Sharing Power: America’s Strategic Choices

4 May 2013, 0623 EDT

The Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College has just published my latest effort, a study of America’s strategic choices and the prospects for a grand strategy based on the two principles of Concert and Balance.

The PDF is free to download.

Bottom Line: the US does not have to choose between unipolar hegemony and ‘coming home’, as the reductionist debate often characterises it. Somewhere in that middle ground, it can retrench while retaining a forward presence. It can both accommodate rising states, while hedging against the adventurism of any would-be aggressor.

This will be very difficult, and comes with dilemmas of its own. But there are some practical steps that could give this a fighting chance.

Cross-posted at The Offshore Balancer