Colloquium Brief

U.S. Army War College,

 Triangle Institute for Security Studies, 

and

Duke University

AMERICAN GRAND STRATEGY AFTER WAR

Complied by

Ionut C. Popescu

Duke University

and

Dr. Dallas D. Owens

Strategic Studies Institute

KEY INSIGHTS:

	 •	 Since World War II, each American war has been followed by a period of grand strategy reassessment.

	 •	 The degree to which the Nation’s leaders have felt the need to revise grand strategy has depended in

part upon the degree to which the preceding conflict led to adverse consequences and in part upon the

level of perceived danger in the new strategic environment.

	 •	 The locus for grand strategy reassessment is the U.S. President; presidents have varied in their perception of the need for reassessment and in their effectiveness in conducting and implementing reassessments.

	 •	 It is difficult to apply lessons gained from previous reassessments to the post-Iraq period without knowing the strategic environment of that future period.

	 •	 President Obama has not previously been involved in the formulation of grand strategy, making it difficult to predict either what his grand strategy will be or the likelihood of its success; we get some hints

of its content from campaign statements and subsequent policies.

	 The Triangle Institute for Security Studies (TISS), the Duke University Program in American Grand Strategy, and the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College (USAWC) conducted a colloquium and

recognition of TISS’s 50th anniversary at the Duke University and University of North Carolina campuses on

February 26-28, 2009. The colloquium, entitled “American Grand Strategy after War,” was attended by over 130

government officials, academic experts, think-tank members, U.S. military, and U.S. and international students

and faculty. Dr. John Gaddis of Yale University gave the keynote talk at Duke University. Five historians and

political scientists presented summaries of their papers at the University of North Carolina and ten academicians responded. Revised papers are to be published as articles in Orbis (Fall 2009).

	 The conference examined debates over grand strategy after World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold

War, and grand strategies likely to follow U.S. involvement in Iraq. A panel was devoted to each period and

consisted of summarization of a draft paper by its author and a critique by two panelists who had received the

paper at an earlier date.
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Panel I: Post-World II.

The first panel examined the period after World War

II. The author’s paper, entitled “Franklin Roosevelt’s

[Partially] Flawed Paradigm: Postwar Planning During World War II,” concluded that American grand

strategy towards the end of the war was characterized by a certain utopian quality. FDR ‘s vision for

the postwar period was based on close cooperation

with Stalin and the USSR; he hoped that by building

a strong personal relationship with the Soviet leader he would be able to “domesticate” the USSR and

integrate it into his plans for a global liberal world

order. The speaker argued that Harry Truman was

the one who had to face the unpleasant reality of the

emerging global ideological conflict with Moscow.

Consequently, Truman shifted American grand strategy significantly by assuming international commitments far beyond what Roosevelt would have considered, and by adopting a more realistic understanding

of the nature of the international system. The main

lessons for current strategists are that wartime planning and grand strategy formulation for the postwar

world need to be constantly reassessed to make certain they are still appropriate for the real-world circumstances present at the end of a conflict.

	 The first commentator on the panel argued that

after World War II the United States pursued a grand

strategy characterized by incrementalism and “lockin.” There was no clear ex-ante plan, but instead a

process of formulating and reformulating strategy

based on new developments; once the Marshall Plan

and NATO were created, however, a “lock-in” phenomenon occurred and the grand strategy of containment became adopted for the long term. The second

panelist partially disagreed with the author on the

role of Churchill: he argued that Churchill offered

Stalin more concessions, particularly in Eastern Europe, than Roosevelt did; therefore it would be incorrect to portray FDR as too soft on Stalin. Both reviewers agreed that there are some very important differencesbetweenthepost-WorldWarIIstrategicenvironment and that of today. For example, they mentioned the emergence of nonstate actors intent on

acquiring WMDs, and the challenge of finding ways

to assist weak and failed states in their transition

to a more stable and prosperous future.

Panel II: Post-Korean War.

	 The second panel addressed the post-Korean War

period. The author concluded from his paper, “Reassessing U.S. Strategy in the Aftermath of the Korean

War,” that the grand strategy reassessment conducted by the Eisenhower administration had limited

impact, and that its outcome was not much different

from the containment strategy formulated during the

Truman administration. The more significant shift

was at the level of military strategy: a growing emphasis on nuclear weapons led to a decrease in the

level of resources allocated to the conventional force.

