overextending its own re- sources.3 Others argue that this is precisely the moment to lock in a stable, liberal international order through the vigorous assertion of American power.4 The question arises as to how the United States can best promote its interests, as well as its values, internationally, without falling into the self-defeating behavior of so many previous would-be hegemons. A cluster of recent books take up this question, shedding light on three inter- related conceptual issues. First, how can we use international relations theory to explain and predict patterns of adjustment in American grand strategy? Can realist variables such as the international distribution of power account for the basic outlines? Or are variables such as national identity and the density of international institutions actually a crucial inºuence on U.S. strategic behavior? Second, beyond the current war on terror, what sort of grand strategy would best serve American interests? What strategy would best serve American values? And third, is there something about America’s distinctive use of liberal norms and institutions that allows the United States immunity from balance of

2. See, for example, Thomas J. Christensen, “Posing Problems without Catching Up: China’s Rise and Challenges for U.S. Security Policy,” International Security, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Spring 2001), pp. 5– 40. 3. Christopher Layne, “Offshore Balancing Revisited,” Washington Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Spring 2002), pp. 233–248; and Jack Snyder, “Imperial Temptations,” National Interest, No. 71 (Spring 2003), pp. 29–40. 4. Zalmay Khalilzad, “Losing the Moment? The United States and the World after the Cold War,” Washington Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Spring 1995), pp. 87–107; and Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment Revisited,” National Interest, No. 70 (Winter 2002/03), pp. 5–17.

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power logic? Might the United States, through a liberal internationalist grand strategy, avoid the fate of previous empires? Or is such a strategy an exercise in self-delusion? In this essay, I compare and contrast a number of recent books on American grand strategy and evaluate their collective contribution to the ªeld. In doing so, I suggest that there has been a signiªcant shift in our understanding of America’s strategic options, for among these authors, realists and liberals alike agree that great power counterbalancing against the United States is by no means inevitable and can in fact be prevented through the use of careful strategic choices. At the same time, I suggest some dangers in this new consensus. I also suggest that in spite of a rich offering of policy prescriptions, we still have only a very incomplete sense of how and why American grand strategy actually changes.

The Liberal Superpower

The structural realist post–Cold War prediction was that other major powers would arise and form counterbalancing coalitions against the United States. America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power is a collection of essays, ed- ited by John Ikenberry, on the subject of how and why this prediction has failed to come true.5 The essays fall into two broad schools of thought, liberal and realist, although there are important differences within each camp. The liberal view, as articulated by Ikenberry himself, is that American hegemony has persisted—at least until now—because of the distinctly restrained and institutionalized nature of American diplomacy. Ikenberry fears that the Bush administration has departed from this tradition of self-restraint. But he suggests that insofar as America has avoided the fate of other hegemons, it has been because of the multilateral and self-binding nature of its foreign policy.6 According to Ikenberry, the United States has traditionally been a reluctant hegemon, uninterested in playing the role of empire. Its political system is open and transparent, offering other nations a direct voice in the formation of foreign policy. And the postwar, American-led order has been highly institutionalized. The global institutions created by Americans in the 1940s helped to

5. G. John Ikenberry, ed., America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002). 6. Ikenberry, “Democracy, Institutions, and American Restraint,” in Ikenberry, America Unrivaled, pp. 213–238.

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encourage cooperation and overcome the fear of exploitation on the part of other countries. These institutions have bound not only America’s allies, but the United States itself; thus, other nations have had less reason to fear Ameri- can power.7 Similar arguments are laid out in essays by John Owen and Thomas Risse. According to Owen, transnational liberal elites worldwide identify with the United States and view it as essentially benign.8 Where these elites hold ofªce, as in Western Europe and Japan, governments see no reason to counterbalance American hegemony. Only in China is there a clear case of a major power in which the forces of political liberalism are weak. For Risse, the roots of great power peace go even deeper. Certainly within the Western world, and even beyond it, conditions of deep interdependence, together with a profound sense of shared values, have created a security community in which war has become quite literally unthinkable.9 The realist authors in America Unrivaled, predictably, look to international conditions rather than America’s domestic norms or institutions for clues as to the future of American hegemony. But interestingly, the realists reach radically different conclusions from one another. For Kenneth Waltz, the answer is essentially the same as it was ten years ago: Unipolarity is untenable, other great powers will soon begin to balance against the United States, and it is only a matter of time.10 A very different and more convincing realist perspective comes from the essay by William Wohlforth. According to Wohlforth, it is precisely international conditions that prevent any balance of power from forming against the United States, because the United States is simply too powerful to be balanced. Other nations realize the futility of attempting to do so and instead jump on the bandwagon of American hegemony. America’s geograph- ical location also puts it in a uniquely favorable position, unlikely to be too threatening to major European or Asian powers. The result is that it is simply too costly to balance against the United States, especially when it poses no im- mediate threat.11 Other realist authors in the volume, including Stephen Walt, Josef Joffe, and Michael Mastanduno, agree that the United States can and generally has prevented counterbalancing from occurring by behaving in a nonthreatening way toward other countries. They also agree that the United

