Amy Zegart argues that the number, identity, and magnitude of dangers threatening American interests are wildly uncertain, and that this makes searching for a single grand strategy unwise.
Admiral Gary Roughead argues that a discussion of grand strategy must start with an honest and accurate assessment of the country’s current global position: “When in a precarious navigational situation at sea, the first question asked is, where am I?” He identifies five current and anticipated trends that should shape that assessment.
David M. Kennedy places the group’s work within a historical context, showing that “[i]solationism was, arguably, the most long-lived and successful grand strategy” in the nation’s history. One lesson from that history that might prove instructive today is that sharp calculations of cost should be weighed against the prospective benefits of any foreign policy initiative.
Karl Eikenberry examines the country’s past national security strategies and finds that their articulation of American interests has been consistent since the early days of the Cold War. What has changed is the underlying set of assumptions about U.S. economic strength and the domestic foundations of power that allow us to pursue those interests.
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar discusses domestic sources of national power and identifies four issues that should loom large in discussions of America’s global strategy—education, immigration, fiscal policy, and institutional capacity.
IP² Working Paper No. 14001 - This paper examines the coordination of inputs to the development and use of technology as a problem in the theory of property. Recent misunderstanding of property, in terms of both the substance of its rights and the implications of its remedies, have presented property as an obstacle to – rather than as a platform for – rapidly evolving technology.