INSS Strategic Monograph

National Defense University Press

Washington, D.C.

October 2014

The Grand Strategy of the 

United States

R.D. Hooker, Jr.
Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied 

within are solely those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent 

the views of the Defense Department or any other agency of the Federal 

Government. Cleared for public release; distribution unlimited.

Portions of this work may be quoted or reprinted without permission, 

provided that a standard source credit line is included. NDU Press would 

appreciate a courtesy copy of reprints or reviews.

Cover: President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden meet 

with members of the National Security Council in the Situation Room of the 

White House hours before his national address, September 10, 2014 (The 

White House/Pete Souza)

First printing, October 2014
Contents

The Roots of American Grand Strategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

A Century Like No Other. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 

The Ends of Grand Strategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

The Means of Grand Strategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

The Ways of Grand Strategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

The Way Ahead. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

About the Author. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

1

The Grand Strategy of the United States

From the earliest days of the Republic, the outlines of an evolving American 

grand strategy have been evident in our foreign and domestic policy.1 Much of that 

history continues to inform our strategic conduct, and therefore American grand 

strategy rests today on traditional foundations. Despite a welter of theory and debate, grand strategy as a practical matter is remarkably consistent from decade to 

decade, with its means altering as technology advances and institutions evolve but its 

ends and ways showing marked continuity. 

Grand strategy can be understood simply as the use of power to secure the state.

2

Thus, it exists at a level above particular strategies intended to secure particular ends 

and above the use of military power alone to achieve political objectives. One way 

to comprehend grand strategy is to look for long-term state behavior as defined by 

enduring, core security interests and how the state secures and advances them over 

time. In a way, this means that what the state does matters more than what the state 

says. Grand strategy is therefore related to, but not synonymous with, National Security Strategies, National Military Strategies, Quadrennial Defense Reviews, or Defense Strategic Guidance. Grand strategy transcends the security pronouncements 

of political parties or individual administrations. Viewed in this light, American 

grand strategy shows great persistence over time, orienting on those things deemed 

most important—those interests for which virtually any administration will spend, 

legislate, threaten, or fight to defend. 

The Roots of American Grand Strategy

American grand strategy cannot be understood without a historical grounding. 

Prior to the Revolution, the defense of the colonies as a whole was left to the British 

crown, and the colonial militia handled local defense. Contention between the great 

powers (Spain, the Netherlands, France, and Great Britain) on the North American 

continent bred an enduring distaste among the colonists for international intervention in the Western hemisphere. Prerevolutionary warfare was endemic and nearly 

constant in North America, fostering on the one hand a familiarity with conflict, but 

on the other a distrust of standing forces that would condition American strategic 

thought for several centuries.3
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As the United States became more firmly established, this impulse found expression in the Monroe Doctrine and in a general aversion to involvement in European wars that dated from President George Washington’s first administration.4

 This 

aversion stemmed in part from military and economic weakness, but the desire not 

to become enmeshed in the politics of a great power rivalry also played a key role. 

America was fortunate not to be drawn more deeply than it was into the French 

revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, and thereafter the desire to pursue continental 

expansion and to exclude further European colonization of the hemisphere shaped 

our policy and strategy for the rest of the 19th century.5

From the start, American grand strategy also carried a defining ideological component. While generally pragmatic, early American political and military leaders were 

strongly influenced by the ideals of the Enlightenment and the Revolution and by 

an emerging American political consciousness.6 Since the Revolutionary era, most 

American conflicts have been articulated and justified with some reference to this 

founding ideology, lending a distinctive, normative dimension to American strategy 

and strategic culture. Sometimes described as “American exceptionalism,” this component has been seen by some as an impulse to promote democratic values and the 

rule of law abroad as well as at home, and by others as an excuse for intervention.7

Although our historical narrative emphasizes reliance on local militia forces, 

regular forces or volunteer units raised outside the militia organizational structure 

have formed the center of gravity of America’s military establishment as far back 

as the Revolutionary War.8 For all significant campaigns at least through the Korean 

conflict, the pattern or cycle of America at war featured small regular forces, an expansion of the Army during the conflict through a combination of militia call-ups, 

volunteering, and conscription, and then a drawdown or return to prewar levels. This 

original aversion to large standing forces was undoubtedly rooted in the English Civil 

War; many of the original colonists came to the New World to escape the repression and incessant conflict of the Old World, and those memories became firmly 

imprinted in their cultural DNA. 

Throughout the 19th century, the United States grew and evolved as a rising regional power, only achieving great power status at the beginning of the 20th century.

The collapse of the Spanish empire in South America and the 1867 emergence of 
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The Grand Strategy of the United States

Canada as an independent commonwealth nation accelerated an effective end to 

European presence in the Western Hemisphere that was rendered final with the ejection of Spain from Cuba and Puerto Rico in 1898.9

 Territorial expansion through the 

Louisiana Purchase, Mexican-American War, Alaska Purchase, and Indian Wars completed the process of continental growth, accompanied by large-scale immigration 

from Europe, the transcontinental railroad, a growing and powerful mercantile capacity, and industrialization on a broad scale—thus setting conditions for America’s 

evolution into a superpower in the following century. 

Overshadowing everything else in the 19th century is the American Civil War. 

Vast in scope and scale, the Civil War fundamentally challenged the survival of the 

Nation and its constitutional system. More Americans died in the Civil War than in 

all other U.S. wars. Over the course of the conflict, large land and naval forces were 

raised, conscription was invoked, and modern technologies like mass production, 

military railroads, the telegraph, breech-loading, rifled artillery, repeating rifles, and 

iron-clad warships were introduced. Modern military professionalism and generalship replaced the notion of the talented amateur. Profound political questions were 

settled, most importantly the central role and importance of the Federal Government and the President as chief executive and commander in chief. There would be 

no going back. 

Though the military establishment returned to prewar levels following the Civil 

War, the precedent of mass mobilization under an organized War and Navy Department and professional generals and admirals had been well established. Professional 

military education took root, notably at the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode 

Island, and at the Army’s School of Application for Infantry and Cavalry (later the 

Command and General Staff College) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.10 Up through 

the Spanish-American War, the Army performed essentially constabulary duties, 

while the Navy steadily evolved toward a modern, capable, technically proficient arm 

of the service with a coherent doctrine. 

By the end of the 19th century, the general tenets of American grand strategy were well established and consistently applied by Presidents and congressional 

leaders of both parties. The overriding principle was, and remains, the protection 

of American territory, citizens, our constitutional system of government, and our 
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INSS Strategic Monograph

economic well-being. These “vital interests” were secured and enabled in the 1800s 

through protection of trade and freedom of navigation on the oceans; a prohibition 

against European military intervention in the Western hemisphere; a capable navy; 

a small but professional army, capable of rapid expansion in time of crisis; and a 

readiness to provide support to civil authorities when needed. Protected by two vast 

oceans, with an industrialized and increasingly global economy and a large and growing population (enabling the raising of a potentially huge land force if threatened), 

the United States generally enjoyed a stable security environment.

A Century Like No Other

The new century would transform American grand strategy in different but 

comparable ways. By a wide margin, the 20th century would prove to be the most catastrophic in history. The Spanish-American War, while revealing many shortcomings 

in organization and supply for the land forces, showcased a powerful and competent 

Navy with global reach and made the United States an imperial power with newly 

won possessions in the Caribbean (Puerto Rico) and the Pacific (the Philippines and 

Guam). America had now moved decisively onto the world stage.

In the second decade of the century, it became clear that war loomed in Europe, as armies assumed massive proportions, professional general staffs perfected the 

machinery of mobilization, and industrialization and advancing technology equipped 

armies and navies for large-scale, protracted war. The United States, preoccupied with 

colonial concerns in the Philippines and protected by an impressive fleet and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, genuinely pursued a neutrality that would eventually founder on 

two key strategic dilemmas: the protection of trade and markets, and the potential rise 

of a hostile power in control of the European landmass. American pride was certainly 

touched by unrestricted submarine warfare, but what could not be borne was the isolation of U.S. commerce from European markets or the prospect of German control 

of all of Europe’s economic and demographic resources. If that occurred, Germany 

could conceivably threaten the continental United States both militarily and by setting 

the terms of trade. While cultural and ideological affinities with European democracies played important roles and a politically powerful isolationist movement offered 
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The Grand Strategy of the United States

resistance, these life-and-death strategic considerations compelled America’s entry as 

an active belligerent.11

Unlike World War II, America was no “arsenal of democracy” in World War 

I. Once committed to war, U.S. grand strategy stressed speed over mobilization of 

the industrial base and a deliberate buildup of troops and material. Getting large 

field forces to France in time to prevent an Allied collapse was the driving strategic imperative. France, Great Britain, Italy, and Russia supplied their own weapons 

and equipment. American forces were largely equipped (with the exception of small 

arms) by the Allies. Still, the introduction of a one-million-man U.S. field army just as 

Germany’s defeat of Russia enabled the transfer of huge forces to the Western Front 

proved decisive. In only 3 months of large-scale combat, the United States suffered 

heavy casualties, but the arrival of the Americans proved decisive to victory. By war’s 

end, the United States had moved to the fore as a great power and a guarantor of the 

international order.12

The armistice was followed in the 1920s by massive demobilization and in the 

1930s by economic collapse, repeating the familiar pattern of putting the Army in 

caretaker or cadre status. In contrast, though limited by treaty restrictions, the Navy 

pursued the development of carrier aviation and long-range submarines, while inside 

the Army Air Forces, the foundations of a strategic bomber force were laid. A resurgent Germany, well ahead of its rivals with newly developed armored formations and 

a modern air force, again raised the specter of a nondemocratic power occupying 

the European continent and directly threatening the continental United States. This 

time, however, the strategic challenge was far more complex and dangerous. In Asia, 

a modern and bellicose Japan invaded China and looked ready to challenge American 

economic and territorial interests in the Pacific, while an ideologically virulent Soviet 

Union raised huge forces even as it savagely repressed millions of its citizens, killing 

more than 14 million peasants in the forced collectivization of the 1930s. At the outbreak of war in 1939, America again found itself with a small and unprepared land 

force and with unready allies. 

