The Indian Ocean, with its critical routes for global commerce, is a potentially volatile location for geopolitical strife. Even as the region’s role in the international economy and as a highway to conflict zones increases, the US has failed to advance a coherent strategy for protecting its interests in the Indian Ocean or for managing complex diplomatic relationships across the region. The Indian Ocean and US Grand Strategy presents a range of viewpoints about whether and how the US shou...

The field of grand strategy is exceptionally American-centric theoretically, methodologically and empirically. Indeed, many scholars treat the United States as a unique case, and thus incomparable. This Element addresses the shortcomings of this approach by developing a novel framework for the purpose of systematic comparison, both within and among different countries. Using the United States as a benchmark, three dimensions are considered in which grand strategy can be compared: first, at...

How do two conventionally powerful, nuclear armed, but commercially oriented great powers, reliant on sea lanes and global maritime infrastructure, engage in a long-term strategic rivalry? When do such competitions lead to crisis instability and even war? This book presents a research agenda using a variety of methods to explore this unique competitive environment for China and the United States.The most likely great power friction points today are located at sea. Any shots fired b...

In Buying Military Transformation, Peter Dombrowski and Eugene Gholz analyze the United States military's ongoing effort to capitalize on information technology. New ideas about military doctrine derived from comparisons to Internet Age business practices can be implemented only if the military buys technologically innovative weapons systems. Buying Military Transformation examines how political and military leaders work with the defense industry to develop the small ship...

This book develops a new approach in explaining how a nation's Grand Strategy is constituted, how to assess its merits, and how grand strategies may be comparatively evaluated within a broader framework. The volume responds to three key problems common to both academia and policymaking. First, the literature on the concept of grand strategy generally focuses on the United States, offering no framework for comparative analysis. Indeed, many proponents of US grand strategy suggest that the c...

Regional Missile Defense from a Global Perspective explains the origins, evolution, and implications of the regional approach to missile defense that has emerged since the presidency of George H. W. Bush, and has culminated with the missile defense decisions of President Barack Obama. The Obama administration's overarching concept for American missile defense focuses on developing both a national system of limited ground-based defenses, located in Alaska and California, intended t...

In The End of Grand Strategy, Simon Reich and Peter Dombrowski challenge the common view of grand strategy as unitary. They eschew prescription of any one specific approach, chosen from a spectrum that stretches from global primacy to restraint and isolationism, in favor of describing what America's military actually does, day to day. They argue that a series of fundamental recent changes in the global system, the inevitable jostl...

Confronting insurgent violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has recognized the need to “re-learn” counterinsurgency. But how has the Department of Defense with its mixed efforts responded to this new strategic environment? Has it learned anything from past failures?In The New Counterinsurgency Era, David Ucko examines DoD’s institutional obstacles and initially slow response to a changing strategic reality. Ucko also suggests how the military can better prepare for th...

This new handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the issues facing naval strategy and security in the twenty-first century.Featuring contributions from some of the world’s premier researchers and practitioners in the field of naval strategy and security, this handbook covers naval security issues in diverse regions of the world, from the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean to the Arctic and the piracy-prone waters off East Africa’s coast. It outlines major policy challenges ar...

For over a decade, Canada’s participation in the war in Afghanistan dominated media headlines, government discussions, academic studies, and the public international security debate, often to the exclusion of issues that have traditionally shaped Canadian approaches to security and defence policy. Now that the mission in Afghanistan is over, what issues should define Canada’s international security agenda? This collection of essays, written by leading observers of Canadian policy, seeks to...

All naval professionals—without exception—encounter, directly participate, or play a supporting role in naval cooperation. It is a key element in the U.S. defense strategy because military and naval operations today are usually conducted by international coalitions and fighting alongside foreign navies is an expected aspect of current and future naval warfare. Activities in support of mutual defense include bilateral and multilateral exercises, international programs such as cooperative ac...

Going to War? investigates the reasons why countries enter conflicts by considering the depth and complexity of issues surrounding military deployments. Showing how such conditions affect future decisions about the use of force, contributors to this volume study recent experiences with military interventions - such as regional flash points, the global financial crisis, and public weariness - to outline the crucial factors that influence wartime decision-making.Through deta...