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A Grand Strategy For America (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs) ReviewWhat direction should America's foreign policy and grand strategy take, asks well-known Political Scientist Robert Art. Art begins by defining six major interests for the United States: Defense of the homeland, continued peace among Eurasia's major states, access to Persian Gulf oil, international economic openness, the spread of democracy, and no severe global climate change. The first is the least controversial, although there are certainly major disagreements over how this is best achieved. But Art's second major interest, prevention of a major war in Eurasia, might well be the most controversial of the six. Moreover, by Art's own reckoning, it is the second-most vital interest! Yet many oppose this policy. Maintaining peace overseas requires maintaining a large American troop presence in Germany, Korea, and Japan. Many argue that these troops cannot be expected to remain there indefinitely. For example, John Mearsheimer claims that the United States in not the world's cop. Once the threat overseas in the form of the Soviet Union has disappeared, US troops should return home. Only when the peace is directly threatened again should they go back overseas. But this policy, known as offshore balancing, has been proven to be ill-advised. Art notes that the United States was dragged into all three major European wars since 1783. Moreover, had the US maintained a presence in Europe after World War 1, it may have averted the Second World War, thus saving a great deal of money and manpower. By keeping its troops abroad the US can avoid the outbreak of further wars. Others, like Kenneth Waltz, have argued that with the collapse of the Soviet Union the Eurasian states will now balance against America's overwhelming power. But Art notes that "power considerations are never absent from a state's foreign policy calculations and they do count a lot, but it is absurd to argue that power explains everything. " Indeed it has now been 17 years since the Soviet Union collapsed. Yet no balancing has occurred against the US. The reason is simple: geography. As Stephen Walt has noted, threat diminishes with distance. The states of Eurasia do not fear the US as much as they fear each other. This will also for the continued American pacifier presence. I believe the call for a forward defense is the major contribution of this book. Art in fact wrote one of the most important studies on this phenomenon, "Why Europe Needs American and NATO" in 1996.
A second fairly controversial proposition put forth by Art is the importance of spreading democracy. A vigorous literature debates whether or not democracies are more peaceful. Art takes the middle road, noting that while democratic governments do not guarantee peace they seem to war less frequently with each other, based on statistical analysis. Moreover, he argues that democracies are the best guarantor of human rights and freedoms. Where we can support democracies, we should, he argues. In addition to advancing the six major goals, Art discredits other grand strategies, most notably offshore balancing, which he believes to a dangerous policy that will only lead to more wars. There isn't much in this book about specific policies. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan draw noticeably little attention. But as Art notes in the beginning, this is "a big-idea book." Art believes that selective engagement can last for at least another 30 years and probably longer. During this era we have "an unparalleled opportunity to both protect US security and prosperity and to improve the security, health, prosperity, and human rights for the rest of the world."
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