U.S. grand strategy in World War II aimed at the defeat and destruction of 

Germany and Japan, not as ends in themselves but as necessary to the reestablishment of a stable international order, a prosperous global economic system, and a 
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INSS Strategic Monograph

U.S. population free from military threat at home and abroad.13 This necessitated 

strong support for allies—even unsavory ones such as the Soviet Union, which 

proved essential to victory—massive mobilization, and an economic and industrial 

effort unparalleled in world history. Even in retrospect, the U.S. effort beggars 

belief. By war’s end, the U.S. Navy was larger than the combined fleets of every 

other combatant nation, possessing more than 70 percent of the naval strength in 

the world. The U.S. Army, ranked 17th in size in 1939, grew to more than 8 million 

soldiers and 90 combat divisions. The Army Air Forces boasted 80,000 aircraft. 

American ships, planes, and tanks were among the most reliable and effective in 

the world and were supported by a supply system unrivaled on the planet. Despite 

beginning slowly, the United States and its Allies advanced progressively throughout the war, gaining the initiative in the Pacific in 1942 and in Europe in 1944. 

U.S. grand strategy, as distinct from theater strategies in Europe and Asia, focused first on keeping the British, Russians, and Chinese in the war while the American buildup gathered momentum.14 Success was far from assured. In 1940, following 

an embarrassingly inept Allied performance in Norway, France fell and the British were soundly defeated, narrowly escaping annihilation. Further humiliations in 

Greece, Crete, and North Africa in 1941—while Russian forces were driven back to 

the gates of Moscow, with millions killed, wounded, and captured—was followed 

by the near destruction of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. In 1942, Singapore 

surrendered—the largest capitulation in British history. 

In retrospect, Allied victory seems to have been inevitable. At the time, it was 

anything but. Over time, enemy strategic missteps, the accumulation of experience 

at all levels, and most tellingly, the sheer size and mass of Allied (particularly Russian 

and American) forces began to turn the tide. It is difficult to argue that, man for man 

and unit for unit, the Allies eventually became better than our adversaries (at least in 

Europe).15 What is incontestable is that American mass in all domains proved decisive. Coalition warfare on a global scale, enabled by the most powerful economy and 

industrial base in history, proved a war-winning combination.

Any sound analysis of World War II must conclude that in the end, U.S. material 

superiority proved the decisive factor.16 America’s ability to produce and transport 

vehicles, ammunition, food, supplies, and fuel kept its key Allies on their feet. U.S. 
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The Grand Strategy of the United States

industry produced more than 370,000 planes, more than 100,000 tanks and armored 

vehicles, and more than 7,000 warships during the war. The ability to mobilize and 

organize the economy for global war and to field trained and very strong forces in 

all domains (sea, air, and land) arguably counted for more than where and how they 

were used. 

American grand strategy in World War II was simple, consistent, and effective. Comprehensive defeat of the enemy was envisioned from the start, with the 

liberation of Europe as the first priority. Building up its war capacity at speed while 

sustaining critical Allies (a dual mission that forced hard resource choices, especially 

early on) constituted the focus of effort.17 As the United States built strength, President Franklin Roosevelt ruled against dramatic but overly risky suggestions to reinforce General Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines in 1942 and to attempt a crossChannel invasion of Europe in 1943. Instead, the United States patiently set the 

conditions for strategic success. In the Atlantic, this meant defeating the submarine 

threat. In Europe, this meant large-scale strategic bombing to attack German morale, 

war production, and lines of communication while preparing for and then executing 

the invasion of the continent. In the Pacific, it meant establishing airfields and naval 

bases and advancing deliberately across the region in a coordinated campaign to engage and destroy the Imperial Japanese Fleet and commercial shipping preparatory 

to invasion of the home islands. Overwhelming Allied strength on the ground, in 

the air, and at sea forced the collapse of Germany and would have done the same to 

Japan had the advent of nuclear weapons not terminated the conflict.18

At war’s end, the United States stood alone as leader of the victorious coalition, 

the greatest economic and military power in the world. In the immediate postwar 

period, U.S. advantages were absolute. A booming economy, a formidable strategic 

Air Force and Navy, and sole possession of nuclear weapons ensured American 

supremacy, fitting it uniquely for a role as the world’s superpower. American grand 

strategy at mid-century continued to rest on the foundations described above and 

could be summarized concisely as monitoring and enforcing a stable international 

order and economic system that preserved American sovereignty, security, and prosperity; ensuring the security of the homeland through nuclear deterrence, alliances, 

forward-deployed ground forces, and airpower and seapower; and preventing the rise 
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INSS Strategic Monograph

of peer competitors that might challenge its economic and military superiority.19 The 

isolationism that had always existed as a strain in American foreign policy would not 

disappear altogether, but it would never again contend for primacy in grand strategy.

America’s supreme effort in World War II did not lead to peace, and unchallenged American dominance proved transitory.20 As the United States demobilized 

its Army, the Soviet Union maintained a powerful and dangerous military establishment that soon gained a nuclear component that could reach U.S. targets. Despite 

incredible losses during the war, the Soviet Union pursued a ruthlessly disciplined 

political and military program that soon brought all of Eastern Europe under its 

sway.21 In Asia, the Communist Chinese finally completed their long civil war, driving the Nationalists to Taiwan and solidifying their status as a regional power. Both 

China and the Soviet Union espoused political doctrines and ideologies profoundly 

at odds with the values and interests of the West. The stage was thus set for decades 

of confrontation.

In June 1950, the United States stumbled into an unexpected confrontation 

with the Communist bloc when the North Korean army invaded South Korea and 

took Seoul. Unaccountably, North Korea and its Chinese partners seemed not to 

fear America’s nuclear arsenal. At the outset, the lack of strategic warning, poor military preparedness, and uncertainty over U.S. strategic aims muddled the American 

response, contributing to the indecisive outcome. Although still in possession of a 

nuclear monopoly (Moscow detonated its first nuclear weapon on August 29, 1949, 

but did not have a true deployable nuclear capability until several years later), the 

United States greatly feared a Soviet lunge into central Europe, clearly a more critical strategic priority.22 U.S. strategists could not be sure whether the North Korean 

invasion was directed by Moscow to distract Washington and its allies. Given the 

intense ideological perspectives that dominated at the time, a judgment was made 

that communist states acted more or less monolithically and that an armed response 

was needed to contain further communist expansion. The Korean conflict ultimately 

absorbed much of the military capacity available against a peripheral, not central, 

strategic priority—a huge gamble. Its unsatisfying outcome, a negotiated armistice 

leading to a frozen conflict, reflected America’s unwillingness to mobilize or commit 
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The Grand Strategy of the United States

totally to victory in a war not well understood or supported by the public. This “no 

win, no lose” approach would be seen again, with similar results.23

The advent of nuclear weapons, many argued, presaged the dislocation or even 

negation of grand strategy altogether. Through the 1950s, and despite the example 

of the Korean war, it was the declared policy of the United States to threaten a 

nuclear response to any attack. The international system settled into bipolarity, with 

each armed camp being capable of destroying the other absolutely as nonaligned 

states struggled to avoid co-option. Direct, armed confrontation between the Soviet 

Union and the United States seemed unthinkable for fear of uncontrolled escalation. 

Deterrence and containment became the means by which the ends of grand strategy 

were fulfilled. While powerful conventional forces were maintained, few strategists 

reckoned that the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 

allies could prevail in a conventional war with the Soviet Union in Central Europe. 

Instead, nuclear systems at the tactical, theater, and intercontinental levels proliferated on both sides in an arms race only partially limited by arms control treaties. While 

the willingness of U.S. leaders to use nuclear weapons in Europe—to “trade Washington for Bonn”—was never certain, the consequences of miscalculation for either 

side were almost unlimited, and deterrence in this sense proved remarkably stable. In 

only a single instance, the Cuban missile crisis, did the two superpowers approach the 

abyss, and even then the prospect of mutual destruction induced both to step back.