7. An earlier version of this argument was made by Ikenberry in his article “Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Persistence of America’s Postwar Order,” International Security, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Winter 1998/99), pp. 43–78. 8. John M. Owen, “Transnational Liberalism and American Primacy: Or, Benignity Is in the Eye of the Beholder,” in Ikenberry, America Unrivaled, pp. 239–259. 9. Thomas Risse, “U.S. Power in a Liberal Security Community,” in ibid., pp. 260–283. 10. Kenneth N. Waltz, “Structural Realism after the Cold War,” in ibid., pp. 29–67. 11. William C. Wohlforth, “U.S. Strategy in a Unipolar World,” in ibid., pp. 98–118.

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States will provoke greater resistance and even counterbalancing overseas, if it follows a more aggressive grand strategy. America Unrivaled is an excellent primer on the sources of today’s seemingly unipolar international order, and on the relevance (or irrelevance) of balance of power theory in explaining that order. The authors embody a broad range of perspectives, and Ikenberry introduces and concludes the volume with a lucid pair of essays on the issue of unipolarity. The volume does not explain precise patterns of change and continuity in American grand strategy, nor does it attempt to do so. But Ikenberry clearly believes, as do a number of the other authors, that America’s liberal democratic system of government has had a profound impact on the broad contours of American grand strategy, for the better. Indeed, a major theme that recurs in this volume—especially in Ikenberry’s own essays—is that the liberal nature of U.S. grand strategy has made American power less provocative or threatening to other nations, thus reducing the odds of counterbalancing. In spite of their diverse theoretical perspectives, the authors of these essays are actually in remarkable agreement over the policy implications of their arguments. The sense of the book, overall, is that the United States should remain engaged overseas, providing a stabiliz- ing role in critical regions and playing the part of benevolent hegemon. At the same time, most of the authors—liberal and realist alike—agree that if the United States acts in an aggressive, unilateralist manner (as the Bush administration supposedly has in Iraq), it will undermine the sources of its own success.

Soft Power

A similar case against unilateralism is made in Joseph Nye’s The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone.12 Nye begins by arguing that the United States has an unprecedented share of inºuence in today’s world order. No traditional great power challenges seem likely in the near future. Militarily, America is unrivaled. But Nye goes on to suggest that military power itself has become less relevant in world politics, while other forms of power have gained in importance. Nye calls these other forms of power “soft power.”13 They include, most notably, the transnational appeal of a country’s culture and the agenda-setting inºuence of favorable interna-

12. Joseph S. Nye Jr., The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). 13. Ibid., pp. 4–12.

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tional regimes and institutions. International institutions, in particular, have become not simply a luxury, but a necessity, because of the rise of transnational issues that cannot be solved unilaterally. In the coming years, Nye insists, American inºuence is as likely to ºow from its co-optive soft power—its uni- versalistic culture and its role at the hub of international institutions—as from its hard power or military prowess.14 And crucially, the unilateral exercise of hard power could actually undermine America’s soft power.15 It is therefore in the national interest to avoid an aggressive or arrogant strategy of American primacy, and instead to work with other countries through multilateral institutions where possible in the pursuit of common global interests.16 Readers familiar with Nye’s 1990 work Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power will recognize close similarities to his newer book. Indeed, most of the central concepts in The Paradox of American Power were ªrst intro- duced in Nye’s earlier work, the one exception being a new interest in the information revolution.17 Rather than being conceptually innovative, this new book seems intended as a warning regarding the long-term direction of American foreign policy. Nye’s speciªc concern is that the United States might squander its inºuence overseas through a combination of unilateralism, narrow-mindedness, and sheer indifference toward the rest of the world. As Nye himself says in the preface to his book, indifference toward foreign policy is probably less of a problem since September 11. But Nye’s central argument is easily converted into a conceptually informed critique of American grand strategy under George W. Bush. The critique is timely. But is it accurate? Regardless of one’s opinions about the Bush administration, it has to be said that Nye’s argument rests upon a whole series of assumptions that are at the very least contested within the ªeld of international relations. The increasing irrelevance of military power; the causal impact of international institutions; the decline of the state relative to nonstate actors; the imperative to pursue a broad, liberal internationalist agenda—these are all controversial claims, when asserted as inevitable trends. Realists certainly believe that such trends have been exaggerated.18 And if the theoretical underpinnings of Nye’s argument

14. Ibid., pp. 13, 15–17. 15. Ibid., pp. 39, 154–163. 16. Ibid., pp. 138–147. 17. Ibid., pp. 41–76. 18. Henry Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? (New York: Touchstone, 2002), pp. 17–31; John J. Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions,” International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Winter 1994/95), pp. 5–49; and John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Poli- tics (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001), pp. 1–54, 360–402.

