https://nsiteam.com/social/wp-conten...l-16Mar19R.pdf

Grand Strategy Alternatives 2019

This study focuses on Great Power Competition with China, and less so with Russia. Since it is competition the grand strategy focuses on developing a strategy to build a better future short of traditional armed conflict. The author states grand strategy includes diverse means (DIME), adds building the means, and has expansive ends. He provides readers with what he calls a diversity of strategic options for consideration. Grand strategy focuses on building a better future based on relationships with specific states and non-state actors conceived in terms of an international order,
John Ikenberry useful defines as: “a political formation in which settled rules and arrangements exist between states to guide their interaction.” Types of international order possible include balancing, a concert of powers, democracy, economic interdependence, and hegemony.
He provides an admittedly simplistic way to frame our view of a grand strategy to help policymakers think about grand strategy in broader terms while avoiding cognitive overload.

There are three fundamental ways of changing an existing relationship between two or more entities: stopping another doing something, working with another, or trying to change anotherÂ’s mind. Adding international relations theoretical perspectives then leads to a grand strategy typology of denial, engagement, and reform.
He goes on for 16 pages of easy, yet informative reading on the varying aspects of each of the three grand strategy typologies to include their pros and cons, plus feasibility considering the actors involved. If you're interested in grand strategy, then you find this a valuable read.

A couple of personal thoughts. I think he makes a hollow argument when he states national interests are astrategic because they only address one country in a bilateral or multilateral situation. That is only true if the strategist only considers one view; most strategic analysis I have seen include convergent and divergent interests of all known actors involved. Yet at the end of the day, we do have interests that we're pursuing.

Nowhere in his writing did he state we can only use one grand strategy, but he also didn't point it out. In fact, we generally use denial (balance of power, hegemonic stability, etc.), engagement (interdependence, institutionalist, etc.) and reform (build more favorable norms, change minds) grand strategies simultaneously with the same actor to ultimately get to the desired relationship. We can put resources into the approach that gains the greatest traction.

He argues, probably correctly, that both Russia and China fear color revolutions so much that have dedicated considerable resources to prevent them, so it is infeasible we could generate one. Yet it is helpful for them to believe we can because the resources dedicated to internal security diverts resources from conventional military build-ups. For Russia, he argues if Putin shifts more resources to focus on improving the lives of individual citizens he become less aggressive. Yet, this is China's focus, and it has made them more aggressive because global expansion is critical to sustaining their economic growth.

It is the nature of American strategy to myopically focus on major threat while managing others, but I wonder is that approach is sustainable in a post-American world that is increasingly multipolar. We need new models for assessing risk and opportunity that are global in perspective and not narrowly focused on one of our two known adversaries.