The long and painful experience of the Vietnam conflict shared almost eerie 

similarities with the one in Korea. Both featured ethnic populations, artificially partitioned. In both, the aggressor was a communist movement enabled and supported 

by China and the Soviet Union. Both featured large, conventional forces fighting 

from protected sanctuaries. In both, the United States fought on the Asian mainland, 

far from the homeland in a country with weak governance structures and a poorly 

developed infrastructure. And in both, U.S. airpower and seapower were unable to 

secure decisive battlefield results, even against a technologically inferior opponent. 

Like Korea, Vietnam eventually consumed huge military resources at the expense of 

U.S. forces in Europe, miring the United States in a protracted, peripheral war with 

weak popular support. 24 In Vietnam, as in Korea, there were no direct threats to U.S. 
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vital interests, only vague objectives to “resist communism” and to “maintain U.S. 

credibility.”

Korea and Vietnam (and, for that matter, smaller interventions such as Lebanon 

in 1958 and the Dominican Republic in 1965) took place against the backdrop of 

the Cold War and were clearly viewed in that light. For nearly five decades following 

World War II, national security concerns dominated the American political landscape 

as the United States engaged the Soviet Union in a worldwide struggle. For the first 

time in their history, Americans supported high defense expenditures in order to sustain large military forces in peacetime. Despite the painful experiences of the Korean 

and Vietnam conflicts, the United States never faltered in its fundamental commitment to opposing Soviet expansion.25 Internally or externally, there was little debate: 

deterrence, or failing that, fighting and winning our nation’s wars, went unquestioned 

as the defining task of the U.S. military.

Though far more dangerous, the Cold War was a simpler era in many respects 

than today. Our national security objectives were clear and unambiguous. Even at 

the height of the Vietnam conflict, the primary disagreement revolved around the 

nature of the struggle, not a questioning of the policy of containment. Sovereignty 

of individual states was paramount, tempered only somewhat by the moral force of 

international organizations such as the United Nations (UN) or, more concretely, by 

involvement in traditional security alliances such as NATO. The influence of nonstate actors—whether nongovernmental organizations, private voluntary organizations, terrorist groups, drug cartels, international criminal syndicates, or others—was 

limited. In the main, national security imperatives were likely to prevail over other 

considerations in the strategic calculus.

All that changed when the Berlin Wall came down. Whereas superpower rivalry 

had previously inhibited the actions of ambitious regional powers and limited the 

influence of nonstate actors, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to immediate changes in the system that had governed international relations for over 

four decades. Overnight, the manifest threat ceased to exist. As a result, the United 

States and its allies were forced to adjust their strategic focus. At the same time, an 

increasingly interdependent global economy and emerging revolutions in information and communications eroded the concept of state sovereignty in fundamental 
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The Grand Strategy of the United States

ways. The result was a rise in international organized crime, quantum increases in 

international and domestic terrorism, ecological deterioration, disease, mass migration and refugee overflows, multiple outbreaks of ethnic and religious conflict, and 

a proliferation of failed states. These trends culminated in 9/11 and its painful and 

protracted aftermath.

The architects of the post–Cold War drawdown assumed, quite naturally, that 

the military would be far less busy in a world that would be more tranquil than before. Military forces were drawn down across the board. In one of the more interesting paradoxes of history, the end of the Cold War was followed not by retrenchment 

or relaxation but by a rapid increase in conflict and in U.S. military commitments 

abroad. No longer driven by superpower rivalry, national security policy evolved to 

advance U.S. interests in a more fragmented, multipolar system largely defined by 

ethnic, religious, and cultural enmities as old as they were implacable. New challenges—economic, environmental, and factional as well as national, regional, and 

ideological—now confronted the United States in an international setting of greater 

complexity and variety. 

These trends also fueled the rise of new actors on the international political 

landscape. The budget, influence, and level of activity of the UN and its many organizations increased substantially in the 1990s. Nongovernmental organizations 

and private voluntary organizations became increasingly active, pursuing numerous 

ambitious agendas in many different areas. Traditional national security concerns 

receded as the United States and other Western powers attempted to reap the dividends of peace. A fundamental shift took place, largely unnoticed, in the way many 

Americans viewed national security and the role of the armed forces in providing for 

the common defense. 

The drawdown of the 1990s was wrenching. In a single decade, 700,000 U.S. 

military personnel slots (about one-third of the active force) were eliminated, but 

the loss of combat forces was even more severe. In combat structure, the Army 

declined from 18 active divisions to 10, the Navy went from 566 ships to 354, and 

the Air Force went from 36 to 20 fighter wings, an overall reduction of 45 percent. 

The defense budget in general terms dropped by 40 percent. In the midst of these 

changes, the military was asked to shoulder a heavier operational load. Stability 
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operations in the Balkans, Haiti, and the Sinai in the 1990s stressed a force preoccupied with massive downsizing. Peacekeeping, peace enforcement, and humanitarian assistance operations as well as “theater engagement” missions exploded. 

While the military had undertaken these types of missions throughout its history, 

the sheer number of deployments dwarfed those conducted in the past. Examples 

include refugee assistance in northern Iraq following the Gulf War, security and 

disaster relief efforts in Somalia, humanitarian aid to refugees in the Rwandan 

crisis, restoration of democracy in Haiti, stability operations in Macedonia and 

peace enforcement operations to implement the Dayton Accords in Bosnia, and 

the Kosovo air campaign and later enforcement of the Military Technical Agreement in Kosovo.26 More traditional combat or rescue missions in Panama, Southwest Asia, Liberia, Albania, and elsewhere in the same time frame also stretched 

American forces and resources. 

This dramatic turnaround in the international security environment could not 

help but impact the world in profound ways. Several trends have heavily influenced 

American grand strategy since the Gulf War: the dramatic downsizing of U.S. military forces, their increasing use in nontraditional, noncombat missions and at the 

lower end of the spectrum of war, an increasingly polarized political environment, 

and a prolonged period of economic distress and malaise. All are interrelated and all 

have deeply affected the Armed Forces as instruments of national power, shaping 

U.S. strategy in important ways.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks struck the heart of grand strategy as they represented 

the first large-scale, direct attack on the homeland by an outside power since the War 

of 1812. Political unwillingness to confront the gathering threat and serious intelligence shortcomings represented strategic failures for which the United States paid a 

high price. Following 9/11, defense spending increased substantially as the conflicts 

in Afghanistan and Iraq began and endured. Over several years, the active Army grew 

from 470,000 to 548,000 and the Marine Corps expanded from 158,000 to 202,000, 

while Air Force and Navy end strengths remained static or declined slightly. In keeping with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s “transformation” initiatives, significant investments were made in command, control, communications, computers, 

intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems and in precision munitions, 
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The Grand Strategy of the United States

as well as in force protection enhancements such as up-armored wheeled vehicles. 

Nevertheless, legacy combat systems—planes, tanks, and ships—first delivered in 

the 1970s and early 1980s remained the backbone of the military services (as they do 

today), while many next-generation programs were canceled or downsized.27

As with Korea and Vietnam, the post-9/11 era of conflict came to absorb much 

of our military effort and resources at the expense of other, more central security 

concerns.28 In particular, ground forces were fully committed to the campaigns in 

Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving minimal Active Duty capacity for other contingencies 

such as the Korean Peninsula.29 Air and naval forces played much smaller roles. Over 

time, the Army in particular minimized its readiness for prolonged, state-on-state, 

high-intensity conflict, shedding much of its armored, mechanized, and field artillery 

force structure and focusing its combat training centers on counterinsurgency. The 

special operations community grew dramatically in size and capability in a single generation but could not play a decisive role in the counterterrorism and counterinsurgency campaigns that defined the post-9/11 security landscape. With the U.S. effort 

in Iraq over and its Afghanistan venture winding down, it seems clear that neither 

will be seen retroactively as a clear-cut success; nor has the threat to the homeland 

from international terrorism been destroyed or eliminated. 

At the conclusion of more than a decade of counterinsurgency, the United 

States finds itself repeating a familiar historical pattern. In the fiscal retrenchment 

that accompanies the end of every conflict (exacerbated by the economic collapse 

of 2008 and the Budget Control Act of 2011), active Army forces will bear the brunt 

of defense reductions, while the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps will be less affected.30 Most U.S. ground and air forces have been redeployed to the continental 

United States, while defense spending will decline over the next 10 years by approximately 10 percent per year. At the same time, emerging, nontraditional threats 

such as cyber attacks, weapons of mass destruction (whether chemical, biological, 

or radiological) wielded by nonstate actors, and international terrorism now crowd 

the security agenda. Increasingly, other threats such as narcotrafficking, illegal immigration, environmental degradation, demography (for example, “youth bulges”), 

organized crime, and even climate change are also cast as national security threats. 

