Bad Idea: Treating “The Pentagon” and “The White House” as if They Were People
Using “the Pentagon” or “the White House” as if they were actors in the political process risks misleading readers from what is going on.
Using “the Pentagon” or “the White House” as if they were actors in the political process risks misleading readers from what is going on.
This CSIS Brief is the first in a series that explores the contours and implications of strategies that might reduce the U.S. military’s mission space through greater constraints on its ends, ways, or means.
The United States’ perennial search for rigidity in strategic choice—particularly regarding what it will not do and where it will not do it—risks leaving the country vulnerable in the face of emergent challenges and shifts in American political winds.
Retrenchment from forward deployed forces supporting alliances is a bad idea. Alliances, including forward-stationing of U.S. forces abroad makes the United States safer, its allies more secure, and all participating more prosperous. Any weakening of the U.S. alliance architecture should demonstrate how it provides greater benefits than the existing system.
The desire to author a new grand strategy is a longstanding and understandable tradition in U.S. foreign policy. In reality, however, a grand strategy debate is likely to degenerate into unproductive arguments where few objective criteria exist to evaluate competing proposals.