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American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump
Looking beyond the headlines to address the enduring grand strategic questions facing the United States today
American foreign policy is in a state of upheaval. The rise of Donald Trump and his ""America First"" platform have created more uncertainty about America's role in the world than at any time in recent decades. From the South China Sea, to the Middle East, to the Baltics and Eastern Europe, the geopolitical challenges to U.S. power and influence seem increasingly severe--and America's responses to those challenges seem increasingly unsure. Questions that once had widely accepted answers are now up for debate. What role should the United States play in the world? Can, and should, America continue to pursue an engaged an assertive strategy in global affairs?
In this book, a leading scholar of grand strategy helps to make sense of the headlines and the upheaval by providing sharp yet nuanced assessments of the most critical issues in American grand strategy today. Hal Brands asks, and answers, such questions Has America really blundered aimlessly in the world since the end of the Cold War, or has its grand strategy actually been mostly sensible and effective? Is America in terminal decline, or can it maintain its edge in a harsher and more competitive environment? Did the Obama administration pursue a policy of disastrous retrenchment, or did it execute a shrewd grand strategy focused on maximizing U.S. power for the long term? Does Donald Trump's presidency mean that American internationalism is dead? What type of grand strategy might America pursue in the age of Trump and after? What would happen if the United States radically pulled back from the world, as many leading academics--and, at certain moments, the current president--have advocated? How much military power does America need in the current international environment?
Grappling with these kinds of issues is essential to understanding the state of America's foreign relations today and what path the country might take in the years ahead. At a time when American grand strategy often seems consumed by crisis, this collection of essays provides an invaluable guide to thinking about both the recent past and the future of America's role in the world.
American foreign policy is in a state of upheaval. The rise of Donald Trump and his ""America First"" platform have created more uncertainty about America's role in the world than at any time in recent decades. From the South China Sea, to the Middle East, to the Baltics and Eastern Europe, the geopolitical challenges to U.S. power and influence seem increasingly severe--and America's responses to those challenges seem increasingly unsure. Questions that once had widely accepted answers are now up for debate. What role should the United States play in the world? Can, and should, America continue to pursue an engaged an assertive strategy in global affairs?
In this book, a leading scholar of grand strategy helps to make sense of the headlines and the upheaval by providing sharp yet nuanced assessments of the most critical issues in American grand strategy today. Hal Brands asks, and answers, such questions Has America really blundered aimlessly in the world since the end of the Cold War, or has its grand strategy actually been mostly sensible and effective? Is America in terminal decline, or can it maintain its edge in a harsher and more competitive environment? Did the Obama administration pursue a policy of disastrous retrenchment, or did it execute a shrewd grand strategy focused on maximizing U.S. power for the long term? Does Donald Trump's presidency mean that American internationalism is dead? What type of grand strategy might America pursue in the age of Trump and after? What would happen if the United States radically pulled back from the world, as many leading academics--and, at certain moments, the current president--have advocated? How much military power does America need in the current international environment?
Grappling with these kinds of issues is essential to understanding the state of America's foreign relations today and what path the country might take in the years ahead. At a time when American grand strategy often seems consumed by crisis, this collection of essays provides an invaluable guide to thinking about both the recent past and the future of America's role in the world.
- GenresPoliticsNonfiction
254 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 16, 2018
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114 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 15, 2020
Watching broadcast news can be upsetting. Reading this book can be, too. It's the same story told, in fact, between the covers of other books. So Brands offers little new information. His reinforcement of our intuitions and the previous expressions of concern for our geopolitical moment, all the doom-crying analysis, is much the same as the talking heads of CNN and other foreign policy experts, as if they're holding up the iconic placard, The End Is Near.
Brands does explain the history and the current events of our grand strategy with clarity. He spends considerable time on how the U. S., after WWII, constructed an international order based on alliances and an open global economy fostering positive-sum relationships. The order was designed to sustain a global balance of power and multilateralism through active military alliances, troop deployments, and American leadership. The system has been enormously successful. It has produced a stable geopolitical environment free of major war, particularly in notoriously fratricidal Europe, while at the same time the entire framework has always favored the United States and its democratic allies.
