by Dan Nexon
17 December 2010, 1603 EST
Dear Duck Readers:
I’ve been contemplating a post on the current state (or lack thereof) of public discussion on matters of US grand strategy. It occurs to me however, that I don’t really know of any touchstone pieces on the subject published in 2010 — except for the rather lackluster NSS, QDR, and QDDR.
Am I missing something?
Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.
He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.
He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.
There was the Nuclear Posture Review in April, which made its way into NATO's policy review this summer. It's consistent with Obama's overall defense policy, so it didn't make too big of a splash.Â
https://www.defense.gov/npr/
In terms of government docs, these efforts do not fit the bill of constructing a grand strategy, or even laying the foundations for one, so you are not missing much. unless you would like to write a post on how these efforts fall short.
There's been occasional discussion of grand strategy, or lack thereof, at SWJ Blog, a good post on what grand strategy is by Dr. Patrick Porter at Offshore Balancer, at Kings of War, at Rethinking Security, at Milpub and in some of the .mil and strategic studies journals.Â
Grand Strategies are for countries that don't have budget problems. The Gates DOD is looking to cut costs, stop nation building, and develop alternative energy. They also are worried about the effects of global climate disruption and the drain on resources in combination with the war in Afghanistan. That is in the QDR. If we are not capable of being crippled by oil, we care less what happens in the ME. So to summarize:
Internal adjustments reduce external demands.
I haven't read most of it yet, but Robert Art's piece “The US and the Rise of China: Implications for the Long Haul” (Political Science Quarterly, Fall 2010) appears to address one important aspect of US grand strategy, if not the whole thing.
Dan, I'm looking forward to the post. Â Also, I wonder what you and others think about Mearsheimer's “Imperial by Design” article on US grand strategy.
In his writing Mearsheimer never, at least as far as I'm aware, explains in any convincing detail why it is so important for the US to remain the world's only regional hegemon. He just repeats the mantra that if China becomes a regional hegemon in NE Asia it will interfere in the US 'backyard' (presumably Central and/or South America), but he doesn't say what this “interference” would entail or how it would benefit China or harm the US. At some point one would think he would have to descend from generalities and get into specifics. He never seems to.