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are unsupported, then the policy recommendations suffer. Why pay such close attention to soft power if it actually does not amount to much? Why rely so heavily upon multilateral institutions if they are frequently weak and ineffec- tive? Clearly, the United States will generally need to work with other countries in pursuing its interests overseas. And America is well served by showing what the founders called a decent respect for the opinions of mankind. But these decencies and necessities do not extend to pretending that multilateral institutions, particularly in security affairs, are more powerful or consequential than they really are. There is certainly a danger of losing international inºuence in the narrow pursuit of unilateral advantage. But there is also some- times a danger of losing “hard power” in the illusory pursuit of world order.

A Great Power Concert

One recent author whose analysis of American grand strategy begins with “hard power” is Charles Kupchan. In The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-ªrst Century, Kupchan makes the case for a devolution of responsibility from the United States toward a concert of great powers.19 He opens the book by suggesting that major centers of economic and military power in Europe and Asia are bound to develop over the coming years, and to challenge the United States. A united Europe, in particular, he views as a rising and serious competitor.20 This in itself makes the continuation of American primacy improbable. But Kupchan adds to this argument the thesis that Americans themselves are understandably losing interest in their role as global leader. Unilateralism and isolationism are likely only to increase as powerful forces within American politics, fueled by demographic changes such as the rise of the Sun Belt within the Republican Party.21 The picture of the future that Kupchan therefore paints is one of a potential return to dangerous great power rivalries, exacerbated by American disinterest and disengagement. His belief is that this future can be avoided if skillful and creative leaders take the initiative to reconstruct American internationalism on a more solid and modest basis. This means recognizing that America’s global responsibili- ties need to be scaled back somewhat. American global primacy needs to be re-

19. Charles A. Kupchan, The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-ªrst Century (New York: Knopf, 2002). 20. Ibid., pp. 28, 119–159. 21. Ibid., pp. 29–31, 203–246.

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placed by a new concert of great powers, in which each power bears special responsibility for peace within its own region of the world. These powers need to be bound by a common recognition of liberal norms and practices, including strategic restraint, membership in binding institutions, and the pursuit of transnational social integration. The result will be an American grand strategy more reºective of the underlying distribution of power in the world and also more capable of securing long-term support at home.22 The End of the American Era is one of the most interesting and creative books on American grand strategy to have come out in recent years. Kupchan has a particularly good feel for patterns of coalition building in American foreign policy, as well as for the typical dynamics of great power competition. He de- serves credit for offering a number of bold, intriguing arguments in a work that is deft as well as intellectually stimulating. Many of his central arguments, however, are intriguing because they are uncommon; and they are uncommon because on close observation they are difªcult to sustain. For example, the threat of resurgent neo-isolationism within the United States seems overstated. There is little evidence from public opinion polls of any swelling grassroots de- mand for the United States to pull up stakes and abandon its role as a global power.23 And the argument that a united Europe is bound to become a serious rival of the United States is not borne out by the very limited steps that Euro- peans have actually taken toward a common foreign and defense policy. Nor is a return to multipolarity as inevitable as Kupchan suggests. American hegemony rests upon the basis of a remarkably large and stable share of world power, not only militarily but also economically and politically.24 With the possible exception of China, it is actually difªcult to envision any particular great power that could emerge as a rival to the United States over the next ten to twenty years. The central difªculty with the idea of a great power concert as a grand strategy for America, however, is that any such concert depends on the consent of every major power. That consent is not America’s to give. Americans might

22. Ibid., pp. 33–34, 65, 247–303. 23. John Reilly, American Public Opinion and United States Foreign Policy (Chicago: Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, 1999), pp. 25–26; Steven Kull, I.M. Destler, and Clay Ramsay, The Foreign Pol- icy Gap: How Policymakers Misread the Public (College Park: Center for International and Security Studies, University of Maryland, 1997), pp. 23, 133. 24. Nye, The Paradox of American Power, pp. 12–39; and William C. Wohlforth, “The Stability of a Unipolar World,” International Security, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Summer 1999), pp. 1–36.

