The US just turned 250; it is time to reflect, review, and assess the current status of the US grand strategy as a superpower. It will be fascinating to understand how the Americans understand the purpose of military power now. Most importantly, how it perceives modern wars and when it choose to enter the war theater.
Surprisingly, a closer look at US engagements in the last decade reveals a disconnect between its strategy and grand strategy, and the fallacy of mistaking one for the other.
The strategy is a theory of victory. It connects military violence with political objectives in any conflict. An effective strategy is to combine its destructive element and lead to a politically constructive item, peace. Successful strategies consider targeted violence against the enemy, appropriate support from the allies, and the value of hitting enemy. The strategy requires constant attention to politics while promoting military objectives.
The Grand Strategy is also a theory of security that connects the national power to the goal of security from external threats. It covers international security dynamics, military capabilities, soft power, the value of alliances, and institutions. Therefore, the grand strategy requires an understanding of the causes of war and charting a path to win it.
Both, the strategy and the grand strategy are mutually reinforcing, as they will lead to security and success. But it is difficult to strike a balance between these two. War is an emotional business, and many may not be able to sustain a balanced view of means and ends during the conflict. They simply focus on destroying the enemy. Domestic groups and coalition partners may complicate the efforts to fight or restrain it.
The trouble starts with grand strategy when States are unable to form a coherent path to national security, which leads to a bad strategy in the war. This uncertain/unfocused strategies lead to a war with no purpose, just violence. Also, in hubris with success elsewhere, some leaders do not understand the dynamics and consequences of the new conflict. This issue mars the US grand strategy during the current Iran conflict.
An effective grand strategy requires setting priorities and remaining clear-eyed about trade-offs. The decision by the Americans to join the Iran wars changed the landscape of the war in the air, land, and sea with no clear objectives.
Israel’s war against Hamas also has a lesson of some sort. Before 7 October 2023, Israel had a straightforward grand strategy to deal with militant violence and the Arab-Israeli conflict. It was projected that Hamas and Hezbollah were not serious about diplomacy. Faced with armed groups dedicated to fight Israel, its leaders decided to focus on military options. Israel’s grand strategy, practical in peacetime, became an obstacle to strategy in conflict. After the invasion, it had no answers to strategic questions: How far will it proceed militarily? How much will it need political action? Who will lead in peace? And what will be the repercussions internationally? Today, after two years of a costly campaign, it stands alone internationally and hated universally.
What might the US have done differently to ensure that its strategy aligned with its grand strategy? One option was continuing to provide assistance to the anti-regime elements without intervening directly. Covert and limited assistance to Kurd, Baluch, and dissidents. It would have helped align the US strategy and grand strategy. A limited war or surgical strike in support of these elements might have slowly bled the IRGC, leading to frustration in the regime. This would have saved US regional bases from direct drone/missile attacks while raising the cost for the Iranians, and strengthening the elements of US grand strategy. Instead, a mismatch leads to severe military and internal issues. The US regional allies feel less secure now under its security umbrella.
The Iran war led to intense partisan fighting, which has combined with increasing public disillusionment with government institutions. Declining faith in government will destabilize American politics. Some see an opportunity to build support for expanding social programme and administrative support for vulnerable communities. While other groups see an opportunity to break down the administrative state. These diametrically opposite views could lead to chaos.
There are growing signs of multi-polarity in the emerging World Order, and the US policy managers will have to deal with this new reality. Signs are that the understaffed US State Department is not ready to deal with this new reality.
It is presumed that US grand strategy continues to operate on the idea that its forces can sustain a large forward military campaign anywhere in the World. The critics point to the huge costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with not tangible results. Also, stationing forces overseas increases the danger that US forces could be dragged into new conflicts. Still, strong personalities and groups inside the US advocate conflicts with China, Russia, and other rivals.
While the President Trump administration’s National Security Strategy calls for setting clear priorities, and allocating resources effectively. It blames previous administrations for avoiding hard choices, and promises ruthless means-to-ends logic that will avoid overextending American commitments. The President, however, values ambiguity about his true intentions, believing that this allows flexibility and provides bargaining leverage. Policy choices are thus liable to swing wildly like his digital messages. In addition, Trump is deeply suspicious of powerful national security institutions, having made it his mission to ‘drain the swamp’ since his first campaign for the office. This is problematic for a country that chooses war, having a complex bureaucratic enterprise that requires clarity about intentions and a commitment to professionalism. Trump’s approach to international affairs reflects the same attitude leaving no room for clear priorities or organizational continuity.
President Trump’s second term shows good sense in peacetime but not for wartime strategy. President Trump’s preference for transactionalism and uncertainty, also targeting the bureaucracy, makes it difficult to implement strategies. Trump’s approach to grand strategy increases the odds of another strategic quagmire. The recent war in Iran seems to point in that direction. The president seems to have believed that a rapid bombing campaign would topple the regime, leaving in place a new government willing to bend to US pressure. In fact, the net result has bolstered other great powers at America’s expense and eroded US advantages. Trump’s stated grand strategy, creating uncertainty about American national security policy worked against a coherent strategy in war.
Two other lessons stand out. The first is that battlefield excellence is not a substitute for strategy, and lethality is not the same as security. President Trump revels in military operations that seem to resolve longstanding problems with little cost or risk. Lethality generates lasting antipathy and mistrust among those who suffer, meaning that battlefield victories produce only temporary gains. Excessive killing in war will complicate grand strategy in the aftermath.
The second lesson is to avoid military mythology. The United States has experienced a version of this problem since the end of the Cold War. Its dramatic victory over Iraq in 1991 convinced a generation of leaders that American military power could solve a host of other policy problems: humanitarian crises, terrorist movements, WMD proliferation, and rogue states. American military might was clearly impressive, and many of today’s defence officials came of age watching movies and news showing Top Gun, stealth fighters, drones, cruise missiles and smart bombs. It is not surprising that every post-1991 administration turned to military force to every problem. They did not use any other other instrument of national power to achieve desired results.
Yet those results, however satisfying at the time, often left broader grand strategic issues unresolved. American leaders were never sure that they had mitigated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, despite the victory in Operation Desert Storm. Similarly, high-technology counterterrorism operations before and after 9/11 did not create a feeling of durable safety. The killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan left US alley more insecure.
Finally, humanitarian interventions led to long-term military occupations that have sometimes frustrated policymakers’ best intentions. Postwar regrets are inevitable because war is a domain of political uncertainty and moral complexity. We should resist the temptation to indulge in myths of past triumphs that gloss over those issues. Doing so is a recipe for suffering the bad fate.
