logo for Georgetown University Press
Attacking Terrorism
Elements of a Grand Strategy
Audrey Kurth Cronin and James M. Ludes, Editors
Georgetown University Press, 2004

The definition and understanding of "terrorism" is in a state of unprecedented evolution. No longer are acts of terrorism rare and far-flung. Following the horrendous attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, U.S. citizens have had their eyes opened to a new world where this nightmare stalks the daily news and is never far from consciousness.

Attacking Terrorism brings together some of the world's finest experts, people who have made the study of this rising menace their life's work, to provide a comprehensive picture of the challenges and opportunities of the campaign against international terrorism. Part one, "The Nature of Terrorism," provides an overview and foundation for the current campaign, placing it within the political and historical context of previous threats and responses. Part two, "The Responses to Terrorism," looks at the range of policy instruments required in an effective strategy against terrorism.

The contributors to this volume bring finely honed analyses and nuanced perspectives to the terrorist realities of the twenty-first century—history, analyses, and perspectives that have been too often oversimplified or myopic. They bring a new depth of understanding and myriad new dimensions to the crisis of terrorism. And they reach into aspects of counterterrorism that broaden our grasp on such important tools as diplomacy, intelligence and counterintelligence, psycho-political means, international law, criminal law enforcement, military force, foreign aid, and homeland security, showing not only how these tools are currently being employed but how often they are being underutilized as well.

Attacking Terrorism demonstrates that there are no easy answers—and that the road toward victory will be long and arduous, frightening and dangerous—but as Audrey Kurth Cronin states in her introduction, "As the campaign against international terrorism unfolds, a crucial forward-looking process of strategic reassessment is under way in the United States, and this book is intended to be a part of it."

[more]

front cover of The Challenge of Hegemony
The Challenge of Hegemony
Grand Strategy, Trade, and Domestic Politics
Steven E. Lobell
University of Michigan Press, 2005
The Challenge of Hegemony explains how international forces subtly influence foreign, economic, and security policies of declining world powers. Using detail-rich case studies, this sweeping study integrates domestic and systemic policy to explain these countries' grand strategies. The book concludes with a discussion of the implications for the future of American foreign policy.

"His conceptually rigorous and tightly reasoned study . . . reminds us that power is never value neutral but organizes commercial systems in liberal or imperial terms."
---Perspectives on Politics

"Lobell's book is tightly written, nicely argued and thoroughly researched to a fault. He seems to delight in historical detail. The complexity of his approach is refreshing."
---International Affairs

"The Challenge of Hegemony is a pleasure to read. It is both theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich."
---International Studies Review

"The Challenge of Hegemony offers a compelling reinterpretation of key historical cases and provides wise guidance as to how the United States should wield its power today."
--Charles A. Kupchan, Council on Foreign Relations

"Lobell demonstrates clearly how the international environment confronting great powers interacts with their domestic political coalitions to produce different grand strategies. Through a masterful sweep of history, Lobell shows us the alternative trajectories before the United States today."
--David A. Lake, University of California, San Diego
[more]

front cover of Grand Strategy from Truman to Trump
Grand Strategy from Truman to Trump
Benjamin Miller with Ziv Rubinovitz
University of Chicago Press, 2020

American foreign policy is the subject of extensive debate. Many look to domestic factors as the driving forces of bad policies. Benjamin Miller instead seeks to account for changes in US international strategy by developing a theory of grand strategy that captures the key security approaches available to US decision-makers in times of war and peace.

Grand Strategy from Truman to Trump makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of competing grand strategies that accounts for objectives and means of security policy. Miller puts forward a model that is widely applicable, based on empirical evidence from post-WWII to today, and shows that external factors—rather than internal concerns—are the most determinative.

[more]

front cover of The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire
The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire
Edward N. Luttwak
Harvard University Press, 2009

In this book, the distinguished writer Edward N. Luttwak presents the grand strategy of the eastern Roman empire we know as Byzantine, which lasted more than twice as long as the more familiar western Roman empire, eight hundred years by the shortest definition. This extraordinary endurance is all the more remarkable because the Byzantine empire was favored neither by geography nor by military preponderance. Yet it was the western empire that dissolved during the fifth century.

The Byzantine empire so greatly outlasted its western counterpart because its rulers were able to adapt strategically to diminished circumstances, by devising new ways of coping with successive enemies. It relied less on military strength and more on persuasion—to recruit allies, dissuade threatening neighbors, and manipulate potential enemies into attacking one another instead. Even when the Byzantines fought—which they often did with great skill—they were less inclined to destroy their enemies than to contain them, for they were aware that today’s enemies could be tomorrow’s allies. Born in the fifth century when the formidable threat of Attila’s Huns were deflected with a minimum of force, Byzantine strategy continued to be refined over the centuries, incidentally leaving for us several fascinating guidebooks to statecraft and war.