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want to encourage the formation of such a concert, but its existence necessarily depends upon the strategies of other powers, and not upon America’s alone. During World War II, for example, Franklin Roosevelt envisioned a concert of powers involving the Soviet Union as well as Britain, China, and the United States, working together to maintain a liberal international order in the postwar era.25 The concept was appealing enough, but obviously depended upon the willingness of other major powers to partake in Roosevelt’s vision. As it turned out, Josef Stalin was uninterested. And while a number of real or potential great powers today share a broad set of common interests and common values with the United States, some such powers do not. Can we really expect that the present government of China will subscribe to membership in an American-led concert, characterized by liberal democratic (i.e., American) norms and practices? The question at least raises a serious problem: The answer is up to China. Curiously, Kupchan seems to begin his book as a realist, and end as a liberal, without explaining the transition. He evidently believes that the world’s major powers will be able to make the change from the current system to a more open and democratic international order, characterized by mutual restraint and transnational integration. A multipolar, great power concert is to deliver this new order.26 But the historical record of great power concerts, like the historical record of multipolar systems, is not especially encouraging. Concerts re- quire moral consensus; they do not create it. And multipolar systems are prone to miscalculation, which encourages international conºict.27 Unipolar systems, on the other hand—whatever their ºaws—do not allow much room for uncer- tainty. The few periods of real peace and stability that have existed in international politics have often been due to the predominance of some hegemonic power—a role that the United States plays in many parts of the world today. The structural premises of Kupchan’s argument would seem to suggest that unipolarity is in fact preferable to multipolarity, as a source of stability. We live in something like a unipolar system right now. Why should we look forward to, and even work toward, the end of this unipolar era when the alternatives might very well be worse?

25. Warren F. Kimball, The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman (Princeton, N.J.: Prince- ton University Press, 1991), pp. 83–105. 26. Kupchan, The End of the American Era, pp. 262–303. 27. Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979), pp. 161–170.

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Democratic Identities

To make the case that the United States can afford to encourage the rise of other great powers, we need a more convincing and systematic theoretical basis upon which to build policy recommendations. Henry Nau’s At Home Abroad: Identity and Power in American Foreign Policy provides one such basis.28 Nau begins by recognizing the signiªcance of the distribution of power in international relations—a nod toward structural realism. But then he argues that power is only really threatening when national identities diverge. In the case of countries that share a common democratic identity—Germany and the United States, for example—there is no perception of any serious military threat and therefore no need for a balance of power.29 The particular problem with American national identity, for Nau, is that it has traditionally been based upon a self-image of separation from the Old World. This sense of separation creates tensions in American foreign policy and leads to an unfortunate cyclical process by which the United States oscillates between strategies of national- ism, internationalism, realism, and primacy.30 Nau’s hope is that if Americans identiªed more closely with other mature democracies, they might avoid this cyclical process and reach a more sustainable basis for U.S. engagement overseas.31 Nau is to be commended for providing an unusually thorough conceptual foundation for his understanding of American grand strategy. He combines realist and constructivist factors in his analysis in a manner that is clear, intelligent, and persuasive. In terms of its theoretical contribution, the book is a welcome advance in the usual debate between realists and their opponents, because it actually speciªes the causal relationship of competing variables such as power and identity. Moreover, this theoretical foundation informs his re- gionally differentiated policy observations in ways that are useful and illumi- nating. Nau suggests that we conceptualize the international system in terms of a “distribution of identity,” as well as a distribution of power. In cases where identities diverge, as with the United States and China, the distribution of power is signiªcant, and states necessarily attempt to balance one another. In

28. Henry R. Nau, At Home Abroad: Identity and Power in American Foreign Policy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cor- nell University Press, 2002). 29. Ibid., pp. 3–9, 15–33. 30. Ibid., pp. 43–59. 31. Ibid., pp. 237–253.