The presenter also offered some possible parallels between the Eisenhower administration and the Obama

administration. Both came into office facing the need

to put defense spending on a more sustainable path

for the long run, and Obama, like Eisenhower, is a

vocal proponent of American “soft power” as a crucial element of grand strategy.

	 The responses from the panelists and several of

the questions from the audience addressed the importance of process in strategic planning. Eisenhower’s Project Solarium is currently considered one of

the most successful exercises of its kind by the Washington think-tank community, and the presenter of

this panel also implied that the Obama administration should pay particular attention to this aspect of

grand strategy development. One controversial issue

remained unresolved: whether successful changes in

grand strategy are helped or hindered by an elaborate planning process. A few questioners argued that

formal bureaucratic processes could stifle innovation

or that these formal processes often come to resemble

Kabuki Theater in that they merely serve to provide

support for the preferred strategy of the president;

other participants considered that a disciplined formal planning process is key to a solid strategic performance.

Panel III: Post-Vietnam War.

	 The third panel examined the period following the

Vietnam War. In his paper, “American Grand Strategy after Vietnam,” the author concluded that the

debate over the appropriate grand strategy hinged

on the “intent” of the Soviets and the perception of
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intent was highly correlated with the very polarized

political ideology of the period. The two ideological

camps, conservatives and neoconservatives against

liberals and leftists, favored containment verses détente, respectively. Today there is a similar polarization that threatens, as it did after Vietnam, to make

the debate over grand strategy less logical and the

resulting reassessment less pragmatic. The panelists

responded by highlighting the difficulty of achieving

consensus on American grand strategy other than

at the “bumper sticker” level. The policy fights and

the competition over scarce resources often involve

parochial political interests and are thus detrimental

to the pursuit of a coherent grand strategy, but they

are nevertheless an essential element of the American system of government. One panelist called U.S.

democracy “anti-strategic” for this particular reason.

Anotherimportant issue, according to one of the panelists, is the prevalent notion that external constraints

are competing against domestic political interests in

the formulation of grand strategy. These two factors

should not be viewed as separate influences. Rather,

almost all policymakers believe that they act in such

a way as to advance the U.S. national interest; their

divergent conceptions of these interests and of the

proper ways to achieve them lie at the heart of the

debate on which grand strategic course to follow.

Panel IV: Post-Cold War.

	 The fourth panel addressed the period following

the end of the Cold War. The paper presented was entitled “Clear Skies over the Hudson: The Promise and

Failure of American Grand Strategy from the End of

the Cold War to the September 11 Terrorist Attacks.”

The author argued that neither George H. W. Bush

nor William Jefferson Clinton succeeded in formulating a new grand strategy for the post-Cold War era,

despite their conscious efforts to do so. Bush and his

national security team proved competent in dealing

with tactical decisions and managing the end of the

Cold War, but they failed in their effort to move to a

new paradigm. They showed an inability to organize U.S. priorities and to decide what U.S. interests

should be in the new strategic environment. Clinton

came into office determined to implement a vision of

“enlargement.” His strategy argued for the spread

of democracy and of free markets everywhere, but

he failed to prioritize among various objectives. Furthermore, little serious discussion occurred about the

capabilities needed to implement such a strategy.

Clinton’s uneasy relation with the military may have

contributed to a lack of understanding of how best to

use military force. The author concluded that Bush

had process without purpose, while Clinton had

purpose without process; both of these combinations

hurt America’s strategic performance over this era.

