Abstract
In this article, I demonstrate that there are compelling reasons why the USA should reconsider its current grand strategy—variously described as primacy or deep engagement—and, instead, adopt a less activist strategy such as offshore balancing, or restraint. The most salient reason for the USA to make a change of direction is that its current strategy has set the USA on a collision course with China. Nevertheless, the American foreign policy establishment is resistant to strategic adjustment. In this article, I offer a two-pronged explanation for this resistance. First, the American foreign policy establishment imposes a broadly uniform world view on those who comprise it. In this sense, the foreign policy establishment’s very existence is a barrier to strategic adjustment. Second, the foreign policy establishment’s preferences invariably prevail because it exercises discourse dominance, which allows it to frame issues, and to set the bounds of discussion by signaling to a wider audience what policy positions are legitimate, and, perhaps even more important, which are not. In this article, I begin by discussing how the American foreign policy establishment’s members are recruited, and focus on its links to America’s corporate and financial elite. Then, I lay out the key elements of the foreign policy establishment’s world views. I show how the foreign policy establishment uses discourse dominance to ensure that US grand strategy reflects its core beliefs about America’s international political role. Finally, I demonstrate that with respect to China, the foreign policy establishment’s world view, and the discursive practices it employs, make it unlikely that the USA will be able peacefully to accommodate China’s rise.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abelson, D. 2006. A capitol idea: Think tanks and U.S. foreign policy. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Brooks, S.G., Ikenberry, G.J., and Wohlforth, W.C. 2012/2013. Don’t come home, America: The case against retrenchment. International Security 37(3): 7–51.
Bush, G.W. 2006. State of the Union. Address before a joint session of congress. Washington D.C.
Campbell, D. 1993. Writing security: United States foreign policy and the politics of identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Clinton, H. 2011. America’s Pacific century. Foreign Policy 189 (1): 56–63.
Desch, M.C. 2007/2008. America’s liberal illiberalism: The ideological origins of overreaction in U.S. Foreign Policy. International Security 32(3): 7–43.
Devine, R. 1967. Second chance: The triumph of internationalism in America during World War II. New York: Atheneum.
Domhoff, G.W. 2014. Who rules America? The Triumph of the corporate rich. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Ferguson, T. 1984. From Normalcy to New Deal: Industrial structure, party competition, and American public policy in the Great Depression. International Organization 38 (1): 41–94.
Fray, K. 2014. China’s Great Leap Forward: Overtaking the U.S. as the World’s Biggest Economy. Financial Times, online publication 8 October, http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2014/10/08/chinas-leap-forward-overtaking-theus-as-worlds-biggest-economy/. Accessed 12 May 2017.
Friedberg, A. 2011. A contest for supremacy: China, America, and the struggle for mastery in Asia. New York: W. W. Norton.
Gaddis, J.L. 1993. The tragedy of cold war history. Diplomatic History 17 (1): 1–16.
Hartz, L. 1955. The liberal tradition in America. San Diego, CA: Harcourt, Brace, and World.
Hodgson, G. 1973. The establishment. Foregin Policy 10: 3–40.
Hogan, M. 1998. Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945–1954. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hunt, M. 1987. Ideology and U.S. foreign policy. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ikenberry, G.J. 2000. After victory: Institutions, strategic restraint and the rebuilding of order after major wars. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Ikenberry, G.J. 2011. Liberal leviathan; the origins, crisis, and transformation of the American world order. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Isaacson, W., and E. Thomas. 1986. The wise men: Six friends and the world they made. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Jacobs, L.R., and B.I. Page. 2005. Who influences U.S. foreign policy? American Political Science Review 99 (1): 107–123.
Janis, I.L. 1972. Victims of groupthink: A psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Janis, I.L. 1982. Groupthink: Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascoes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Jervis, R. 1976. Perception and misperception in international politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jervis, R. 1991. Domino beliefs and strategic behavior. In Dominoes and bandwagons: Strategic beliefs and great power competition in the Eurasian rimland, ed. R. Jervis and J. Snyder, 20–50. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kennedy, P.M. 1987. The rise and fall of the great powers: Economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York: Random House.