If it's always been America first, it has also been America as benefactor. Despite some hiccups along the way--wars in Vietnam and Iraq--and some more current hurdles like serious fiscal restraints and challenges from an adventurous Russia and a quickly-developing China, the past 70 years have been remarkably stable and prosperous.
Brands's study, of course, is the foreign policies of the Trump administration. The turn away from globalization has been sharp. Generally, Trump rejects cooperative efforts. He rejects the notion that our helping others is also helping America succeed. He sees international relations as a zero-sum enterprise and sees little value in multilateralism. As he's often said, he feels the world has taken advantage of the U. S. and intends a substantial withdrawal from trade agreements and alliances. America the benefactor has become America the victim. He hasn't seen, as Brands has, that our traditional international order has our national interests at heart. He does see a weakening and bending of public attitudes away from globalization which align with his own ideas, and he's taken advantage of it. America is retrenching.
Brands notes that he isn't yet moving directly toward a Fortress America. He mentions that Trump hasn't begun building his promised wall along the Mexican border or withdrawing troops from Europe. But the book was published in 2018. As we know, the wall is under construction. And a couple of weeks ago the administration announced the withdrawal of 9500 soldiers from Germany. Stay tuned.
To Brands and other geopolitical wonks like him the abrupt turn in grand strategy away from multilateralism is an unraveling of the securities provided by the old system of alliances and trade. America's brash new posture has alienated many. We're thought unreliable by many friends. Combining his searing analysis with recent history, especially regarding our reduction of hard power during the Obama years due to budgetary cuts, Brands tries to peer into the near future. His view is that if we continue on our current track, America will be alone. More, our world without an actively engaged America, always a tense neighborhood, will become a dangerous one. And yet for every area of concern he brings up, for every turn of the screw, he offers solutions, ways we can correct.
This is a thoroughly interesting book. It's not like other books about Trump's administration which portray its toxicity in tell-all fashion. This is considered and professional analysis, more upsetting because Brands is a highly-respected student and commentator on modern geopolitics. He's a serious guy. If he's wrong on this or that detail, he's at least seriously wrong.
Brands does explain the history and the current events of our grand strategy with clarity. He spends considerable time on how the U. S., after WWII, constructed an international order based on alliances and an open global economy fostering positive-sum relationships. The order was designed to sustain a global balance of power and multilateralism through active military alliances, troop deployments, and American leadership. The system has been enormously successful. It has produced a stable geopolitical environment free of major war, particularly in notoriously fratricidal Europe, while at the same time the entire framework has always favored the United States and its democratic allies.
If it's always been America first, it has also been America as benefactor. Despite some hiccups along the way--wars in Vietnam and Iraq--and some more current hurdles like serious fiscal restraints and challenges from an adventurous Russia and a quickly-developing China, the past 70 years have been remarkably stable and prosperous.
Brands's study, of course, is the foreign policies of the Trump administration. The turn away from globalization has been sharp. Generally, Trump rejects cooperative efforts. He rejects the notion that our helping others is also helping America succeed. He sees international relations as a zero-sum enterprise and sees little value in multilateralism. As he's often said, he feels the world has taken advantage of the U. S. and intends a substantial withdrawal from trade agreements and alliances. America the benefactor has become America the victim. He hasn't seen, as Brands has, that our traditional international order has our national interests at heart. He does see a weakening and bending of public attitudes away from globalization which align with his own ideas, and he's taken advantage of it. America is retrenching.
Brands notes that he isn't yet moving directly toward a Fortress America. He mentions that Trump hasn't begun building his promised wall along the Mexican border or withdrawing troops from Europe. But the book was published in 2018. As we know, the wall is under construction. And a couple of weeks ago the administration announced the withdrawal of 9500 soldiers from Germany. Stay tuned.
To Brands and other geopolitical wonks like him the abrupt turn in grand strategy away from multilateralism is an unraveling of the securities provided by the old system of alliances and trade. America's brash new posture has alienated many. We're thought unreliable by many friends. Combining his searing analysis with recent history, especially regarding our reduction of hard power during the Obama years due to budgetary cuts, Brands tries to peer into the near future. His view is that if we continue on our current track, America will be alone. More, our world without an actively engaged America, always a tense neighborhood, will become a dangerous one. And yet for every area of concern he brings up, for every turn of the screw, he offers solutions, ways we can correct.