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cases where identities converge, as with the United States and Western Europe, power is less important, and balancing need not occur. But even when identities diverge, Nau conceives of this divergence as somewhat malleable and subject to change. The result is that grand strategy must be based upon not only the balancing of power, but also the nurturing of convergent national identities, which in practical terms for the United States means the liberalization and democratization of other countries. In the case of China, for example, Nau says that the United States cannot act as if shared values already exist: It must balance Chinese power. At the same time, however, Nau suggests that the United States continue to engage China—for example through trade, as well as multilateral diplomacy and conªdence-building measures—in the hopes that the liberalization of that country will ultimately bring some convergence of identity with the United States.32 One question that remains is how exactly Americans are to be convinced that they must shed their separatist self-image and identify more fully with other democratic powers. It is not actually obvious that most Americans are really as alienated from the Old World as they were, for example, in the early twentieth century. Nau lays out the cyclical nature of America’s competing foreign policy traditions in an accurate and intelligent manner. But there is no convincing mechanism within his analysis to suggest how or why this cyclical process might change. Fortunately for his main thesis, no such mechanism is necessary. At Home Abroad really contains two distinct arguments: one, on the subject of overcoming America’s conºicting foreign policy traditions; the other, on the subject of America’s proper relationship with the rest of the world. The two arguments do not depend on each other. Whether or not Americans have a somewhat separatist self-image, and whether or not they can shed it, is largely irrelevant to Nau’s second and more central argument. The United States undoubtedly identiªes with Germany and Japan more closely than it did, say, 100 years ago, and this identiªcation is in great part due to the postwar democratization of those countries. The implicit causal mechanism that actually brings about the convergence of identities in At Home Abroad is democratization and liberalization overseas, not domestic foreign policy de- bates within the United States. On this point, Nau is in fact a classical liberal: He argues that democracies need not fear one another, and that the United States need not fear the rise of other great powers as long as they are demo-

32. Ibid., pp. 152–189.

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cratic. Within the community of mature democracies, he suggests, no balancing of power will occur. The implication is that the promotion of democracy abroad is very much a vital American interest.

Selective Engagement

The liberal goal of democracy promotion is of course central to the American foreign policy tradition. But there have always been those who take exception to the notion that democracy can be promoted by force. Robert Art is one such skeptic. In A Grand Strategy for America, Art makes the case for “selective engagement,” a strategic approach intended to avoid the pitfalls of either Wilsonian universalism, on the one hand, or neo-isolationism, on the other.33 He begins by laying out the deªning features of today’s international setting. These include the continuing expansion of democracy and economic interdependence, the emergence of “grand terrorism,” and the absence of any other major power capable of challenging the United States militarily.34 He then spe- ciªes what he considers to be America’s national interests in this new setting. These interests are, in order of importance, homeland defense (“vital”); then, peace and stability among the great powers of Europe and Asia, along with access to Persian Gulf oil (“highly important”); and ªnally, international economic openness, the spread of democracy and human rights, and the avoidance of environmental catastrophe (“important”).35 Art suggests that the strategy best suited to securing these interests at a reasonable cost is one of selective engagement. This means maintaining America’s alliances and forward- based military deployments in critical regions such as Europe, the Persian Gulf, and East Asia. But it also means showing considerable discrimination in the use of force abroad. Art would have the United States avoid military intervention in regions of lesser concern, or for reasons of secondary interest. In general, while he makes certain exceptions for cases of outright genocide, he is skeptical of the use of force as an instrument of democracy promotion or humanitarianism.36 A Grand Strategy for America is a classically “realist” work in the sense that it counsels prudence, moderation, and balance, rather than moral crusading.

33. Robert J. Art, A Grand Strategy for America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003). 34. Ibid., pp. 13–36. 35. Ibid., pp. 45–79. 36. Ibid., pp. 9, 41, 121–160.

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This sense of balance is combined with a keen appreciation for the perennial nature of international power politics. Art refuses to subscribe to the notion that military power and the state are outmoded features of a bygone era. And he is willing to make tough choices regarding the highest priorities of Ameri- can grand strategy. Traditional liberal internationalist interests, such as the promotion of democracy and human rights, are not expunged from his list of worthy goals. But they are clearly considered secondary in the making of grand strategy, ªrst, because they depend on the achievement of more basic strategic interests, and second, because they usually cannot be accomplished directly through the use of force. Art says quite explicitly that conditions of civil war or dictatorship overseas, however heart-wrenching, are relevant to American national security only insofar as they threaten truly crucial interests such as homeland security, great power peace, or access to oil. He does not pre- tend that the United States can liberalize the international system or exercise hegemonic aspirations for free. Art devotes considerable space to refuting neo-isolationist arguments that America disengage from its forward military presence overseas. The refutation is entirely convincing, to this reviewer at least. Yet from the attention that Art gives to such arguments, one would think that neo-isolationist forces were a serious contender in American politics today. In fact, the real debate seems to be between various forms of internationalism. Given that the Bush administration has since September 11 embraced a remarkably explicit strategy of Ameri- can primacy, a more thorough discussion of that strategy would have been welcome. Art dismisses the Bush team’s overall approach quite quickly as a strategy of “dominion,” bound to fail.37 It would be interesting to hear in more detail why this particular strategy is necessarily doomed, and whether there are any viable alternatives in between dominion and selective engagement. Art is more persuasive when he focuses on speciªc criticisms of the Bush administration. He opposes national missile defense; warns against unilateralism; and makes a strong case against any policy of “rogue state rollback.” One major criticism of the concept of selective engagement, as Art himself admits, is that such a strategy seems to invite abuse through the potential pro- liferation of new foreign policy commitments. The very moderation of the concept also gives it a Goldilocks-like quality: something neither too hot nor too cold. How would we know “selective” engagement when we see it? Would not

