This book makes a compelling case that lethal drone deployment as a counterterrorism tool and instrument of statecraft in targeted states engenders far-reaching consequences for US grand strategy. By examining how successive US administrations since 9/11 have deployed drones in pursuant of different typologies of US grand strategic objectives, the book probes the putative political and strategic goals drones supposedly advance, and the impact of its continued proliferation for US for international security. The book provides a powerful base of evidence for policy makers and researchers by pointing to the perils of deployment of drone technology beyond their immediate or short-term objectives. It also explores how non-state actors and authoritarian regimes such as armed groups are harnessing armed drone technologies for their own political and military ends, as well as the underlying implications for US grand strategy and international security at large.

Looking beyond the headlines to address the enduring grand strategic questions facing the United States today. American foreign policy is in a state of upheaval. The rise of Donald Trump and his "America First" platform have created more uncertainty about America's role in the world than at any time in recent decades. From the South China Sea, to the Middle East, to the Baltics and Eastern Europe, the geopolitical challenges to U.S. power and influence seem increasingly severe—and America's responses to those challenges seem increasingly unsure. Questions that once had widely accepted answers are now up for debate. What role should the United States play in the world? Can, and should, America continue to pursue an engaged an assertive strategy in global affairs? In this book, a leading scholar of grand strategy helps to make sense of the headlines and the upheaval by providing sharp yet nuanced assessments of the most critical issues in American grand strategy today. Hal Brands asks, and answers, such questions as: Has America really blundered aimlessly in the world since the end of the Cold War, or has its grand strategy actually been mostly sensible and effective? Is America in terminal decline, or can it maintain its edge in a harsher and more competitive environment? Did the Obama administration pursue a policy of disastrous retrenchment, or did it execute a shrewd grand strategy focused on maximizing U.S. power for the long term? Does Donald Trump's presidency mean that American internationalism is dead? What type of grand strategy might America pursue in the age of Trump and after? What would happen if the United States radically pulled back from the world, as many leading academics—and, at certain moments, the current president—have advocated? How much military power does America need in the current international environment? Grappling with these kinds of issues is essential to understanding the state of America's foreign relations today and what path the country might take in the years ahead. At a time when American grand strategy often seems consumed by crisis, this collection of essays provides an invaluable guide to thinking about both the recent past and the future of America's role in the world.

A groundbreaking look at the future of great power competition in an age of globalization and what the United States can do in response The two decades after the Cold War saw unprecedented cooperation between the major powers as the world converged on a model of liberal international order. Now, great power competition is back and the liberal order is in jeopardy. Russia and China are increasingly revisionist in their regions. The Middle East appears to be unraveling. And many Americans question why the United States ought to lead. What will great power competition look like in the decades ahead? Will the liberal world order survive? What impact will geopolitics have on globalization? And, what strategy should the United States pursue to succeed in an increasingly competitive world? In this book Thomas Wright explains how major powers will compete fiercely even as they try to avoid war with each other. Wright outlines a new American strategy—Responsible Competition—to navigate these challenges and strengthen the liberal order.

Contemporary American Foreign Policy: Influences, Challenges, and Opportunities looks at today’s most pressing foreign-policy challenges from a U.S. perspective, as well as from the vantage point of other states and peoples. It explores global issues such as human rights, climate change, poverty, nuclear arms proliferation, and economic collapse from multiple angles, not just through a so-called national interest lens. Authors Richard Mansbach and Kirsten L. Taylor shed new light on the competing forces that influence foreign-policy decision making, outline the various policy options available to decision makers, and explore the potential consequences of those policies, all to fully grasp and work to meet contemporary foreign-policy challenges.

"A complete introduction to strategy in the contemporary world, which critically explores the enduring, present and emerging issues dominating the field of strategy." 4e de couv.