What does this portend for American grand strategy?
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The Ends of Grand Strategy

First, it is important not to confuse enduring, core strategic interests with 

others that are less central. The current security environment, described in the 

2014 Quadrennial Defense Review as “rapidly changing,” “volatile,” “unpredictable,” and “in some cases more threatening” is certainly all those. Yet addressing 

this environment in fact aligns comfortably with American grand strategy over 

time. Broadly speaking, U.S. vital or core interests remain remarkably consistent: 

the defense of American territory and that of our allies, protecting American 

citizens at home and abroad, supporting and defending our constitutional values 

and forms of government, and promoting and securing the U.S. economy and 

standard of living. These four core interests encompass virtually every strategic 

dynamic and dimension. Grand strategy is by no means confined to our military 

forces and institutions but is far broader, encompassing all forms of national 

power. That said, we must beware of attempts to define everything in terms of 

national security. Any discussion of grand strategy quickly loses coherence and 

utility when we do.31 Grand strategy is fundamentally about security in its more 

traditional sense.32

Any assessment must begin with a look at our security environment and 

then at threats to our core or vital interests, without either overestimating or 

undervaluing them. The international security environment is by now well understood and familiar. Raymond Aron’s view of “a multiplicity of autonomous 

centers of decision and therefore a risk of war” holds true today.33 The bipolar, traditionally Westphalian state system of the Cold War has given way to a 

more multipolar system featuring a militarily and economically dominant, but 

not all-powerful, United States; a rising China and India; a resurgent Russia; an 

economically potent but militarily declining Europe; an unstable and violenceprone Middle East, wracked by the Sunni-Shia divide, economic and governmental underperformance, and the Arab-Israeli problem; a proliferation of weak and 

failed states, particularly in Africa, the Middle East, and the Russian periphery; 

and empowered international and nongovernmental organizations and nonstate 

actors.34 Terrorist organizations and international organized crime, enabled by 

global communications and information flows, have become far more significant 
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than they previously had been. In absolute terms, the world is safer, as the prospect of nuclear mutually assured destruction and world war costing millions of 

lives seems relegated to the past. Yet most societies feel threatened and insecure, 

while conflict, if more low level, remains endemic.

In this regard, we often see references to “asymmetric” threats posed to “thwart 

U.S. conventional military advantages.”35 While factually true—weaker states find it 

largely impossible to match U.S. power symmetrically—this characterization can be 

misleading. It is just as accurate to cast asymmetric threats as less capable offsets employed by weaker powers who cannot match American preponderance. A persistent 

tendency to inflate the dangers of insurgency, terrorism, “niche” technologies, and 

so on can distort threat assessments in unhelpful ways. Asymmetric threats deserve 

careful consideration, but they should not be exaggerated. 

The broad threats that face us have deep roots but have also evolved over time. 

In order of importance, they can be summarized as:

◆ Use of weapons of mass destruction against the homeland. These could be 

nuclear, chemical, biological, cyber, or explosive/kinetic in nature (such as the 9/11 

attacks) delivered by either state or nonstate actors. Single or multiple attacks causing 

huge mass casualties could lead to partial or complete economic collapse and loss of 

confidence in our governance structures, imperiling our standard of living and way 

of life in addition to causing loss of life.36

◆ Economic disruption from without. The crash of 2008 was largely self-induced, but the health and stability of the U.S. economy can also be affected by the 

actions of foreign powers. Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, which 

jeopardized the international economic order by threatening the free flow of oil 

from the Persian Gulf, is an example. A major cyber attack against the financial 

sector or the closure of the Straits of Tiran or the Straits of Malacca by a hostile 

power could be another.37 Any major disruption to the global economy, which depends upon investor confidence as much as the free flow of goods and energy, can 

have catastrophic consequences for the United States, and American presidents 

have repeatedly shown a willingness to use force to ensure access to markets, free 

trade, and economic stability.
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◆ The rise of a hostile peer competitor. For centuries, Great Britain aligned against 

the rise of any power able to dominate the European landmass and upset the balance of power. The United States did the same in opposing Germany in World War 

I, Germany and Japan in World War II, and the Soviet Union in the Cold War. The 

U.S. “Rebalance to Asia” and opposition to Chinese territorial moves in the East and 

South China Seas can be seen as an attempt to counter the rise of China in a manner 

consistent with longstanding U.S. grand strategy. A peaceful, nonhostile peer nation 

or grouping of nations (such as the European Union) poses no strategic threat to the 

United States. An authoritarian great power, possessed of both military and economic 

means and an apparent desire to enlarge and expand them, could in time pose a direct, 

existential threat to American national security. American grand strategy has traditionally opposed such powers and would in all likelihood do so again.38

◆ Direct challenges to key allies. Alliances like NATO and bilateral security 

arrangements with close allies like Japan and South Korea constitute solemn commitments that extend American power and influence globally. Cooperation with 

allies adds their military forces to ours and secures forward basing and other rights 

we need to secure U.S. interests around the world. We do not enter into arrangements 

altruistically, but rather because they serve U.S. interests. To preserve international 

stability and deter conflict, they must be honored. Failure to do so in one case, such 

as an attack on Japan or South Korea, would call into question our commitment to all 

such commitments and would compromise, perhaps fatally, our system of alliances 

and treaties worldwide.39 U.S. leaders can be expected to act decisively when close 

allies are directly threatened.

There are, of course, other threats of concern to national security practitioners 

that fall below this threshold. An attack on a U.S. Embassy, the kidnapping of U.S. 

citizens abroad, or the pirating of U.S.-flagged vessels on the high seas would be examples. U.S. political leaders might also contemplate the use of military force under the 

evolving doctrine of “responsibility to protect” as in the cases of Somalia in 1991 and 

Libya in 2011, or when national pride has been touched (as in the Mayaguez or Pueblo

incidents). However, these by definition do not engage grand strategic objectives, and 
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statesmen assume risk when treating them as though they do, primarily because strong 

and sustained public support is less assured.40

Similarly, promoting democracy and human rights abroad is often touted as 

a national security or foreign policy “imperative.”41 While consistent with American political culture and ideology, in practice, these instances are highly case specific. When consonant with the framework and principles of U.S. grand strategy, 

the United States may act, but more often, a pragmatic realism governs. 42 The long 

nightmare in Syria, with its tragic loss of life, accelerating regional instability, mounting extremism and terrorist involvement, and massive human rights violations on all 

sides, would seem to be a classic case calling for military intervention. Yet there is no 

UN or NATO mandate, no strong reservoir of public support for military action, 

no appetite for intervention among our allies and partners, and no desire to dispute 

the agendas of Russia, China, and Iran in Syria, at least for the time being. With no 

direct threat to the homeland, U.S. citizens or allies, or the economy, the prospects 

for large-scale military intervention at present seem low, despite the humanitarian 

tragedy unfolding.

The crisis in Ukraine presents a different case study. While the likelihood of 

committing U.S. forces to defend Ukraine following the seizure of Crimea is low, 

the postwar security architecture in the Euro-Russian space, so carefully constructed 

for a generation, has been thrown over. The North Atlantic Council voted to defer 

NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine and did not station NATO troops in 

the new member states, largely out of deference to Russian security concerns. These 

confidence-building measures notwithstanding, Russia sent troops into Georgia in 

2008, where they remain today.43 In particular, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine agreed to surrender its nuclear weapons in exchange for Russian 

guarantees of its territorial integrity, has been seriously compromised, along with the 

Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and, apparently, the NATORussia Council. Large Russian forces, having seized Crimea, are massed on the eastern and southern borders of Ukraine. Concerns by NATO members, especially the 

newer ones in Eastern Europe and the Baltic States, are mounting as Russian leaders 

assert the right to “protect” ethnic Russian minorities in neighboring countries.
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This scenario presents a different challenge to American grand strategy. Should 

Russia seize more Ukrainian territory, NATO’s Baltic members could very possibly 

come under threat, an altogether different matter.44 Russian subversion or military action in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia may be deterred by NATO’s Article 5 guarantee, 

and U.S. leaders and their Allied and partner counterparts will work hard through energetic diplomacy and severe economic sanctions to dissuade any thought of further 

aggression. Still, should Russia reprise its Crimea land-grab in the Baltic states, it is 

more likely than not that the United States will respond militarily under the Washington 

Treaty and encourage its NATO allies to do the same. Direct confrontation with Russia, still a major nuclear and conventional power, may seem unthinkable. Yet failure to 

honor our treaty obligations to NATO would mean the virtual collapse not only of the 

Alliance, but also of our security relationships around the world. Such a loss of global 

reach and influence would negate U.S. grand strategy altogether. For that reason, however much against its will, the United States will in all likelihood confront Russia should 

a NATO member be attacked or directly threatened.

The unfolding collapse of the Iraqi state may fall somewhere in between. Across 

the American public and in both political parties, there remains a strong aversion to 

reintroducing a large ground presence into Iraq. A direct threat to the homeland has 

not yet emerged, and the prospect of lending military and material aid to the Shia 

regime in Baghdad, itself both supported and at least partially controlled by Tehran, 

is unpalatable. On the other hand, major human rights violations and the prospect 

of spillover and accelerating destabilization of the region could compel strong action 

against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its Sunni confederates. Should 

ISIS successfully establish a safe haven and launch attacks against Europe and the 

United States, decisive U.S. and coalition military action would almost certainly follow. Major disruption to the free flow of oil through the Arabian Gulf and attendant 

economic shocks would also compel a powerful military response. 

