Grand Strategy from Truman to Trump

Description

American foreign policy is the subject of extensive debate. Many look to domestic factors as the driving forces of bad policies. Benjamin Miller instead seeks to account for changes in US international strategy by developing a theory of grand strategy that captures the key security approaches available to US decision-makers in times of war and peace. Grand Strategy from Truman to Trump makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of competing grand strategies that accounts for objectives and means of security policy. Miller puts forward a model that is widely applicable, based on empirical evidence from post-WWII to today, and shows that external factors—rather than internal concerns—are the most determinative. Contents Tables Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction The Puzzle and the Argument 1 Between Offensive Liberalism and Defensive Realism— Four Approaches to Grand Strategy 2 Explaining Changes in Grand Strategy 3 The Road to Offensive Realism: The Evolution of US Grand Strategy in the Early Cold War, 1945– 50 4 From Preponderance to Détente after the Cuban Missile Crisis 5 From Détente to the “Second Cold War”: From Kennedy to Carter 6 Reagan’s Turn to the Second Détente 7 Making the World in Its Own Image: The Post– Cold War Grand Strategy 8 The Post-9/11 Period: The Emergence of Offensive Liberalism 9 Obama: From Defensive Liberalism to Defensive Realism— Systemic Changes Lead to the End of the Liberalization Project 10 America First: The Trump Grand Strategy in a Comparative Perspective 11 The Past, Present, and Future of American Grand Strategy: Some Final Observations Appendix 1: Indicators of Grand Strategy Change Appendix 2: Summary of Major Changes in US Grand Strategy and Their Explanation Appendix 3: Competing US Approaches to Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump Notes Index