The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire is a broad, interpretive account of Byzantine strategy, intelligence, and diplomacy over the course of eight centuries that will appeal to scholars, classicists, military history buffs, and professional soldiers.

[more]

logo for Georgetown University Press
Japanese Foreign Intelligence and Grand Strategy
From the Cold War to the Abe Era
Brad Williams
Georgetown University Press, 2023

Incisive insights into the distinctive nature of Japanese foreign intelligence and grand strategy, its underlying norms, and how they have changed over time

Japanese foreign intelligence is an outlier in many ways. Unlike many states, Japan does not possess a centralized foreign intelligence agency that dispatches agents abroad to engage in espionage. Japan is also notable for civilian control over key capabilities in human and signals intelligence. Japanese Foreign Intelligence and Grand Strategy probes the unique makeup of Japan's foreign intelligence institutions, practices, and capabilities across the economic, political, and military domains and shows how they have changed over time.

Brad Williams begins by exploring how Japan’s experiences of the Second World War and its new role as a major US ally influenced its adoption of bilateralism, developmentalism, technonationalism, and antimilitarism as key norms. As a result, Japanese intelligence-gathering resources centered primarily around improving its position in the global economy throughout the Cold War. Williams then brings his analysis up to the Abe Era, examining how shifts in the international, regional, and domestic policy environments in the twenty-first century have caused a gradual reassessment of national security strategy under former prime minister Shinzo Abe. As Japan reevaluates its old norms in light of regional security challenges, the book concludes by detailing how the country is beginning to rethink the size, shape, and purpose of its intelligence community.

Anyone interested in Japanese intelligence, security, or international relations will welcome this important contribution to our understanding of the country's intelligence capabilities and strategy.

[more]

front cover of Nation Builder
Nation Builder
John Quincy Adams and the Grand Strategy of the Republic
Charles N. Edel
Harvard University Press, 2014

“America goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy”—John Quincy Adams’s famous words are often quoted to justify noninterference in other nations’ affairs. Yet when he spoke them, Adams was not advocating neutrality or passivity but rather outlining a national policy that balanced democratic idealism with a pragmatic understanding of the young republic’s capabilities and limitations. America’s rise from a confederation of revolutionary colonies to a world power is often treated as inevitable, but Charles N. Edel’s provocative biography of Adams argues that he served as the central architect of a grand strategy that shaped America’s rise. Adams’s particular combination of ideas and policies made him a critical link between the founding generation and the Civil War–era nation of Lincoln.

Examining Adams’s service as senator, diplomat, secretary of state, president, and congressman, Edel’s study of this extraordinary figure reveals a brilliant but stubborn man who was both visionary prophet and hard-nosed politician. Adams’s ambitions on behalf of America’s interests, combined with a shrewd understanding of how to counter the threats arrayed against them, allowed him to craft a multitiered policy to insulate the nation from European quarrels, expand U.S. territory, harness natural resources, develop domestic infrastructure, education, and commerce, and transform the United States into a model of progress and liberty respected throughout the world.

While Adams did not live to see all of his strategy fulfilled, his vision shaped the nation’s agenda for decades afterward and continues to resonate as America pursues its place in the twenty-first-century world.

[more]

front cover of Politics, Markets, and Grand Strategy
Politics, Markets, and Grand Strategy
Foreign Economic Policies as Strategic Instruments
Lars S. Skalnes
University of Michigan Press, 2000
Why do states sometimes discriminate in favor of certain states and at other times choose to pursue nondiscriminatory policies? In answering these questions, Lars S. Skålnes stresses the international political importance of foreign economic policy, arguing that trade, foreign investment, and foreign aid policies are strategic instruments great powers use to manage political and military relations with allies and adversaries.
Skålnes explains changes in foreign economic policy in terms of shifting strategic assessments regarding the importance of military support from allies. When states need military support from their allies to meet threats to their security, they will adopt discriminatory foreign economic policies in an attempt to strengthen alliance relations. When states can go it alone without military support, by contrast, they will not pursue foreign economic policies that discriminate in favor of either allies or other countries. Discriminatory policies, Skalnes argues, are important strategic instruments for several reasons. First, they can be used to tie countries to a military alliance. Second, they are useful as signals of intention. Third, discriminatory policies may strengthen an ally militarily by increasing the economic resources available for military purposes.
Skålnes provides detailed accounts of the grand strategies of Germany (1879-1914), France (1887-1914), Great Britain (1919-1939), and the United States (1945-1967).
Politics, Markets, and Grand Strategy will be important reading for scholars and students in the fields of national security studies, international political economy, and economic history, and to economists working on problems associated with foreign investment and trade generally and customs union theory and discriminatory trade agreements specifically.
Lars S. Skålnes is Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Oregon.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter