Emergent Strategy and Grand Strategy

How American Presidents Succeed in Foreign Policy

Ionut Popescu

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781421423784
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

What if successful strategies are sometimes formed through an emergent process of learning and adaptation?

Is following a coherent grand strategy the key to achieving successful outcomes in American foreign policy? For many experts in academia and Washington, the answer is yes. Policymakers usually face criticism when they take incremental actions based on short-term considerations. But could such actions actually converge into a successful emergent strategy over time?

Ionut Popescu conclusively shows that in some cases, an emergent learning model leads to better overall strategic performance than a long-term strategic plan or framework. Popescu argues that it is time to rethink the origins of some of the most important successes and failures of America's tenure as a global superpower after World War II. Presenting empirical data culled from archival research and interviews with higher-ups, Popescu covers eight US presidential administrations, ranging from Truman to Obama, to demonstrate that senior policymakers should be skeptical of the idea that formulating and implementing a long-term grand strategy is the road to a successful foreign policy legacy.

Instead, the book asserts, leaders should prioritize learning from the almost unavoidable mistakes they will make early in their careers and adapting their plans to unanticipated events and changes in the international environment. Emergent Strategy and Grand Strategy thus offers both scholars and practitioners of foreign policy an original theoretical framework to explain strategic success.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter One: Grand Strategy, Emergent Strategy, and Foreign Policy Success
• Chapter Two: George Kennan, Containment, and the Beginning of the Cold War
• Chapter Three: Globalizing Containment: NSC-68 and the Korean War
• Chapter Four: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Project Solarium, and the New Look
• Chapter Five: Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Détente
• Chapter Six: Ronald Reagan and the End of the Cold War
• Chapter Seven: George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and the Post–Cold War Era
• Chapter Eight: George W. Bush and the War on Terror
• Chapter Nine: Shape or Adapt? Improving the Making of American Strategy
• Epilogue: An Assessment of the Obama Doctrine
• Appendix: Grand Strategy Documents and List of Interviews
• Notes
• Index