This is a thoroughly interesting book. It's not like other books about Trump's administration which portray its toxicity in tell-all fashion. This is considered and professional analysis, more upsetting because Brands is a highly-respected student and commentator on modern geopolitics. He's a serious guy. If he's wrong on this or that detail, he's at least seriously wrong.
August 24, 2018
Having served as a Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Defense from 2015-2016, Hal Brands was uniquely postured to witness a significant transition of American grand strategy from the Obama to the Trump administration. Broadly defined as the convergence of national ends, ways, and means, American grand strategy changed from one embracing America’s global leadership role to one of “America First.” In assembling his book, Brands’ central thesis is that America’s pre-Trump, post-Cold War grand strategy of international engagement has for the most part led to relative peace and prosperity and should for the most part be maintained, while the isolationist tendencies of President Trump will lead to a decline of America’s standing and power and should be avoided.
Brands’ assembled his book from a collection of previous journal and magazine articles he wrote that he repackaged and supplemented with a brand new chapter that shares the book’s title. One criticism of the book is that the repurposing of previously-written articles into one book inevitably leads to some repetition and rehashing of arguments as each chapter touches on similar themes. Despite this, Brands manages to organize the book in a logical sequence that cogently supports his central thesis advocating sustained internationalism with a nationalist underpinning.
He first describes America’s post-Cold War grand strategy which did not represent a major shift from the past to a "quixotic and even 'disastrous'" foreign policy as argued by some in the foreign policy establishment such as Michael Mandelbaum (p. 6). Rather, the post-Cold War grand strategy was a continuation of American internationalism stretching back to World War II. This strategy brought relative peace and prosperity to the United States—9/11 and Iraq/Afghanistan notwithstanding. He further states that American preeminence and power can be sustained by avoiding retrenchment, reinvesting in defense, encouraging proper burden sharing among allies, exercising discipline in employing national power, and persuading the American public of the value of its global investments.
Brands then writes about the purported merits and actual flaws of a policy of “offshore balancing” in response to American overextension during the George W. Bush administration. He effectively explains that the cost savings of such a strategy are not significant and would ultimately be counterproductive. In the case of terrorism, redeployment from conflict areas could actually metastasize the threat such as with the growth of ISIS following the 2011 U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Nuclear proliferation could also worsen as previous allies acquire nuclear weapons to offset reduced security following the withdrawal of American forces and its nuclear umbrella. Lastly, offshore balancing would embolden America’s near-peer adversaries such as China and Russia.
Brands then draws on his Obama administration experience to define Obama’s grand strategy, while explaining its flaws and successes. He describes how Obama’s policy of prudence and restraint was at least rhetorically a break with that of George W. Bush, but how in reality Obama’s policies reflected continuity with the tradition of sustaining American primacy through global leadership. This policy had a mixed record of success and failure, but undoubtedly led to some of the more reactionary and isolationist policies of his successor which Brands later describes in detail.
Before detailing Trump’s policies though, Brands lays out his case that American internationalism is not in permanent retreat. Citing polling data from 2015 and 2016 Brands somewhat unconvincingly argues that Americans still believe in international institutions and taking a lead in global affairs. He more effectively describes how America’s internationalist tendencies wax and wane but are more pronounced when the United States is faced with greater global threats. In the absence of major threats to American supremacy, many in the U.S. have focused on globalization’s negative effects leading to support for protectionist policies. As such, Brands advocates educating the populace about the benefits of internationalism and adopting a “nationalist interationalist” agenda that both benefits American power globally while protecting Americans locally.
In his final chapter, Brands describes how Trump’s misguided policies of isolationism and protectionism are having and will continue to have a deleterious effect on American standing and power in the world. While the negative effects are not permanent—and could be reversed with his prescribed nationalist internationalist agenda—they should not be discounted. In conclusion, Hal Brands’ book is a compelling and usefully current analysis of recent trends in American grand strategy offering a valuable policy prescription for countering the foreign policy failures in the Age of Trump.
