Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy

Competingvisions for US. Grand Strategy I T h e dramatic events that marked the end of the Cold War and the subsequent early end of the twentieth century require the United States to reconsider its national security policy. What are US. interests and objectives? What are the threats to those interests and objectives?What are the appropriate strategic responses to those threats? What principles should guide the development of U.S. policy and strategy?In short, what should be the new grand strategy of the United States? Four grand strategies, relatively discrete and coherent arguments about the U.S. role in the world, now compete in our public discourse. They may be termed neo-isolationism; selective engagement; cooperative security; and primacy (see Table 1for a summary presentation of the four alternative visions). Below, we describe each of these four strategies in its purest form; we borrow liberally from the academics, government officials,journalists, and policy analysts who have contributed to this debate,but on issues where others have kept silent, or been inconsistent,we impose consistency in the interest of clarity.Our purpose is not advocacy; it is transparency. We hope to sharpen the public debate, not settle it. We then offer our characterization and critique of the evolving grand strategy of the Clinton administration, an uneasy amalgam of selective engagement, cooperative security, and primacy. Finally, we speculate on what might cause the United States to make a clearer grand strategy choice. The state of the U.S. economy, the national finances, and persistent social problems largely drove foreign and defense policy out of the 1992presidential race. The 1996campaign was little different.The first months of the first Clinton administration were characterized by indirection,and later by a nearly singleminded focus on economic issues. Security matters were dealt with sequentially and incrementally; no obvious grand scheme emerged until Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Anthony Lake proposed in Septem- ~ a r r y R. ~ o s e n and Andrew L. Ross Barry R. Posen is Professor of Political Science in the Defense and Arms Control Studies Program at MIT. Andrew Ross is Professor of National Security Affairs at the U S . Naval War College. The original version of this essay was submitted by Barry R. Posen as written testimony for the House Armed Services Committee on March 3, 1993. Earlier versions of this piece appeared in Strategy and Force Planning Faculty, eds., Strategy and Force Planning (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College Press, 1995), pp. 115-134; and in Robert J. Lieber, ed., Eagle Adrift: American Foreign Policy At the End of the Century (New York: Longman, 1997),pp. 100-134. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Naval War College, the Department of the Navy, or any other U.S. government department or agency. International Security, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Winter 1996/97), pp. 5-53 0 1996 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 5 Table 1. Competing Grand Strategy Visions. Selective Neo-Isolationism Engagement Cooperative Security Primacy Analytical Anchor Minimal, defensive realism Avoiding entanglement i n the affairs of others Distant balance of power Supports status quo Narrow Traditional balance of power realism Peace among the major powers Liberalism Maximal realism/ unilateralism The rise of a peer competitor Major Problem of Int'l Politics The indivisibility of peace Preferred World Order Nuclear Dynamics Conception of National Interests Regional Priorities Balance of power Interdependence Hegemonic Supports status quo Restricted Supports aggression Tra n sn a ti ona I Supports aggression Broad North America Industrial Eurasia Global Industrial Eurasia & the home of any potential peer competitor Indiscriminate prevention Expand Contain; discriminate intervention Contain Nuclear Proliferation Not our problem Discriminate prevention Maintain Contain; discriminate intervention Contain Indiscriminate prevention Transform & expand Intervene NATO Regional Conflict Withdraw Abstain Ethnic Conflict Abstain Nearly indiscriminate intervention Nearly indiscriminate intervention Frequent Reconnaissance strike complex for mutilateral action Humanitarian Intervention Use of Force Force Posture Abstain Discriminate intervention Discriminate Two-MRC force Discriminate intervention At will A two-powerstandard force Self-defense Minimal self-defense force Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy I 7 ber...