Contemporary Security Governance in Nigeria: Themes and Perspectives examines the theory, practice, and challenges of contemporary security governance in Nigeria and argues for the prioritization of security governance in state affairs. Al Chukwuma Okoli, Folahanmi Aina, and the contributors address the role of security in state steering, the role of the state in security, the conceptual and theoretical frames underpinning contemporary discourse on security governance, and the current position of security governance and national security architecture in Nigeria. The book begins with an examination of security governance theory, context, and dimensions; followed by presenting strategies of security governance such as intelligence oversight; and ends with analysis of state, foreign, and non-state actors' roles in security governance. It covers important issues such as state legitimacy, public emergencies, intelligence oversight, civilian-led community policing, and Operation Safe Corridor. This book provides an important contribution for scholars in governance and security, and all stakeholders in governmental and non-governmental organizations that promote national security.

This book presents a novel analysis of how US grand strategy has evolved from the end of the Cold War to the present, offering an integrated analysis of both continuity and change. The post-Cold War American grand strategy has continued to be oriented to securing an ‘open door’ to US capital around the globe. This book will show that the three different administrations that have been in office in the post-Cold War era have pursued this goal with varying means: from Clinton’s promotion of neoliberal globalization to Bush’s ‘war on terror’ and Obama’s search to maintain US primacy in the face of a declining economy and a rising Asia. In seeking to make sense of both these strong continuities and these significant variations the book takes as its point of departure the social sources of grand strategy (making), with the aim to relate state (public) power to social (private) power. While developing its own theoretical framework to make sense of the evolution of US grand strategy, it offers a rich and rigorous empirical analysis based on extensive primary data that have been collected over the past years. It draws on a unique data-set that consists of extensive biographical data of 30 cabinet members and other senior foreign policy officials of each of the past three administrations of Clinton, G.W. Bush and Obama. This book is of great use to specialists in International Relations – within International Political Economy, International Security and Foreign Policy Analysis, as well as students of US Politics.

Changing Patterns of Warfare between India and Pakistan analyzes how advanced nuclear technologies and the advent of disruptive technologies have affected the evolving conflict between India and Pakistan. Advanced nuclear technologies such as nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, ballistic missile defence systems (BMDs), multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs), anti-satellite weapons (ASAT); and disruptive technologies such as hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence (AI), lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) / drones and space-based and cyber technologies have all complicated crisis dynamics and the domain of warfare in the region. Further, the employment of India’s compellence strategy is an indication of a change in its stance that demonstrates smart/surgical strikes are now more likely. The phenomenon of surgical strikes raises the question of how disruptive technologies will be used to gain direct/indirect military control and hence challenge the existing status quo and deterrence stability. Against this backdrop, the authors predict how this conflict may develop in the future and evaluate the ways to stabilize deterrence and regulate the militarization of artificial intelligence and disruptive technologies between India and Pakistan. This book will be of interest to all those researching and working in the fields of security studies, strategic studies, nuclear policy, deterrence thinking and proliferation/non-proliferation aspects of the nuclear weapons programme within South Asia and beyond. It will also be relevant for the academic community, policy-makers, diplomats, members of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), professional research institutes and organizations working on India–Pakistan relations.

This book explores the implications of drone warfare for the legitimacy of global order. The literature on drone warfare has evolved from studying the proliferation of drones, to measuring their effectiveness, to exploring their legal, moral, and ethical impacts. These "three waves" of scholarship do not, however, address the implications of drone warfare for global order. This book fills the gap by contributing to a "fourth wave" of literature concerned with the trade-offs imposed by drone warfare for global order. The book draws on the "English School" of International Relations Theory, which is premised on the existence of a society of states bounded by common norms, values, and institutions, to argue that drone warfare imposes contradictions on the structural and normative pillars of global order. These consist of the structure of international society and diffusion of military capabilities, as well as the sovereign equality of states and laws of armed conflict. The book presents a typology of contradictions imposed by drone warfare within and across these axes that threaten the legitimacy of global order. This framework also suggests a confounding consequence of drone warfare that scholars have not hitherto explored rigorously: drone warfare can sometimes strengthen global order. The volume concludes by proposing a research agenda to reconcile the complex and often counter-intuitive impacts of drone warfare for global order. This book will be of considerable interest to students of security studies, global governance, and International Relations.

The Trump administration recognizes the China challenge, but it needs a grand strategy. Blackwill recommends decisive action, sustained diplomacy, collaboration among branches of the U.S. government, and working with allies in Asia and Europe, among other approaches.