Rethinking Grand-Strategic Change

Abstract Is the United States in the midst of a massive grand-strategic reorientation? IR scholarship cannot provide a definitive answer because the sources of grand-strategic change remain poorly understood. This chapter highlights the deficiencies of the existing literature and proposes a new framework for conceiving of and operationalizing grand strategy. This framework distinguishes between two levels of grand strategy. The first level is a state’s orientation toward the international system, while the second level examines subordinate levels of foreign policy behavior: assumptions about current and prospective threats and opportunities, and the availability and relative utility of the tools of national power. The chapter then illustrates how this framework advances the debate about grand-strategic change by setting up a distinction between grand-strategic overhauls (changes to grand strategy’s first level—or changes between grand strategies) and grand-strategic adjustments (changes to grand strategy’s second level—or changes within grand strategies). Theoretically, this distinction illuminates systemic shifts as a necessary but insufficient cause of overhaul, whereas adjustment results from more diverse causes. Empirically, this distinction permits a more nuanced treatment of the co-occurrence of continuity and change, as demonstrated in the chapter’s case study of US grand strategy in the early 1990s. Finally, the chapter concludes by discussing the implications for the future course of US grand strategy.