Brands, Hal

Abstract
Should the United States adopt a fundamentally more modest and restrained grand strategy? Should it dramatically reduce, and perhaps eliminate, the network of security commitments and overseas force deployments that have been the linchpin of its global posture since World War II? In recent years, a growing chorus of scholars and strategic thinkers has answered this question ‘yes.’ They have argued that Washington’s longstanding global posture has now become unnecessary and counterproductive—unnecessary because it is no longer required to maintain a favorable international environment, and counterproductive because it squanders limited resources while creating more problems than it solves. The solution, these scholars contend, is to embrace a minimalist strategy of “offshore balancing.” In its simplest form, offshore balancing envisions slashing U.S. force posture and alliance commitments overseas, and undertaking a marked retrenchment in U.S. policy more broadly. Its guiding premise is that such retrenchment can lead to greater security at lesser cost—that less, in other words, can really be more.
Read the article here