These and similar examples raise the question of whether the United States consciously pursues an imperial or hegemonic grand strategy. Many scholars, both domestic and foreign, explicitly or implicitly assert that it does.45 On the one hand, the 

United States, along with other great powers, seeks to provide for its own security by 

maximizing its power relative to that of potential and actual adversaries, within limits 
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imposed by its domestic politics. Its political and military leaders are constrained in 

attempting to balance what Raymond Aron called an ethics of responsibility—the 

pragmatic reality of an international politics that cannot and does not ignore the role 

of force—and an ethics of conviction, which is normative and classically liberal in 

seeking accommodation and an absence of conflict where possible.46 It is thus true 

that American power, and particularly military power, is often employed to secure 

and advance American interests. On the other hand, U.S. interventions are marked by 

an absence of territorial aggrandizement or forced extraction of natural resources. 

Typically, huge sums are spent on development and infrastructural improvements. 

On its own or when asked (as in the Balkans, Somalia, Haiti, Panama, and Iraq), the 

United States usually withdraws and goes home. Even close allies remain free to opt 

out of military ventures, as seen in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and in Libya in 2011. 

The net effect has been to bring into being, largely if not entirely through America’s own efforts, a rules-based international and economic order that has widely 

benefited much of the world:

It falls to the dominant state to create the conditions under which economic 

interdependence can take hold (by providing security, rules of the game, and 

a reserve currency, and by acting as the global economy’s banker and lender 

of last resort). Without a dominant power to perform these tasks, economic 

interdependence does not happen. Indeed, free trade and interdependence have 

occurred in the modern international system only during the hegemonies of 

Victorian Britain and postwar America.47

These are the actions of a preponderant power but hardly of a classically imperialist 

one. If the United States is imperialist, it appears to be so in a historically benign way; 

if hegemonic, in a heavily qualified one.48

The Means of Grand Strategy

The “means” of grand strategy are similarly enduring over time. Its basic components include fostering strong alliances and bilateral security arrangements;49

maintaining a strong and survivable nuclear deterrent; fielding balanced, powerful, 
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and capable military forces, dominant in each warfighting domain, that can project 

and sustain military power globally and prevail in armed conflict; and providing intelligence services that can ensure global situational awareness and provide strategic 

early warning. These components are intrinsically linked to a powerful economy and 

industrial base, advanced technology, an extensive military reserve component, an 

educated and technically skilled population fit for military service,50 and a political 

system that is based on classically liberal democratic values and able to make clear 

and sustainable policy and resource decisions.51

In important ways these tools and capabilities are, or are perceived to be, eroding. The U.S. economy, still the largest in the world, has not fully recovered from the 

2008 crisis. Mounting alarm over record deficits and an inability to control spending resulted in the 2011 Budget Control Act, approved against all expectations and 

mandating a 10 percent cut in defense spending over the next 10 years, triggering 

sequestration and a succession of budget crises. Confidence in America’s economic 

and fiscal future has been shaken. 

America’s traditional reliance on forward presence and forward-deployed forces, 

another strategic linchpin, has also declined since the end of the Cold War. Few 

combat forces remain in Europe (the last tank was removed in 2012), only a single 

ground combat brigade is based in Korea, and there are no ground combat troops 

based in the Middle East. Naval forward presence has also been scaled back in the 

post–Cold War era as the size of the fleet has declined.52 On the Alliance front, 

relations with NATO allies have been damaged by the Rebalance to Asia, widely 

perceived as a devaluation of Europe by U.S. leaders, and by Secretary of Defense 

Robert Gates’s stern speech in June of 2011, which castigated European allies for 

failing to meet targets for defense spending.53 President Barack Obama’s “leading 

from behind” stance in Libya, the pullout from Iraq, the pending withdrawal from 

Afghanistan, and inaction in Syria are interpreted by some as evidence of a disinclination to engage globally in the interests of international stability, though others see 

it as prudent and measured restraint. 

The use of “soft power” also deserves consideration in this discussion.54 Described by Joseph Nye, the term’s progenitor, as “the ability to influence the behavior 

of others to get the outcomes you want,”55 soft power is concerned with development 
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The Grand Strategy of the United States

aid, cultural influence, the power of example, and others forms of suasion that are 

not coercive or easily directed. Theorists disagree on whether soft power should be 

considered as part of the strategist’s arsenal. Diplomacy, for instance, may lack utility 

when divorced from the military and economic power of the state; the artfulness of 

the discussion may be useful but will not be decisive absent hard power. On balance, 

although the ability of soft power to influence adversary behavior for good or ill is 

probably incontrovertible, it is not easily deployable or even controllable.56 To that extent, it is an important factor that nevertheless falls outside the realm of grand strategy 

as traditionally understood and practiced. 

While U.S. determination to act forcefully in support of the international order may be more open to question and U.S. economic and military power may 

not be as dominant as it has been in the past, in absolute terms the United States 

remains by far the preponderant power in the world. Possessed of great actual and 

potential strengths, the United States is unequalled in hard power. Nevertheless, 

coherent and effective political direction is the essential precondition to strategic 

success. Since the end of the Vietnam War, mounting conflict between the legislative and executive branches, spurred by a fractious polarization of American politics, has reached alarming proportions. Repeated wars have led to a concentration 

of the war power in the executive branch, arguably resulting in more frequent uses 

of force that may not command public support. Unquestionably, a healthy and 

stable set of political arrangements that provides for effective sharing of power, 

while ensuring popular backing, is essential.57 When this element is lacking, successful strategic execution is at risk. 

The Ways of Grand Strategy

How the United States addresses direct threats to its core or vital interests over 

time is the essence of grand strategy. Typically, America’s solutions are not new, although the technologies employed often are. The first principle is to meet the threat 

as far from the homeland as possible. Thus, since the end of World War II, the United 

States has established bases, positioned forces, and stockpiled weapons and munitions 

around the globe, buttressed by economic and development assistance, exercises, formal treaties, coalitions of the willing, and alliances.58 (Counterproliferation may also be 
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seen in this light.) While U.S. ground forces have largely come home, and key installations such as Torrejon Air Base in Spain and Clark Air Base and Naval Base Subic Bay 

in the Philippines were closed after the Cold War, America’s network of overseas bases, 

airfields, and alliances as well as forward-deployed air and naval forces is still extensive. 

America’s ability to project power globally and sustain its forces almost indefinitely 

remains unmatched. U.S. satellites survey the globe and monitor adversary communications continuously. Though smaller than during the Cold War, the U.S. strategic nuclear 

arsenal is survivable, redundant, and accurate, providing an absolute nuclear deterrent 

against any adversary.59

Next, the United States prefers to meet serious threats using different tools at 

once, relying on intelligence, diplomacy, forward presence, and economic power to 

forestall, deflect, or defuse security challenges and reserving military force as a last 

resort.60 Still, U.S. military power is awesome. Its strength across the warfighting 

domains, supported by an unmatched ability to project and sustain military forces 

far from the homeland, remains far ahead of the rest of the world.61 Whenever possible, the United States will address threats in tandem with allies, partners, or likeminded states, working through international organizations like the UN or NATO 

and conducting preconflict engagement and “shaping” operations on a large scale. 

Yet when vital interests are at stake, the United States will act unilaterally if necessary.62 Preemption to disrupt or prevent imminent threats falls well within America’s 

grand strategic calculus.63 Prevention—the use of force to defeat threats before they 

become imminent—has, on the other hand, far less provenance.

As the preponderant global power, the United States attempts to shape the 

international security environment to prevent or ward off security challenges 

where it can.64 When it cannot, and when significant or vital interests are engaged, military force often comes into play. Since the end of World War II, 

the United States has used military force many times, with varying success, to 

protect, secure, or advance its security interests.65 When military force was used, 

the record of success or failure is illustrative when viewed in light of the grand 

strategic framework described above. In the 20th century, the United States experienced clear success when the threats to vital interests were unambiguous; 

when the response enjoyed strong support from the public and Congress; when 
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The Grand Strategy of the United States

overwhelming force was applied; when strong allies participated; and when the 

strategic objective was well understood.66 Both World Wars, the Cold War, and 

the Gulf War are examples. In cases where the direct threat to U.S. vital interests 

was less clear, overwhelming force was not applied, public and congressional 

support was not strong or sustained, and the strategic objective was unclear, 

defeat or stalemate ensued. Korea, Vietnam, Beirut, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan are of course the relevant examples here. In some cases (the Dominican 

Republic, Grenada, Panama, Haiti, and Kosovo), the desiderata listed above did 

not fully apply, but weak opposition and overmatching force led to early success, 

forestalling loss of public support or stagnation of the conflict.67

These historical lessons are compelling and deserve careful and objective 

study. American political leaders have not always recognized these principles and 

have certainly not always applied them. Their apparent jettisoning by both Republican and Democratic administrations following the Gulf War has come with 

a heavy price. America’s successes in both fighting and deterring have resulted at 

least as much from an industrial and technological superiority, employed en masse

by competent political and military institutions, as from any other factor.68 This 

superiority is best translated into battlefield and campaign success by synergistically applying air, space, sea, cyber, and land power in time and space to achieve 

decisive objectives that see through and beyond the end of combat operations. 