37. Ibid., pp. 89–90.

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any president—including Bill Clinton and George W. Bush—insist that his own administration had been selective in the use of force overseas? Even Art’s skepticism of humanitarian intervention is so nuanced and hedged with exceptions that it is difªcult to know which interventions he would actually favor, and which he would oppose. “Alliance credibility,” for example, is invoked as sufªcient reason to override his general bias against humanitarian intervention, which means that Bosnia and Kosovo were in fact worthy cases for military action. And Art makes plain his conviction that the United States should have intervened in Rwanda in 1994.38 These are defensible positions: but how exactly would this amount to a more selective grand strategy? Whatever the criticisms, Art’s analysis is characterized by clarity, consis- tency, and uncommon good sense. He is quite candid in admitting potential objections to his thesis, and he takes opposing arguments seriously. His discussion of current international conditions, U.S. interests, and potential threats to those interests is as thorough and systematic as anywhere. He makes an unusually powerful and sustained argument in favor of maintaining America’s basic strategic deployments overseas. At the same time, he is fully aware of the risks of overextension, and he warns against naïve or aggressive intervention- ism in strategic affairs. It is on the whole a welcome and tough-minded work, free from dogma, deeply relevant, and realistic in the best sense.

Hegemony on the Cheap

In at least one respect, these ªve books, together, represent an interesting and important conceptual development in the literature on American grand strategy. All ªve—whether realist or liberal in inspiration—agree that great power counterbalancing against the United States is not inevitable. This in itself sets all ªve authors apart from more pessimistic, structural realists such as Waltz and Mearsheimer. But the causal mechanism that prevents such counterbal- ances from occurring is somewhat different in each of these books. For Art, that mechanism is the prudent pursuit by American ofªcials of a strategy of selective engagement. For Nau, it is the convergence of national identities between the United States and other leading democracies. For Kupchan, it is the creation of a great power concert informed by liberal norms. For Nye, it is the

38. Ibid., pp. 153–157.

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use of soft power. And for Ikenberry, it is the self-restrained and institutionalized nature of American grand strategy. A couple of comments on this striking commonality of analysis are in order. First, all ªve authors believe not only that balancing against the United States is avoidable; all ªve also believe that grand strategy actually matters. That is to say, these authors believe that it makes a great difference whether or not Amer- ican foreign policy is conducted with skill, creativity, and wisdom. Again, this sets all ªve authors apart from the more deterministic views of some structural realists, for whom counterbalancing must eventually occur regardless of American policy. Second, four of the ªve authors under discussion essentially agree that the pursuit of a liberal grand strategy—one characterized by the promotion of democratic governments, open markets, and international institutions—will exempt the United States from the supposedly iron logic of great power balancing. Robert Art is the one exception. For Art, it is not the pursuit of a liberal grand strategy as such, but rather the pursuit of a prudent and selective grand strategy that will prevent anti-American alliances from forming. In this respect, Art is the most “realist” of the ªve authors. But Art agrees with the other four authors that anti-American balancing is not inevitable. The grand strategies advocated by each of these authors follow naturally from the prior analysis. Art advocates a strategy of selective engagement for the United States. Nau calls on the United States to identify more closely with fellow democracies and to remain engaged overseas. Kupchan proposes a devolution of international responsibility, away from the United States, within the context of a liberal concert of major powers. Nye makes the case for a strategy that relies more heavily on multilateral institutions, as well as on the power of example. And Ikenberry argues for a grand strategy that is engaged, institutionalized, and self-restrained. Again, a couple of comments are in order. First, all ªve authors agree that the United States does in fact need a long-term grand strategy beyond the current “war on terror.” Second, all ªve authors—with the partial exception of Nau—are quite critical of what they view as the unilateralism, the excessive ambition, and the provocative aggres- siveness of American grand strategy under the current Bush administration. (Nau seems more ambivalent regarding the Bush approach.) Third, all of these authors—except for Robert Art—call for a strategy in which liberal foreign policy goals such as democracy promotion are essentially at the top of the policy agenda. At least four of the ªve authors under discussion seem to agree that the pur-

