The Case for a U.S. Grand Strategy of Restraint

Dr. Eugene Gholz of the University of Texas at Austin gave a lecture on the topic of "The Case for a U.S. Grand Strategy of Restraint" at The Institute of World Politics on July 9, 2015.

This lecture was part of a series on U.S. Foreign Policy and Grand Strategy sponsored by the Charles Koch Foundation.

Description of the lecture

In recent years, the United States has done little to adapt its grand strategy to the changing international security environment. Instead, the policy community has apparently agreed on a reflexive international activism, looking for an American role in events all around the world without much effort to prioritize or to carefully link its means of engagement to desired outcomes. Adopting a coherent grand strategy of restraint would allow the United States to capitalize on its geographical and technological advantages to achieve its key goals in international politics, to avoid unnecessary costs, and to husband power for the possibility of a more threatening future security environment.

About the speaker

Eugene Gholz is an Associate Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He works primarily at the intersection of national security and economic policy, on subjects including innovation, defense management, and U.S. foreign policy. He co-wrote a well-known International Security article that coined the term "restraint" as a proposed grand strategy for the United States. From 2010-2012, he served in the Pentagon as Senior Advisor to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy. He is also the coauthor of two books: Buying Military Transformation: Technological Innovation and the Defense Industry, and U.S. Defense Politics: The Origins of Security Policy. His recent scholarship focuses on energy security.

Video by Harrison Reiff