Post-Cold War National Security Strategies in Theory

Unit 5

Post-Cold War National Security Strategies in Theory

Throughout the Cold War, there was a broad-based political consensus on the nature of the threat and on a strategy to counter it. At the time, there appeared to be two variants of the containment strategy, one Kennan-like and the other Nitze-like. There were clear shifts accompanied by a great deal of continuity. Compared to post Cold War strategies, Cold War strategic shifts appear as minor pendulum swings.

Post-Cold War material is divided into two distinct parts. This week wecover the strategic alternatives available post Cold War—strategy in theory. Next week wecover strategy as actually practiced by Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., and Obama—strategy in practice.

If you read nothing else this semester, read the Posen and Ross article. Read it several times. Master the material and you will be prepared to enter the debate on national security strategy. The authors distilled hundreds of articles and books into a handful of cogent strategic alternatives.

Don’t get caught in the trap dismissing these strategies because they aren’t “flexible.” None of these are deterministic computer algorithms. All are quite flexible. Reading the words of past students who have argued for a “flexible” strategy, they are actually arguing for ad hoc employment policy rather than for a strategic response, and thus demonstrate a deep lack of understanding of force development and force deployment policy as elements of strategy.

Another trap past students have fallen into is dismissing the Posen and Ross strategies as “dated.” They go on to talk about issues two, three, or more levels below grand strategy, again demonstrating a failure to understand grand strategy. Professionals still study Sun Tzu (circa 500 BC), Thucydides (460 BC - 395 BC), and Clausewitz (1780 AD - 1831 AD). Dated? Sure. Valued? Professionals think so.

Still, if you have the urge, read the document from 2008 document from the Center for a New American Security, Finding Our Way: Debating American Grand Strategy. It’s newer, post-9/11, it’s three times longer than Posen and Ross, and it lists the same strategy alternatives that Posen and Ross listed twelve years earlier: isolationism, selective engagement, primacy, and cooperative security (p. 17). The same taxonomy can be used to describe U.S. behavior from the birth of the nation to the present. This is called old wine in a new bottle.

Required Reading

Worley chapter 6 Post-Cold War Strategy [pp. 165-175]
Posen and Ross article from International Security

Optional Reading

See Resources folder.
Finding Our Way: Debating American Grand Strategy. It might be useful to read pp. 11-20 to reinforce the information in chapter 4, The Meaning of Grand Strategy.

Discussion Questions

DQ 1. 21st Century Strategy: Dealing with militant Islam is but a single issue of American national security. Considering the entirety of U.S. national security issues, which of the post-Cold War strategy alternatives provides the best starting point for 21st Century grand strategy? Why?

DQ 2. Were predictions accurate?Strategies are based on theoretical cause-and-effect relationships. A theory's validity can be judged by its ability to predict the consequences of action. Assuming that the United States adopted a beyond-primacy strategy after 9/11, discuss the theories embedded in the strategic alternatives and their ability to predict the consequences of the beyond-primacy strategy (post 9/11 behavior and the invasion of Iraq). I.e., did the predictions made in Posen and Ross come true?

DQ 3. Realism and Strategy: Connect the national security strategies from Posen and Ross to the different forms of realism presented in the international relations material.

DQ 4. Idealism and Strategy: Connect the national security strategies from Posen and Ross to the different forms of idealism/liberalism presented in the international relations material.

Lessons Learned

Submit a 350-word summary of what you have learned from this unit’s assignments, readings, and discussions and how they relate to your learning experience and work environment. Include all assigned reading, not just the reading associated with the DQs.