Power, Ideas, and Choice: Explaining Change in American Grand Strategy

Abstract

This chapter argues that a neoclassical realist theoretical framework provides us greater explanatory power in the analysis of grand strategic adjustment and change over time than purely structural theories of grand strategy. In contrast to structural realist frameworks that emphasize the primacy of the structure and architecture of the international system in determining state behavior, neoclassical realists define their research agendas by distinguishing between “relative power” as the primary independent variable, and unit-level factors as intervening variables such as decision-makers’ perceptions, domestic state structures, and political ideologies. This approach is particularly well suited to the examination of American grand strategy as it permits us to account for the role of what I term the competing political cultures of statecraft that have long been evident in the United States. I define these political cultures of statecraft following Walter Russell Mead’s typology of Hamiltonian, Wilsonian, Jeffersonian, and Jacksonian and argue that each presents a “historical repertoire” that provides multiple narratives for leaders or strategists to draw upon to guide particular grand strategy choices. The chapter concludes that the interplay between the various strands within this “historical repertoire” has played a major role in shaping not only how the United States sets its external objectives and how it goes about pursuing them but also providing justifications as to why it exercises its power.