Single-service or one-dimensional applications of force have repeatedly failed of 

their promise to deliver strategic victory. 

Likewise, political leaders and strategists should be mindful of strategic culture, 

that mélange of history, tradition, custom, worldview, economy, sociology, and political systems and mores that largely shapes how nations fight and for what causes. 

There may be no agreed upon American theory of war, but an “American way of 

war” surely obtains, based on concepts of joint and combined warfare, mass, firepower, technology, strong popular support, and a focus on decisive and clear-cut 

outcomes.69 “Good wars” have historically followed this pattern. “Bad wars” have 

not. While the analogy can be taken too far, it captures central truths that should 

inform our strategic calculations.70 Strategic culture is real and powerful, whether 

acknowledged or not.71
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The Way Ahead

As we assess a complex security environment, our historical experience provides useful context and guideposts to understanding the present, even when security threats are harder to define and address, as in the case of cyber attacks.72 U.S. 

forces are also held to standards increasingly difficult to guarantee; the prospect of 

even minimal casualties to our own forces or to civilians (however unintentional) or 

unintended environmental damage now colors every decision in the age of the 24-

hour news cycle. On balance, traditional military security concerns often seem less 

paramount. Absent a clear and present danger, humanitarian considerations, environmental issues, and resource impacts and scarcities compete strongly with military 

factors in policy deliberations. In the meantime, nonstate actors are increasing their 

power and influence to bring about policy changes across a wide spectrum of issues, 

many of which directly affect the ability of U.S. military forces to carry out their 

missions.73

In the last generation, we often saw the face of the future reflected in the bitter 

divisions of the past, in failed states, in emerging democracies, and in nations stuck 

in transition between authoritarian and democratic systems. A persistently uncertain 

and unstable international security environment places a premium on U.S. leadership. As the only remaining global power and as a coalition leader in organizations 

like NATO, the United States is uniquely positioned to influence world affairs in 

ways that benefit not only it, but also the international community as a whole.74 The 

prudent use of American military power, in concert with the economic, political, 

and diplomatic instruments of national power, remains central to attempts to shape 

the international environment and encourage peace and stability wherever important 

U.S. interests are at stake. 75 As George Kennan put it, “We have learned not to recoil 

from the struggle for power as something shocking or abnormal. It is the medium 

in which we work . . . and we will not improve our performance by trying to dress it 

up as something else.”76

Much of the prevailing academic discussion, on the other hand, distracts or 

frustrates practitioners. One leading theorist offered Presidents a choice from among 

strategies of “neo-isolationism, selective engagement, cooperative security, primacy, 

or enlargement and engagement.”77 Another proposed “strategic restraint, offshore 
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balancing, forward partnering, selective engagement or assertive interventionism” as 

strategic alternatives.78 Others argue for regional priorities (Asia-Pacific, the Middle 

East, Europe), threat-based priorities (weapons of mass destruction [WMD], cyber, 

insurgency), or capabilities-based strategies (for example, the maritime strategy of 

the 1980s). Each approach offers useful perspectives, but true grand strategy looks 

beyond these choices, orienting on American strengths and interests to address the 

global challenges of the moment in a larger framework of diplomacy, economic 

strength, military power, and global leadership. Presidents do not really have the 

choice to embrace isolationism, ignore alliances, eschew engagement, or ignore important regions of the world. The current administration may highlight the Rebalance to Asia as its top priority, but potential conflict in the Arabian Gulf, another 

WMD attack on the homeland, or Russian military action against the Baltic States 

would immediately become the pressing, consuming challenge and would remain a 

critical priority until resolved. 

It is also useful to note that the formerly sharp distinction between the military 

instrument and others has become blurred. The definition of national security is 

now more expansive, encompassing a great domain of homeland defense, with dozens of civilian agencies and large military organizations (such as U.S. Northern Command) intimately linked with and often working in subordination to other civilian 

entities. Even in conflict zones, tactical formations engaged in daily combat can find 

themselves with scores of embedded civilians representing civilian departments.79

Informational technologies and a more globalized threat, able to strike from remote 

and underdeveloped locations with great effect, now force a greater degree of synergy and interoperability between military and nonmilitary organizations than ever 

before. These trends will continue on a trajectory toward ever-greater civil-military 

integration, particularly in the intelligence, cyber, acquisition, logistics, and consequence management realms. 

Taking the long view, and acknowledging the strong impact of new technologies 

and threats, the framework of American grand strategy as described here will remain 

relevant and current for decades to come. The international security environment 

will remain anarchic and uncertain, with the state mattering more than supranational 

organizations, even as nonstate actors of many kinds proliferate. Conflict will remain 
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endemic, and state-on-state conflict will recur. WMD attacks against the homeland 

will be attempted and may be successful. Pressures to intervene—in the Middle East, 

in Africa, in Eastern Europe, and perhaps even in East Asia—will persist or surface 

anew. Strategic “shocks”—unanticipated crises requiring strategic responses—will 

be more the norm than not.80 None of this is new, unique, or even more dangerous 

than in the past.

Strategists must accordingly consider and refine the ways and means by which 

our traditional and enduring interests may best be defended. Along the way, a certain 

humility is helpful; as Henry Kissinger wrote, “The gods are offended by hubris. 

They resent the presumption that events can be totally predicted and managed.”81 At 

its best, grand strategy is not always or fundamentally about fighting or the military 

application of force, but rather an appreciation of its potential, along with the other 

instruments of power, in the mind of the adversary. President Ronald Reagan’s role 

in bringing about an end to the Cold War is the classic example. In this sense, effective grand strategy may often preclude the need to resort to force. To achieve this, 

the involvement of society in its own national defense, a strong, stable, and globally 

networked economy, an effective domestic politics that can make rational decisions 

over time in support of national security, and the promotion of values that invite 

support and consensus at home and abroad will count for much. So, too, will balanced and capable military forces, sized and able to operate globally and in concert 

with civilian counterparts, international organizations, allies, and partners. The decision when and if to use force should never be approached casually, emotionally, or 

halfheartedly, but rather soberly, analytically, and with a whole-of-government and 

whole-of-society intention to prevail. There should never be doubt that when core 

interests are engaged, the United States will bring the full weight of its power to bear 

and will persist until success is achieved. On these foundations will rest an effective 

U.S. grand strategy far into the future. 
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Notes

1 Defining grand strategy is admittedly onerous. Colin Gray defines it as the “purposeful employment of all instruments of power available to a security community.” Robert J. 

Art excludes nonmilitary instruments from grand strategy, while Christopher Layne calls it 

simply “the process by which the state matches ends and means in the pursuit of security.” 

Sir Hew Strachan sees grand strategy as forward looking, aspirational, and oriented on 

preventing or managing great power decline. Edward Luttwak is particularly opaque: “Grand 

strategy may be seen as a confluence of the military interactions that flow up and down level 

by level . . . with the varied external relations that form strategy’s horizontal dimension at 

its highest level.” Colin Gray, War, Peace and International Relations: An Introduction to Strategic 

History (New York: Routledge, 2007), 283; Robert J. Art, “A Defensible Defense,” International Security 15, no. 4 (Spring 1991), 7; Christopher Layne, “Rethinking American Grand 

Strategy: Hegemony or Balance of Power in the 21st Century,” World Policy Journal 15, no. 2 

(November 1998), 8; Hew Strachan, “Strategy and Contingency,” International Affairs 87, no. 

6 (November 2011), 1281–1296; and Edward Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 179. 

2 “Strategy” is more properly limited to “the deployment and use of armed forces to 

attain a given political objective.” See Michael Howard, “The Forgotten Dimensions of 

Strategy,” Foreign Affairs 57, no. 5 (Summer 1979), 975.

3 The list includes the Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652–1654, 1665–1667, 1672–1674, 

1780–1784), King William’s War (1688–1697), Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713), the War of 

Jenkins’ Ear (1739–1748), King George’s War (1744–1748), and the French and Indian War 

(1754–1763). The first clash in North America between European powers was the 1565 

Spanish massacre of French Huguenots at Fort Caroline in present-day Florida. 

4 The War of 1812 entangled the United States peripherally in the Napoleonic wars over 

questions of trade restrictions with France, impressment of U.S. Sailors (many of whom 

were British born but naturalized American citizens) on the high seas, and British support 

for Indian tribes resisting expansion into the Northwest territories. Expansion into Crown 

territories in Canada was also a war aim. Though arguably a victory, the War of 1812, which 

saw the burning of Washington and numerous other defeats, confirmed the view that military engagement with the great European powers was not in American interests. 

5 Eugene V. Rostow, A Breakfast for Bonaparte: U.S. National Security Interests from the 

Heights of Abraham to the Nuclear Age (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 1993), 143.

6 Ibid., 78.

7 Described by Seymour Martin Lipset as a new American ideology, based on notions 

of personal liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, populism, and laissez-faire. 

Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double Edged Sword (New York: Norton, 

1997), 17–19. 
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8 For example, the Second Seminole War (1836) was fought with 10,000 regulars and 

30,000 volunteers. Local militia forces played no significant role. Russell F. Weigley, The 

American Way of War (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973), 68. 

9 The Monroe Doctrine (1823) had specifically excluded Cuba.

10 Weigley credits Newport with being “the first institution of its type anywhere in the 

world.” Weigley, 172. 

11 Rostow, 245.

12 World War I casualties included 37 million civilian and military dead and wounded, 

including 120,000 U.S. dead and 205,000 wounded.

13 President Franklin D. Roosevelt put it succinctly in a “fireside chat” early in the war: 

“If Great Britain goes down, the Axis powers will control the continents of Europe [and] 

Asia, and the high seas—and they will be in a position to bring enormous military and naval 

resources against this hemisphere.” Russell E. Buhite and David W. Levy, eds., FDR’s Fireside 

Chats (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 163. 

14 This approach was indisputably successful. For every U.S. Soldier killed in the war, the 

Germans lost 15, the Russians 53. John Lewis Gaddes, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (London: Oxford University Press, 1982), 8.

15 The German army retained a qualitative edge right up to the end of the war. In the 

summer and fall of 1944, U.S. infantry regiments were averaging 100 percent casualties every 

90 days. John English, On Infantry (New York: Praeger, 1981), 79. 

16 “The war was decided by the weight of armaments production.” Alan S. Milward, 

War, Economy, and Society, 1939–1945 (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980), 75. 

17 American material support to Allies, who did the brunt of the fighting and suffered 

far more casualties, was unquestionably the strategic center of gravity of the war effort. 

Some 75 percent of all German casualties in World War II occurred on the Eastern Front, 

while the Chinese army inflicted 2.1 million casualties on Japan, compared to 600,000 by 

the United States. The United States supplied a staggering 11,450 planes, 7,172 tanks, and 

433,000 trucks to the Soviets during the war, as well as armor plating for another 20,000 

tanks. Alan Gropman, ed., The Big L: American Logistics in World War II (Washington, DC: 

NDU Press, 1997), 287. 

18 Worldwide, the cost of the war far exceeded that of World War I, with an estimated 

85 million dead from all causes. U.S. deaths totaled 418,000—far fewer than every other 

major combatant.

19 This meant not only rebuilding Germany and Japan as allies and economic partners 

but also restraining their military power—in effect containing them as well as the Soviet 

Union. Layne, “Rethinking American Grand Strategy,” 12. 

20 According to Dean Rusk, “By the summer of 1946 . . . we did not have one combat 

ready division or air wing in the U.S. military.” Cited in Rostow, 355.
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21 “The Red Army suffered 29,629,205 casualties from 22 June 1942–9 May 1945, of 

which 11, 285,057 were [deaths] and 18,344,148 [wounded].” Colonel General G.F. Krivosheyev, cited by Lawrence G. Kelley, “The Soviet Soldier in World War II: ‘Death is But Four 

Steps Away’,” Parameters 27 (Winter 1997/1998), 167. 

22 At this point, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was only 2 months old 

and the German army had not been reconstituted, while the Red Army was far stronger than 

the U.S. Army.

23 At its highest point, 327,000 U.S. troops served in Korea. U.S. war dead totaled 

36,500. 

24 U.S. troop strength in Vietnam eventually peaked at 536,000 in 1968. U.S. Servicemember deaths totaled 58,000. 

25 The People’s Republic of China, far weaker militarily and economically, played a role 

as a strategic balancer or counterweight but never approached superpower status during the 

Cold War. 

26 Bosnia and Kosovo both evolved into lengthy and protracted commitments lasting 

many years.

27 The F-22 and F-35 aircraft programs, intended to replace the F-15 and F-16, experienced 

significant cost overrun, production delays, and operational problems and were curtailed but protected in the Pentagon budget.

28 Despite a clear and compelling priority in Europe, both Korea and Vietnam eventually became the central focus for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, leaving a much weaker 

land force in the Central Region. In much the same way, the Department of Defense 

(DOD) arguably lost focus on nuclear deterrence and readiness and on major theater war 

in scenarios such as the Korean Peninsula, accepting risk in order to focus on Iraq and later 

Afghanistan. 

29 Large National Guard combat forces, up to 28 brigades, exist in the force but require 

lengthy mobilization and would not be available to participate in a near-term crisis. Their 

sustained use also raises political questions that, in all but the most serious scenarios, are 

problematic. 

30 Active Army forces, according to Pentagon sources, will fall to 420,000, the lowest 

level since before World War II. See The Quadrennial Defense Review 2014 (Washington, DC: 

U.S. Government Printing Office, March 2014), ix (hereafter QDR).

31 As one example of this tendency toward incoherence, Patrick Doherty discusses the 

importance of “walkabout communities” as part of a “new grand strategic construct” in “A 

New U.S. Grand Strategy,” ForeignPolicy.com, January 9, 2013, available at <www.foreignpolicy.

com/articles/2013/01/09/a_new_US_grand_strategy>.

32 This trend is driven in part by a desire to access defense budgets to fund programs not traditionally considered as defense-related. Stanley Hoffman put it succinctly 

as far back as 1987: “There has been a trend towards indefinite extension of U.S. interests. 
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‘National security’ is considered to be everywhere and constantly at stake.” See Stanley 

Hoffman, Janus and Minerva: Essays in the Theory and Practice of International Politics (Boulder, 

CO: Westview Press, 1987), 316.

33 Raymond Aron, Peace and War (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1962), 28.

34 As recently as 2002, William C. Wohlforth argued that “the balancing imperative . . . will 

not soon dominate great powers’ strategic choices in today’s novel unipolar system.” In fact, 

though the United States remains unquestionably the preponderant world power, great powers 

such as Russia, Iran, and China often combine to limit or deflect U.S. strategic choices in a classic balance of power formulation. William C. Wohlforth, “U.S. Strategy in a Unipolar World,” 

in America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power, ed. G. John Ikenberry, 117 (Ithaca: 

Cornell University Press, 2002).

35 Julianne Smith and Jacob Stokes, Strategy and Statecraft: An Agenda for the United States 

in an Era of Compounding Complexity (Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security, 

June 2014), 9.

36 The official DOD definition of weapons of mass destruction includes nuclear, biological, chemical, and radiological weapons only. The term is used more broadly here to include 

events such as the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center 

and Pentagon, as well as potential cyber events that could cause large-scale loss of life. See 

Seth Carus, Defining “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass 

Destruction Occasional Paper 8 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, January 2012). 

37 One quarter of the world’s traded goods and 25 percent of the world’s oil supply carried by sea passes through the 2.8-kilometer-wide Phillips Channel south of Singapore. 

38 This does not necessarily mean through military confrontation. In the case of China, 

for example, the fact that many neighbors with substantial military establishments (Japan, 

Russia, India, South Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore) can check 

possible military expansion when acting in concert suggests that U.S. security and economic 

assistance and diplomacy may be the primary venues to constrain the rise of a potentially 

expansionist China. 

39 Treaties and alliances are means to an end, not an end in themselves, but preserving 

them is clearly a core interest for which the United States will use force if necessary.

40 “Ironically, a war fought in the name of high moral principle intensifies violence and 

is more destructive of political stability than a war based on national interest.” Kenneth 

Thompson, Masters of International Thought (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 

1980), 153. An almost tragic example is provided by Secretary of State Dean Rusk at the 

height of Vietnam, who was quoted as stating, “the United States cannot be secure until the 

total international environment is ideologically safe”; cited in Christopher Layne, “Kant or 

Cant: The Myth of the Democratic Peace,” International Security 19, no. 2 (Fall 1994), 46.

41 The 2014 QDR lists “respect for universal values at home and around the world” as 

one of four “core national interests.” QDR, 11.
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42 See R.D. Hooker, Jr., “U.S. Policy Choices During the Rwandan Genocide,” unpublished paper, National War College, 2003. 

43 In addition to troop deployments to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, “breakaway” 

regions that remain part of sovereign Georgian territory, Russia maintains 5,000 troops 

inside Armenia to ensure that neighboring Azerbaijan does not reclaim Nagorno-Karabakh, 

sovereign Azerbaijan territory occupied by ethnic Armenians. 

44 Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are 100 percent dependent on Russian natural gas 

and have large ethnic Russian populations. Without NATO, their continued independence 

is probably unlikely. See Theresa Sabonis-Helf, “Energy Security: Strategic Questions and 

Emerging Trends,” presentation to NATO National Representatives, National Defense 

University, Washington, DC, April 11, 2014.

45 Andrew Bacevich is a leading critic of American “imperialism.” See his American 

Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 

2002).

46 Thompson, 175.

47 Layne, “Rethinking American Grand Strategy,” 15.

48 The “Western postwar order has also been rendered acceptable to Europe and Japan 

because American hegemony is built around decidedly liberal features.” See G. John Ikenberry, “Institutions, Strategic Restraint and the Persistence of the American Postwar Order,” 

International Security 23, no. 3 (Winter 1998/1999), 49.