Khong, Y.F. 1992. Analogies at war: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam decisions of 1965. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Layne, C. 1997. From preponderance to offshore balancing. International Security 22 (1): 86–124.
Layne, C. 2006. The peace of illusions: American grand strategy from 1940 to the present. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Layne, C. 2008. China’s challenge to U.S. hegemony. Current History 107 (705): 13–18.
Leffler, M. 1984. The American conception of national security and the beginnings of the cold war, 1945–1948. American Historical Review 89 (2): 346–381.
Leffler, M. 1992. A preponderance of power: National security, the truman administration, and the cold war. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Mandelbaum, M. 2010. The frugal superpower: America’s global leadership in a cash-strapped era. New York: PublicAffairs.
May, E.R. 1973. “Lessons” of the Past: The use and abuse of history in American foreign policy. New York: Oxford University Press.
May, E.R., and R.E. Neustadt. 1986. Thinking in time: The uses of history by decision makers. New York: The Free Press.
McDougall, W.A. 1997. Promised land, crusader state: The American encounter with the world since 1776. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Mearsheimer, J.J. 2001. The tragedy of great power politics. New York: W. W. Norton.
Mearsheimer, J.J. 2006. China’s unpeaceful rise. Current History 690: 160–162.
Michaels, J.H. 2013. The discourse trap and the military: From the war on terror to the surge. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mills, C.W. 2000. The power elite. New York: Oxford University Press.
Nathan, A., and A. Scobell. 2012. How China sees America: The sum of Beijing’s fears. Foreign Affairs 91 (5): 32.
Obama, B. 2010. National security strategy 2010. Washington D.C: The White House.
Obama, B. 2015. State of the Union. Address before a Joint Session of Congress. Washington D.C., 20 January.
Parmar, I. 2012. Foundations of the twentieth century: The Ford, carnegie, and rockefeller foundations and the rise of American power. New York: Columbia University Press.
Pollard, R.A. 1985. Economic security and the origins of the cold war, 1945–1950. New York: Columbia University Press.
Posen, B.R. 2014. Restraint: A new foundation for U.S. grand strategy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Reynolds, D. 2005. In command of history: Churchill fighting and writing the second world war. New York: Random House.
Schulzinger, R. 1984. The wise men of foreign affairs: The history of the council on foreign relations. New York: Columbia University Press.
Sherry, M. 1995. In the shadow of war: The United States since the 1930s. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Slater, J. 1993/1994. The domino theory and international politics: The case of Vietnam. Security Studies 3 (2): 186–224.
Snyder, J. 1991. Myths of empire: Domestic politics and international ambition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Stiglitz, J. 2002. Globalization and its discontents. New York: W. W. Norton.
Stiglitz, J. 2013. The price of inequality: How today’s divided society endangers our future. New York: W. W. Norton.
Thompson, J.A. 1992. The exaggeration of American vulnerability: The anatomy of a tradition. Diplomatic History 16 (1): 23–43.
Trachtenberg, M. (ed.). 2003. Between empire and alliance: America and Europe during the cold war. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.
Van Apeldoorn, B., and N. De Graaf. 2012. The limits of open door imperialism and the U.S. state-capital nexus. Globalizations 9 (4): 593–608.
Van Apeldoorn, B., and N. De Graaf. 2014. Corporate elite networks and US grand strategy from Clinton to Obama. European Journal of International Relations 20 (1): 29–55.
Williams, W.A. 1962. The tragedy of American diplomacy. New York: Delta.
Wohlforth, W.C. 2009. Unipolarity, status competition, and great power war. World Politics 61 (1): 28–57.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Layne, C. The US foreign policy establishment and grand strategy: how American elites obstruct strategic adjustment. Int Polit 54, 260–275 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-017-0033-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-017-0033-0