Domestic foundation of the grand strategy

Author: (USA) Robert Rothstein
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: This book reflects the debate between liberal institutionalism and neorealism in Western international relations theory regarding grand strategy. The arguments in the book are reflected in two dimensions. First, it anchors the goal of grand strategy at the level of national security, thereby negating the grand strategy objective of pursuing mere military victory. It defines grand strategy as: adjusting domestic and international resources to achieve national security. For this purpose, a state must not only consider military resources but also all controllable resources and effectively allocate these resources to ensure security during peacetime and wartime. Second, it shifts the constraints influencing grand strategy decision-making from external to internal factors. Structural realism, represented by Waltz, emphasizes that the anarchic nature of the international system determines a state's foreign strategy and behavior, requiring it to pursue its own power according to the principle of self-help. In contrast, this book, through an examination of a series of major historical cases, draws conclusions in line with liberal institutionalism, arguing that a state's internal political, economic, and ideological factors are equally important variables in determining its foreign policy. This difference in perspective has distinct implications for the formulation of national grand strategy.