	 The first panelist pointed out that it is not clear

how a better grand strategic performance on the

part of either Bush or Clinton could have prevented

9/11. He also discussed an issue that plagued both

administrations, i.e., the lack of strategic integration

between grand strategy, operational art, and military

tactics. The new allegedly “low-cost” military means

made available by the Revolution in Military Affairs

were mainly related to stand-off precision warfare,

and they could not bear the costs that the grand strategy put on them in places like Kosovo. One needs to

understand in detail the workings of the military instrument to be able to talk meaningfully about grand

strategy, and the academic world should do more to

educate policymakers on what our military forces can

and cannot do. The second commentator agreed with

the author’s conclusion that the lack of a grand strategy caused “indiscipline” in the way policymakers

thought about the U.S. role in the world, but he perceived a stronger difference between the quality of

the strategic thinking of Bush and Clinton. The Bush

national security team was well on its way to develop

a new U.S. grand strategy of primacy, as evidenced

by the Pentagon’s 1992 Defense Planning Guidance.

This strategy would have focused on the prevention

of the rise of a peer competitor, and on the provision

of global public goods to make the role of hegemon

more acceptable to others. The Clinton team, on the

other hand, believed that the process of globalization

was fairly self-sustaining and thought that not much

effort was needed on the part of the United States to

maintain the current liberal world order. The questions addressed to the panelists from the audience

raised a couple of important issues: first, the difficulty of achieving objective measures of evaluating

success in grand strategy, and, second, the need to

better integrate the effects of domestic politics in the

study of U.S. foreign policy.
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Panel V: Post Iraq.

	 The final panel addressed the period from 2003 to

the present. In “American Grand Strategy after Iraq,”

the author concluded that the United States pursued

a strategy of primacy before 2006, and then switched

to a “liberal internationalist” grand strategy which is

likely to be continued by the Obama administration.

The author showed that despite the perception of decline, the United States continues to remain the number one military and economic power in the world.

She also examined how the possible “strategic constraints” of the international distribution of power, of

bureaucratic friction within the government, and of

U.S. public opinion could limit the range of possible

grand strategies for current policymakers. The first

commentator argued that in the current environment

it is hard to maintain any coherent grand strategy for

three reasons. First, there is no major threat to U.S.

national security; terrorism could only qualify if it

were combined with nuclear weapons, which is unlikely. Second, the roots of the current security problems lie in the domestic politics of other states, and

the United States does not know how to effectively

promote “democratization.” Third, the present status

of American politics is one of intense ideological and

partisan polarization; such a political environment is

inauspicious to the conduct of a coherent bipartisan

grand strategy. The second commentator argued that

the biggest threat to U.S. power in the medium term

is the economic debt to China and the threats of rising federal and current account deficits. Therefore,

policymakers should focus on managing China’s rise

more so than on any other grand strategic problem.

Conclusion: The Way Ahead.

	 This colloquium demonstrated that academic

grand strategists are very much aware of the importance of, the need for, and situational determinants

of grand strategy after a change in the strategic environment, typified by a hot or cold war. It also demonstrated the difficulty of predicting the time, importance, or response to the next “significant” period

requiring a substantial change in American grand

strategy.

	 The Obama administration will surely attempt to

answer the keynote speaker’s call for a remedy to the

“grand strategic deficit” that has plagued U.S. foreign

policy forthe past 20 years. The participants generally

agreed that a solid grand strategy needs to articulate

U.S. national interests and threats to those interests,

prioritize among threats and opportunities, and address much more seriously the connection between

“ends” and “means.” A sophisticated discussion of

capabilities and available resources unfortunately

has been lacking in recent debates on American grand

strategy. The present economic environment and the

challenges facing the federal budget over the next

couple of decades make it all the more important to

better integrate economic considerations into grand

strategic planning.

	 Even if the war in Iraq continues on a favorable

trajectory and the U.S. military proves able to disengage in a successful manner, the ongoing conflict

in Afghanistan will force the Obama administration

to forge a new grand strategy in a wartime environment. It is important to remember, as one participant

noted, that the most crucial grand strategic priority in

wartime is to win the war you’re currently fighting.

Hence, the adoption of a new grand strategy needs

to account for this fact and ensure the necessary resources are allocated to defeat the threat most immediate to American national interest. One of the most

important challenges for the Obama administration

will be to achieve this delicate balance between the

short-term requirements of present conflicts and the

medium- and long-term demands of any new grand

strategy they may adopt.

*****

	 The views expressed in this brief are those of the

authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the

Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. This

colloquium brief is cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

*****

	 More information on the Strategic Studies Institute’s programs may be found on the Institute’s

homepage at www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil.