This book is a compilation of essays by a group of distinguished scholars from the fields of political science, economics, and history. Their purpose is to examine a set of options for creating a U.S. Grand Strategy for the 21st Century that would guide both foreign policy...
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This book is a compilation of essays by a group of distinguished scholars from the fields of political science, economics, and history. Their purpose is to examine a set of options for creating a U.S. Grand Strategy for the 21st Century that would guide both foreign policy and national security policy. This is a pretty tall order, but the contributors to this book have done a pretty good job of presenting potential strategic paths to both a safer and more prosperous U.S. and the world.
As might be imagined the approaches these contributors suggest for building a national security strategy are quite diverse, yet there are threads of commonality that give this book as a whole a certain coherence. For example all the contributors would probably agree with Samantha Power who argues in Chapter 6 that the U.S. needs to regain international legitimacy by returning to a recognition and obedience to international law and widely recognized international agreements and treaties. Most would also agree with her that the concepts of the,"Global War on Terror" have been largely counter productive and should be dropped. It is hoped that most would agree with her that the Dar al Islam (Realm of Islam) is not monolithic and that U.S. policies towards it should be guided by much improved intelligence that would provide accurate knowledge of this complex Realm.
Also most would agree with Stephen Van Evera who opens this book with the assertion that a U.S. Grand Strategy should incorporate three policies: 1) create and sustain an alliance of the major powers (U.S., China, European Union, Russia, Japan?) dedicated to protecting the global commons from manmade and natural threats; 2) the U.S. should direct its national security establishment against trans-national terrorism and WMD proliferation rather than against near peer national states; and 3) direct its national security establishment against threats to the global common caused by environmental degradation and pandemics.
Yet not all agree with Van Evera that the three policies he outlines are enough. A significant proportion of the contributors in one way or another also argue that U.S. national security is enhanced if an economically integrated, prosperous, and relativity democratic world order can be established. There is rather more disagreement on the importance and roles of inter-national and non-governmental institutions in contributing to U.S. national security, but the subject is well and fairly covered in this book.
This certainly is one of the more interesting and serious books on the arcane topic of formulating a national grand strategy and well worth reading and contemplating.
This book is a compilation of essays by a group of distinguished scholars from the fields of political science, economics, and history. Their purpose is to examine a set of options for creating a U.S. Grand Strategy for the 21st Century that would guide both foreign policy and national security policy. This is a pretty tall order, but the contributors to this book have done a pretty good job of presenting potential strategic paths to both a safer and more prosperous U.S. and the world.
As might be imagined the approaches these contributors suggest for building a national security strategy are quite diverse, yet there are threads of commonality that give this book as a whole a certain coherence. For example all the contributors would probably agree with Samantha Power who argues in Chapter 6 that the U.S. needs to regain international legitimacy by returning to a recognition and obedience to international law and widely recognized international agreements and treaties. Most would also agree with her that the concepts of the,"Global War on Terror" have been largely counter productive and should be dropped. It is hoped that most would agree with her that the Dar al Islam (Realm of Islam) is not monolithic and that U.S. policies towards it should be guided by much improved intelligence that would provide accurate knowledge of this complex Realm.
Also most would agree with Stephen Van Evera who opens this book with the assertion that a U.S. Grand Strategy should incorporate three policies: 1) create and sustain an alliance of the major powers (U.S., China, European Union, Russia, Japan?) dedicated to protecting the global commons from manmade and natural threats; 2) the U.S. should direct its national security establishment against trans-national terrorism and WMD proliferation rather than against near peer national states; and 3) direct its national security establishment against threats to the global common caused by environmental degradation and pandemics.
Yet not all agree with Van Evera that the three policies he outlines are enough. A significant proportion of the contributors in one way or another also argue that U.S. national security is enhanced if an economically integrated, prosperous, and relativity democratic world order can be established. There is rather more disagreement on the importance and roles of inter-national and non-governmental institutions in contributing to U.S. national security, but the subject is well and fairly covered in this book.
This certainly is one of the more interesting and serious books on the arcane topic of formulating a national grand strategy and well worth reading and contemplating.