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suit of a more liberal international order, characterized by democratic governments and multilateral institutions worldwide, will render the United States immune to counterbalancing and create a zone in which violent great power conºict no longer occurs. It is for this reason that these four authors put the pursuit of a liberal international order at the top of their foreign policy agendas. This alone represents a remarkable departure from traditional or structural realist assumptions regarding the ubiquity of great power politics. But it has to be said that the concept of transcending balance of power politics through the pursuit of a liberal international order is not exactly a new one. Nor has it necessarily proven reliable in the past. Americans in fact have a long history of believing exactly this: that the promotion of a liberal international system will somehow permit the United States to pursue extremely ambitious or even hegemonic foreign policy goals without having to pay a heavy price for it. Woodrow Wilson, for example, believed that the League of Nations would allow the United States to co-opt other major powers into an American- led international order, without having to maintain high levels of defense spending. Other powers were to police their own spheres of inºuence, while respecting liberal norms. It was never exactly clear why these other powers would behave the way Wilson expected; in fact, they were generally uninterested in the liberal elements of Wilson’s vision.39 Franklin Roosevelt, similarly, spoke of his “grand design” for the postwar world by which each of the major powers would respect basic democratic principles such as nonaggression, open trading arrangements, and free elections. In both Wilson’s case, and Roo- sevelt’s, American foreign policymakers assumed that the promotion of a liberal concert of powers would allow the United States to have its cake and eat it too. The United States would Americanize the international system, without actually having to police it. The more recent doctrine of “democratic enlargement,” under the Clinton administration, was very much in this tradition. Under that doctrine, the internal character of foreign governments was considered a matter of vital interest. The United States was to expand the zone of market democracies and “convert” those countries in transition from au- thoritarianism.40 It was a very ambitious strategy, to say the least. Yet at the same time, the Clinton administration was determined to keep the costs of

39. Lloyd E. Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson and the American Diplomatic Tradition: The Treaty Fight in Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 107–135. 40. Anthony Lake, “From Containment to Enlargement,” address at Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C., September 21, 2003, in Alvin Rubinstein, Albina Shayevich, and Boris Zlotnikov, eds., The Clinton Foreign Policy Reader (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2000), pp. 20–27.

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enlargement to an absolute and even an unrealistic minimum in terms of military spending, foreign aid, national sovereignty, and American military casualties.41 It is no coincidence that the history of American grand strategy is so often characterized by a yawning gap between capabilities and commitments. The liberal internationalist tradition in American thinking tends to lead, systemati- cally, to this very outcome. Liberal internationalists pursue goals that can only be described as extremely ambitious: to remake and indeed pacify the international system.42 Yet they regularly pursue these ambitious goals alongside the belief that such goals can be achieved without great cost. In practice, it rarely works. This was precisely the insight of the classical realists of the 1940s: that the United States has one of two choices. Either it can boost its strategic capabilities, to match its very ambitious foreign policy goals, or it can scale down its goals to match its capabilities. But in the long run, it must do one or the other.43 A grand strategy informed by liberal assumptions does not exempt the United States from this necessity. Most of the authors under discussion essentially subscribe to the liberal internationalist tradition in American grand strategy. They believe that certain features of American hegemony may leave it immune to many of the dangers that have plagued every other great power. These authors are convincing, insofar as they suggest that the international balance of power is not what it used to be. But the need to balance capabilities and commitments still remains, for the United States as for any other country. No state can pursue worldwide, expansive foreign policy goals without incur- ring the risks and costs of such a strategy. The United States has been this way before; we should know by now that hegemony on the cheap is simply not an option.

The Sources of Strategic Adjustment

The combined impact of these books is to bring a fresh perspective on Ameri- can primacy, and on American grand strategy. But on the more theoretical and

41. Josef Joffe, “Clinton’s World: Purpose, Policy, and Weltanschaung,” Washington Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Winter 2001), pp. 141–154. 42. For a sympathetic discussion of the liberal tradition in international relations theory, see Mi- chael W. Doyle, Ways of War and Peace: Realism, Liberalism, and Socialism (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997), pp. 205–300. 43. Walter Lippmann, U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic (Boston: Little, Brown, 1943), pp. 6– 10.