49 “The United States leads a global alliance system of more than 60 partner states that 

collectively account for almost 80 percent of global gross domestic product and more than 80 

percent of global military spending between them.” Michael E. O’Hanlon, Budgeting for Hard 

Power: Defense and Security Spending Under Barack Obama (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 

2009), 24. 

50 The Government Accountability Office reports that 16.2 million males aged 18 to 25 

are registered for Selective Service. However, only one in four are eligible for military service, severely limiting the pool of prospective recruits. The rest are disqualified for obesity, 

other physical issues, lack of a high school diploma, or criminal records. See the prepared 

statement of Dr. Curtis Gilroy, Director for Accessions Policy, Office of the Undersecretary 

of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, before the House Armed Services Subcommittee 

“Recruiting, Retention, and End Strength Overview,” March 9, 2009.

51 The U.S. industrial base remains a world leader, second only to China as of 2014 

according to the United Nations Statistics Division. Ship building remains a strong industry: “Currently there are 117 shipyards in the United States, spread across 26 states, that are 

classified as active shipbuilders,” according to The Economic Importance of the U.S. Shipbuilding 

and Repairing Industry (New York: Maritime Administration, 2013), 3. U.S. steel production 

has declined as a percentage of global market share since 1947, when the country produced 

60 percent of the world’s steel, but it remains a world leader. The United States produced 
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INSS Strategic Monograph

87 million tons of steel in 2013, ranking fourth in the world. (This contrasts with 40 million 

tons dedicated to military production in 1943, the year of greatest manufacturing output 

in World War II.) See World Steel Statistics Data 2013, World Steel Association, January 23, 

2014, and Gropman, 137. For a contrary view, see Michael E. O’Hanlon, The National Security 

Industrial Base: A Crucial Asset of the United States Whose Future May Be in Jeopardy, 20th Century 

Defense Initiative Policy Paper (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, February 2011).

52 Currently, 36 percent of the Navy’s operational assets are classed as “globally deployed,” including 2 of the Navy’s 11 fleet carriers, with a third based in Japan. At least two 

Amphibious Ready Groups with embarked Marines are also always at sea. See Admiral Jonathan Greenert, “Testimony Before the House Armed Services Committee on the FY2015 

Navy Posture,” March 12, 2014. 

53 Thom Shanker and Steve Erlanger, “Blunt U.S. Warning Reveals Deep Strains in 

NATO,” The New York Times, June 10, 2011. 

54 “Soft power is not about influence or persuasion—it attracts.” Harry R. Yarger, Strategy and the National Security Professional (London: Praeger, 2008), 74.

55 See Joseph Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Succeed in World Politics (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004).

56 Christopher M. Schnaubelt, “The Illusions and Delusions of Smart Power,” in Towards a Comprehensive Approach: Integrating Civilian and Military Concepts of Strategy, ed. Christopher M. Schnaubelt, 24 (Rome: NATO Defense College, March 2011).

57 Effective civil-military relations is also, of course, a sine qua non of successful strategy. Despite much hyperbolic academic criticism, the United States is well equipped in this 

sphere. See R.D. Hooker, Jr., “Soldiers of the State: Reconsidering American Civil-Military 

Relations,” Parameters (Winter 2003/2004). 

58 DOD maintains prepositioned stocks both ashore and afloat in strategic locations 

worldwide to support the deployment of forces for contingency operations. Key sites are 

Japan, Korea, Italy, Qatar, Kuwait, and Diego Garcia.

59 The most recent arms control agreement with Russia, signed by President Obama 

and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on April 8, 2010, pledged to reduce the number of 

active nuclear weapons from 2,200 to 1,550.

60 QDR, 11. 

61 For example, in seapower alone, the U.S. lead is staggering. The U.S. Navy operates 11 

large aircraft carriers, all nuclear powered; no other country has even one. It has 57 nuclearpowered attack and cruise missile submarines—again, more than the rest of the world combined. Seventy-nine Aegis-equipped surface combatants carry roughly 8,000 vertical-launch 

missile cells, outmatching the next 20 largest navies. All told, the displacement of the U.S. 

battle fleet exceeds the next 13 navies combined, of which 11 are allies or partners. Robert 

Gates, prepared remarks to the Navy League, National Harbor, Maryland, May 3, 2010. The 

United States Marine Corps alone is larger and more capable than the ground and air forces 
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of all but a few nations. See The Military Balance (London: The International Institute for 

Strategic Studies, March 2014). 

62 “The United States will use military force, unilaterally if necessary, when our core interests demand it—when our people are threatened; when our livelihoods are at stake; when 

the security of our allies is in danger.” President Barack Obama, commencement address at 

the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY, May 28, 2014. 

63 The National Security Strategy of the United States (Washington, DC: The White House, 

September 17, 2002), 15.

64 For a more detailed discussion of American preponderance and its strategic implications, see Layne, “Rethinking American Grand Strategy,” 9.

65 The list of large-scale combat or “peace enforcement” actions alone is extensive and 

includes Korea (1950), Lebanon (1958), the Dominican Republic (1965), Vietnam (1955–

1975), Beirut (1981), Grenada (1981), Panama (1989), the Gulf War (1991), Somalia (1992), 

Bosnia (1996), Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2001), and Iraq (2003). On average, the United 

States has deployed a division or larger force every 6 years since 1950.

66 Both Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff General Colin Powell promoted similar views on when and how to use force, espousing a conservative, “last resort” philosophy stressing overwhelming force and clear objectives 

and emphasizing decisive results. Weinberger explained his views in a speech entitled “The 

Uses of Military Power” at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on November 28, 

1984.

67 Max Boot attempted to argue in 2002 that “small wars” fought for less precise objectives could advance important, if not vital interests and represented something of a future 

trend. On the whole, such thinking has been discredited by Iraq and Afghanistan. See Boot, 

Savage Wars of Peace (New York: Basic Books, 2002).

68 “By and large, the virtues of American civilization have not been the military virtues 

and this has been reflected in American military performance.” Samuel P. Huntington, “Playing to Win,” The National Interest, no. 3 (Spring 1986), 10. 

69 Weigley is the principal exponent of this view. For a contrasting view, see Antulio 

Echevarria, “Toward an American Way of War,” U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies 

Institute, March 2004. 

70 “We make war the way we make wealth.” See Alvin and Heidi Toffler, War and AntiWar: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century (New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 1993), 2.

71 See R.D. Hooker, Jr., “The Strange Voyage: A Short Précis on Strategy,” Parameters 42, 

no. 4/43, no. 1 (Winter/Spring 2013), 62.

72 “I believe the most pressing threat facing our country is the threat from cyber attacks. 

The daily occurrences of attacks are damaging on a variety of levels and they are not only 

persistent and dangerous, the likelihood of serious damage to our national security is very 
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INSS Strategic Monograph

real.” Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, statement 

before the Senate Armed Services Committee, April 18, 2013.

73 The international treaty banning landmines in 1999 and the International Criminal 

Court, established in 2002, are apposite examples. The United States is not a party to either.

74 As the only state able to project and sustain military forces globally, the United States 

retains this status today; the rise of China will not see an equivalent capability for years to 

come. Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell, China’s Search for Security (New York: Columbia 

University Press, 2012), 312–315.

75 Theorists sometimes cite the maxim that “everybody’s strategy depends on everyone else’s.” This must be the case for weaker or comparable powers. In its current position 

of preponderance, though its power has definite limits, the United States seeks whenever 

possible to impose its strategy on adversaries, and not to be imposed upon. All states would 

behave so if they could. See Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State and War (New York: Columbia 

University Press, 1954), 201.

76 George F. Kennan, Memoirs (Boston: Little and Co., 1967), 494.

77 Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross, “Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy,” 

International Security 21, no. 3 (Winter 1996/1997), 5–53. 

78 Frank G. Hoffman, “Forward Partnership: A Sustainable American Strategy,” Orbis

57, no. 1 (Winter 2013), 24.

79 For example, Regional Command–East in Afghanistan in 2010 included a Senior 

Civilian Representative from the U.S. Agency for International Development, of equal rank 

to the division commander and empowered to co-sign his operational orders. She was supported by more than 100 civilian staff. 

80 Strachan, 1285.

81 Cited in Hal Brands, What Good Is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014), 100.
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About the Author

Dr. Richard D. Hooker, Jr., became the National Defense University’s Director 

for Research and Strategic Support and Director of the Institute for National Strategic 

Studies in September 2013. As a member of the Senior Executive Service, Dr. Hooker 

previously served as Deputy Commandant and Dean of the NATO Defense College 

in Rome. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, International Institute 

of Strategic Studies, and Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is also a Fellow of the 

Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society. A former White House Fellow, he previously taught at the United States Military Academy at West Point and 

held the Army Chair at the National War College in Washington, DC. He also served 

in the Office of National Service at the White House during the George H.W. Bush 

administration, in the Arms Control and Defense Directorate at the National Security 

Council (NSC) during the Clinton administration, and in the NSC Office for Iraq and 

Afghanistan during the George W. Bush administration. While at the NSC, he was a 

contributing author to The National Security Strategy of the United States.