Brands’ assembled his book from a collection of previous journal and magazine articles he wrote that he repackaged and supplemented with a brand new chapter that shares the book’s title. One criticism of the book is that the repurposing of previously-written articles into one book inevitably leads to some repetition and rehashing of arguments as each chapter touches on similar themes. Despite this, Brands manages to organize the book in a logical sequence that cogently supports his central thesis advocating sustained internationalism with a nationalist underpinning.
He first describes America’s post-Cold War grand strategy which did not represent a major shift from the past to a "quixotic and even 'disastrous'" foreign policy as argued by some in the foreign policy establishment such as Michael Mandelbaum (p. 6). Rather, the post-Cold War grand strategy was a continuation of American internationalism stretching back to World War II. This strategy brought relative peace and prosperity to the United States—9/11 and Iraq/Afghanistan notwithstanding. He further states that American preeminence and power can be sustained by avoiding retrenchment, reinvesting in defense, encouraging proper burden sharing among allies, exercising discipline in employing national power, and persuading the American public of the value of its global investments.
Brands then writes about the purported merits and actual flaws of a policy of “offshore balancing” in response to American overextension during the George W. Bush administration. He effectively explains that the cost savings of such a strategy are not significant and would ultimately be counterproductive. In the case of terrorism, redeployment from conflict areas could actually metastasize the threat such as with the growth of ISIS following the 2011 U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Nuclear proliferation could also worsen as previous allies acquire nuclear weapons to offset reduced security following the withdrawal of American forces and its nuclear umbrella. Lastly, offshore balancing would embolden America’s near-peer adversaries such as China and Russia.
Brands then draws on his Obama administration experience to define Obama’s grand strategy, while explaining its flaws and successes. He describes how Obama’s policy of prudence and restraint was at least rhetorically a break with that of George W. Bush, but how in reality Obama’s policies reflected continuity with the tradition of sustaining American primacy through global leadership. This policy had a mixed record of success and failure, but undoubtedly led to some of the more reactionary and isolationist policies of his successor which Brands later describes in detail.
Before detailing Trump’s policies though, Brands lays out his case that American internationalism is not in permanent retreat. Citing polling data from 2015 and 2016 Brands somewhat unconvincingly argues that Americans still believe in international institutions and taking a lead in global affairs. He more effectively describes how America’s internationalist tendencies wax and wane but are more pronounced when the United States is faced with greater global threats. In the absence of major threats to American supremacy, many in the U.S. have focused on globalization’s negative effects leading to support for protectionist policies. As such, Brands advocates educating the populace about the benefits of internationalism and adopting a “nationalist interationalist” agenda that both benefits American power globally while protecting Americans locally.
In his final chapter, Brands describes how Trump’s misguided policies of isolationism and protectionism are having and will continue to have a deleterious effect on American standing and power in the world. While the negative effects are not permanent—and could be reversed with his prescribed nationalist internationalist agenda—they should not be discounted. In conclusion, Hal Brands’ book is a compelling and usefully current analysis of recent trends in American grand strategy offering a valuable policy prescription for countering the foreign policy failures in the Age of Trump.
September 23, 2019
An excellent assessment of US interests globally. Brands’ analysis covers the subtleties of using hard power and soft power in a grand strategy needed to guide US foreign policy. He shows how US foreign policy was not a zero-sum game in the Cold War, and US global leadership since then until 2016 promoted US national interests. He presents a very balanced assessment of Pres. Trump’s approach to foreign policy, including good and bad points, and assesses possible future foreign policy options.
April 18, 2018
An ignorant paper pusher with a diploma explaining why he and others like him have to be paid by the general public. Or shorter: an fearmonger selling hysteria.
April 10, 2019
For school.
April 9, 2020
Hal Brands is someone to listen to.
March 19, 2018
Hal Brands writes about the Grand Strategy that the United States has had since World War II and what changed after the Cold War. The Grand Strategy is what the United States view of their role in the world and how it benefits all parties which is basic statecraft/ State Department plan. Then it precedes to talk about the previous administrations' changes to the overall Grand Strategy and how it is changing with the current administration.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews