during the Cold War were homogenized and relatively consistent, that we might have had a 'strategy' -- we did not. They were not, they were all over the place. Nor am I saying Entropy isn't aware of that, I just tossed out a reminder...
Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
Of course our system does not lend itself to long term policy. That's both strength and weakness: we veer about a bit, but we can also adapt or discard policies that are unsuccessful or no longer appropriate.
You know that and I know that. Thousands if not millions of Americans know that including some in high places. Unfortunately, there is plenty of evidence that others folks in high places either do not know that or often attempt to willfully disregard it.

I simply like to remind everyone of that reality often enough to be tedious. Never know when someone who reads it may get in a policy position and need to -- and hopefully not fail to -- recall that harsh little fact of life...
I would say that the "sole superpower" ambition needs to be adapted or discarded; it's neither desirable nor possible.
I would go with adapted -- which it is doing and will do as it has for almost 100 years. Discarding it is likely to attract Jackals, Hyenas and Vultures. Regrettable but fact.
An attempt to maintain sole military dominance without sole economic dominance - which we have not got and will probably never again have - is only going to end with us nailing ourselves to a fiscal crucifix.
I do not think we're trying to do the military thing; effective deterrence and dominance are two different things. Need the deterrence bit, forcefully applied, else you get in the position that failing to deter from 1979 until 2001 put us in.

Clinton, Rubin and Summers tried the economic thing and we can see where that got us. I agree with you that is not going to happen and it should not.
The challenge is not the maintenance of sole superpower status, but the development of a realistic strategy for advancing and protecting our long-term interests in a multipolar world.
I do not think we trying to maintain "sole superpower" status (though a few foolish people in government may harbor that dream; they're a minority). As I've said many times, we do not do strategy; grand strategy, which is what you're after -- that requires continuity we do not have. We can do long term policy and we do that and I see no evidence that it is not trying to adapt to the multipolar world that is very similar to the one into which I was born and spent formative years. That's the real quibble -- the Cold War was a period of great artificiality it appeared to be a bi-polar world (wasn't but appeared to be...) and every one got spoiled and forgot how to act in the multipolar world. We're slowly (too slowly IMO) figuring it out -- but we are NOT going to give much more than we absolutely have to. And we should not. That too is a facet of multipolarity...