CIAO DATE: 04/2013
March 2013
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
The United States has pursued a grand strategy of "deep engagement" since the end of World War II. At the core of this grand strategy is a series of security commitments to partners in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East. Growing fiscal pressures, the difficulties associated with the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the rise of China have added fuel to the argument championed by most international relations scholars who write on U.S. grand strategy: that America should pursue retrenchment by curtailing or eliminating its overseas military presence and eliminating or dramatically reducing its global security commitments. A comprehensive assessment of the strategy's costs and benefits reveals that these scholars are wrong: America's choice to retain a grand strategy of deep engagement after the Cold War is just what the preponderance of international relations scholarship would expect a rational, self-interested, leading power in the United States' position to do.
Resource link: Why America Should Not Retrench [PDF]