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descriptive question of exactly why and how grand strategy changes, most of these authors, apart from Nau, do not offer any sort of detailed answer or ex- planation. The implicit agreement among them is that U.S. grand strategy is the result of international pressures, as well as domestic norms and institutions. But the relative importance of these various factors, as well as their precise interrelationship, is never established. This represents a gap in the literature on American grand strategy. There is a rich policy-oriented literature on the directions in which U.S. grand strategy ought to go; there is an equally rich historical literature examining past strategic adjustments. Yet there are very few works that bring the two together, to give us some sense of how American grand strategy may develop in the future. When and why does American grand strategy actually change? Are there general patterns by which such changes take place? In answer to these ques- tions, there are of course numerous works of political science that attempt to explain past cases of strategic adjustment. But in the theoretical literature on the subject, most arguments tend to take a zero-sum form in which grand strategy is determined by either international pressures, or domestic coalition interests, or culture and identity. In practice, any sensible observer knows that grand strategy is shaped by all of these things. The more interesting question is how—how do these various factors interrelate, how do they combine in causal effect, and how much does each explain?44 Structural realists, for example, point to changing distributions of power within the international system, along with the changing conªguration of threats, to explain changes in grand strategy.45 Cultural or constructivist accounts point to changes in national identity, or changes in strategic culture, to explain the same sort of outcomes.46 But it is entirely possible and even probable that in reality, cultural factors and international pressures complement one another in “causing” changes in grand strategy. In this sense, Nau’s At Home Abroad is a step in the right direction, offering a theory of strategic adjustment that combines domestic political variables with international pressures in a manner that is both rigorous and speciªc.

44. Michael C. Desch, “Culture Clash: Assessing the Importance of Ideas in Security Studies,” In- ternational Security, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Summer 1998), pp. 141–170. 45. Barry R. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany between the World Wars (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984), pp. 7–8, 239. 46. Edward Rhodes, “Constructing Power: Cultural Transformation and Strategic Adjustment in the 1890s,” in Peter Trubowitz, Emily O. Goldman, and Edward Rhodes, eds., The Politics of Strate- gic Adjustment: Ideas, Institutions, and Interests (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 29–78.

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One potential source of inspiration, in explaining patterns of adjustment in American grand strategy, would be to look back to classical realism as a useful starting point. Classical realists such as George Kennan and Hans Morgenthau understood that cultural factors can have a profound effect on the strategic behavior of states. Indeed, in the case of the United States, these same classical realists pointed to the impact of a liberal and idealistic political culture precisely to condemn its impact on American foreign policy.47 At the same time, classical realists took it for granted that any country’s grand strategy must eventually reºect international systemic pressures. A classical or neoclassical realist model of strategic adjustment would therefore suggest that American grand strategy is ultimately shaped and determined by changes in the international distribution of power.48 But it would also concede that liberal ideas have real power in the foreign policymaking process within the United States. This is not only because leading ofªcials need domestic political support for new policy depar- tures; it is also because they themselves may actually share these commonly held liberal beliefs. Admittedly, liberal ideas may not be the most important cause of American strategic behavior. But they nevertheless have an impact, causing the United States to behave in ways that are surprising from a strictly realist perspective. A classical or neoclassical realist model would also offer some speciªc predictions regarding U.S. grand strategy in the future. First, it would suggest that the United States is unlikely to adopt a straightforward balance of power strategy of the type advocated by realists such as Henry Kissinger. Such a strategy simply does not ªt American cultural assumptions and is unlikely to be put forward by leading decisionmakers. At the same time, however, a neoclassical realist model would suggest that the United States is unlikely to withdraw from its forward presence overseas or to adopt any sort of neo-isolationist strategy in the foreseeable future; the current distribution of power within the international system is weighed too heavily in America’s favor for such a strategy to be seen as attractive. A more likely outcome, in keeping with past precedent, is that American grand strategy will continue to oscillate between various forms of internationalism, by which the United States attempts to promote very ambitious goals, worldwide, through relatively limited means. This

47. George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), pp. 65–90; and Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, brief ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993), pp. 148, 155–164. 48. On neoclassical realism as a distinctive school of thought, see Gideon Rose, “Neoclassical Real- ism and Theories of Foreign Policy,” World Politics, Vol. 51, No. 1 (October 1998), pp. 144–172.

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is not a prediction that would necessarily be reached by a purely structural model, or a purely cultural one. But it is a prediction that can be tested against such models to determine their relative validity.

Conclusion

New developments in the literature on American grand strategy represent an important and intriguing challenge to structural realism. A decade ago, structural realists predicted that the United States would soon be counterbalanced by other major powers. New research on the subject suggests that such great power counterbalancing is far from inevitable, and that the United States may be able to prevent this contingency through the exercise of a prudent grand strategy. In particular, a number of recent authors suggest that by following a strategy of liberal internationalism, the United States will avoid becoming the target of counterbalancing coalitions. Yet the question still remains as to whether this approach will actually render the United States immune to the fate of previous hegemons. If anything, the liberal internationalist tradition seems in the past to have encouraged a persistent gap between commitments and capabilities in U.S. foreign policy. Moreover, the new literature fails, in most cases, to explain patterns of adjustment in American grand strategy in a theoretically informed manner. Future research will need to integrate policy, history, and theory—including causal variables at both the domestic and international level—to provide a more complete, convincing, and predictive model of changes in American grand strategy.

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