This work analyzes the strategic underpinnings of US defense strategy and foreign policy since 1945. Primarily intended to be a supplemental textbook, it explains how the United States became a superpower, examines the formation of the national security establishment, and explores the inter-relationship between foreign policy, defense strategy, and commercial interests. It differs from most of the existing teaching texts because its emphasis is not on narrating the history of US foreign policy or explaining the policymaking process. Instead, the emphasis is on identifying drivers and continuities in US national security interests and policy, and it has a special emphasis on developing a greater understanding of the intertwined nature of foreign and defense policies. The book will conclude by examining how the legacy of the last sixty-five years impacts future developments, the prospect for change, and what US national security policy may look like in the future.

This book examines the use of military force as a coercive tool by the United States, using lessons drawn from the post-Cold War era (1991–2018). The volume reveals that despite its status as sole superpower during the post-Cold War period, US efforts to coerce other states failed as often as they succeeded. In the coming decades, the United States will face states that are more capable and creative, willing to challenge its interests and able to take advantage of missteps and vulnerabilities. By using lessons derived from in-depth case studies and statistical analysis of an original dataset of more than 100 coercive incidents in the post-Cold War era, this book generates insight into how the US military can be used to achieve policy goals. Specifically, it provides guidance about the ways in which, and the conditions under which, the US armed forces can work in concert with economic and diplomatic elements of US power to create effective coercive strategies. This book will be of interest to students of US national security, US foreign policy, strategic studies and International Relations in general.

Why and how America’s defense strategy must change in light of China’s power and ambition Elbridge A. Colby was the lead architect of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the most significant revision of U.S. defense strategy in a generation. Here he lays out how America’s defense must change to address China’s growing power and ambition. Based firmly in the realist tradition but deeply engaged in current policy, this book offers a clear framework for what America’s goals in confronting China must be, how its military strategy must change, and how it must prioritize these goals over its lesser interests. The most informed and in-depth reappraisal of America’s defense strategy in decades, this book outlines a rigorous but practical approach, showing how the United States can prepare to win a war with China that we cannot afford to lose—precisely in order to deter that war from happening.

This innovative argument shows the consequences of increased aversion to international war for foreign and military policy.

In The American Way of Strategy, Lind argues that the goal of U.S. foreign policy has always been the preservation of the American way of life--embodied in civilian government, checks and balances, a commercial economy, and individual freedom. Lind describes how successive American statesmen--from George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton to Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan--have pursued an American way of strategy that minimizes the dangers of empire and anarchy by two means: liberal internationalism and realism. At its best, the American way of strategy is a well-thought-out and practical guide designed to preserve a peaceful and demilitarized world by preventing an international system dominated by imperial and militarist states and its disruption by anarchy. When American leaders have followed this path, they have led our nation from success to success, and when they have deviated from it, the results have been disastrous. Framed in an engaging historical narrative, the book makes an important contribution to contemporary debates. The American Way of Strategy is certain to change the way that Americans understand U.S. foreign policy.

For more than a century, energy and its procurement have been central to the U.S. position as a world power. How can U.S. relations with established producer nations ensure the stability of energy supplies? How can non-OPEC resources best be brought to the international marketplace? And what are the risks to international security of growing global reliance on imported oil? n Energy and Security: Toward a New Foreign Policy Strategy, Jan H. Kalicki and David L. Goldwyn bring together the topmost foreign policy and energy experts and leaders to examine these issues, as well as how the U.S. can mitigate the risks and dangers of continued energy dependence through a new strategic approach to foreign policy that integrates both U.S. energy and national security interests. Contributors include Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, Kevin A. Baumert, Michelle Billig, Loyola de Palacio, Jonathan Elkind, Michelle Michot Foss, Leon Fuerth, Lee H. Hamilton, Evan M. Harrje, John P. Holdren, Paul F. Hueper, Amy Myers Jaffe, J. Bennett Johnston, Donald A. Juckett, Viktor I. Kalyuzhny, Melanie A. Kenderdine, William F. Martin, Charles McPherson, Kenneth B. Medlock III, Ernest J. Moniz, Edward L. Morse, Julia Nanay, Shirley Neff, Willy H. Olsen, Bill Richardson, John Ryan, James R. Schlesinger, Gordon Shearer, Adam E. Sieminski, Alvaro Silva-Calderón, Luis Téllez Kuenzler, J. Robinson (Robin) West, Daniel Yergin, and Keiichi Yokobori.

William J. Perry and Ashton B. Carter, two of the world's foremost defense authorities, draw on their experience as leaders of the U.S. Defense Department to propose a new American security strategy for the twenty-first century. After a century in which aggression had to be defeated in two world wars and then deterred through a prolonged cold war, the authors argue for a strategy centered on prevention. Now that the cold war is over, it is necessary to rethink the risks to U.S. security. The A list--threats to U.S. survival--is empty today. The B list--the two major regional contingencies in the Persian Gulf and on the Korean peninsula that dominate Pentagon planning and budgeting--pose imminent threats to U.S. interests but not to survival. And the C list--such headline-grabbing places as Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, and Haiti--includes important contingencies that indirectly affect U.S. security but do not directly threaten U.S. interests. Thus the United States is enjoying a period of unprecedented peace and influence; but foreign policy and defense leaders cannot afford to be complacent. The authors' preventive defense strategy concentrates on the dangers that, if mismanaged, have the potential to grow into true A-list threats to U.S. survival in the next century. These include Weimar Russia: failure to establish a self-respecting place for the new Russia in the post-cold war world, allowing it to descend into chaos, isolation, and aggression as Germany did after World War I; Loose Nukes: failure to reduce and secure the deadly legacy of the cold war--nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union; A Rising China Turned Hostile: failure to shape China's rise to Asian superpower status so that it emerges as a partner rather than an adversary; Proliferation: spread of weapons of mass destruction; and Catastrophic Terrorism: increase in the scope and intensity of transnational terrorism.They also argue for

Contends that Washington should initiate a phased withdrawal

In this sobering analysis of American foreign policy under Trump, the award-winning economist calls for a new approach to international engagement. The American Century began in 1941 and ended in 2017, on the day of President Trump’s inauguration. The subsequent turn toward nationalism and “America first” unilateralism did not made America great. It announced the abdication of our responsibilities in the face of environmental crises, political upheaval, mass migration, and other global challenges. As a result, America no longer dominates geopolitics or the world economy as it once did. In this incisive and passionate book, Jeffrey D. Sachs provides the blueprint for a new foreign policy that embraces global cooperation, international law, and aspirations for worldwide prosperity. He argues that America’s approach to the world must shift from military might and wars of choice to a commitment to shared objectives of sustainable development. A New Foreign Policy explores both the danger of the “America first” mindset and the possibilities for a new way forward, proposing timely and achievable plans to foster global economic growth, reconfigure the United Nations for the twenty-first century, and build a multipolar world that is prosperous, peaceful, fair, and resilient.