Power on the Precipice: The Six Choices America Faces in a Turbulent World. Andrew Imbrie. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020.

“Growltiger’s Last Stand” is one of T.S. Eliot’s best poems, ripe with allusions. It is also a possible allegory for today’s strategists.[1] Growltiger was a large and fearsome cat who became complacent and shabby, ultimately losing his edge and his friends. Eventually, the once feared predator was overwhelmed on his barge by a swarm of foreign rivals while his allies were gone. Growltiger’s opponents ganged up on him and dispatched him. Eliot wrote the poem in the 1930s while Great Britain faced serious overstretch, and the poem’s central character could be interpreted as an aging Imperial Lion or, in modern terms, a declining America.

Power on the Precipice offers a less poetic, but equally vivid, evaluation of a United States in decline.[2] The theme of the rise and fall of great powers goes back to Edward Gibbon’s classic study of the Roman Empire, and Paul Kennedy broadened our understanding in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, with an emphasis on finance and economics.[3] More recently Michael Beckley explored the interaction between a rising China and the United States and found more cause for optimism in his Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World's Sole Superpower.[4]  

Decline is a choice for a status quo superpower, and choices are central steps in reformulating the future role of the U.S. on the world stage.

Decline is a choice for a status quo superpower, and choices are central steps in reformulating the future role of the U.S. on the world stage. But what are those choices and are U.S. leaders ready to summon the American people to support these choices? In addressing American relative decline, Imbrie offers guidance and answers for six possible strategic choices, and he devotes a chapter to each. The new Biden team can use this series of choices if it wants to reassert U.S. leadership and redefine its relationship to an evolving international order.

Imbrie’s Categories of Analysis

The first choice Imbrie explores is core or periphery? Should the U.S. narrow its interests and its protective umbrella to those allies and partners that represent its core friends? Or should it expand its commitments globally to include places in Africa and the Arctic that lay beyond Washington’s vital interests? This is a critical issue that requires the U.S. to determine if its role as a global guarantor of a liberal order requires it to extend its range and its armed forces to counter aggression wherever it erupts. Moreover, is China part of the core or a threat to it? Imbrie admits that Russia “fits uncomfortably” in his categorization, and that China “presents an enigma” because it does not reflect the democratic governance and rule of law of his “core.”[5]

The other key choices described in Power on the Precipice include:

Guns versus Butter. Imbrie notes that all societies face this choice and should seek a balance. As a declining power, the author thinks the choice for the U.S. leans towards greater investment in productive investments—research, education and infrastructure—over military hardware or a larger force structure. The larger question not addressed is how the American people should conceive of national security challenges beyond just the “guns” of conventional combat, including cyber security, domestic extremism, climate change, health security, and pandemic preparations.

Persuasion or Coercion. Imbrie frames this choice in terms of hard power versus preemptive diplomatic engagement. Yet, to this reviewer, another way to frame the challenge is to ask whether the U.S. will seek to inspire others with our ideals and the benefits of open engagement or intimidate them with our military muscle? Like guns and butter, this is really not an exclusive choice. U.S. diplomacy must operate and compete hand in glove with its security forces at the strategic level.

People power versus Pinstripe rules. Who rules—Main Street or Wall Street and the bond markets? The influence of money, including the powerful influence of Big Tech, in the American political system augurs for the latter. Imbrie uses this choice to introduce corruption as a major challenge, which may be startling to an American audience. But white collar crime has generally been treated differently than other property crimes, another issue of inequality in America.[6]

Allies or Autonomy? Should the U.S. return to its traditional approach with allies and partners, or unburden itself from the costs of guaranteeing their security? The author makes a strong case about how allies amplify American power, echoing the need for a rejuvenated alliance system as argued persuasively in Shields of the Republic, by Mira Rapp-Hooper. Rather than restore a Cold War alliance system out of nostalgia, she argues for shared intelligence, enhanced resilience, counter-coercion strategies, and more investment by allies in defense and non-defense security assets.[7]

Imbrie believes that the U.S. should promote an open order.[9] But an open order implies an accepted set of rules.

Closed or Open. “Should American disengage from today’s liberal international order,” Imbrie asks, “and allow it to be replaced with a loose global arrangement of competing spheres of control by regional hegemons, authoritarian governance, mercantilist trade practices, and state-controlled economic activity?”[8] Like other scholars, Imbrie believes that the U.S. should promote an open order.[9] But an open order implies an accepted set of rules. Imbrie does not account for how he expects such an order to be successful when a closed China exploits the West’s openness, intellectual property and deep capital markets. China will continue to benefit from such a lop-sided approach, until it understands that some of its mercantilism and zero-sum competition is counter-productive.

Missing Questions from Imbrie

Imbrie’s questions are not a complete set. In particular, he overlooks the role of American values at home and in the world it can and must engage with. Should America be merely an exemplar or exporting enforcer of its basic ideals? Walter McDougall's Promised Land, Crusader State exemplifies this choice, and argues for setting an example here at home.[10] The question Imbrie and readers should add is “How active should the U. S. be in shaping a liberal order beyond its own shores, to extend a liberal hegemony?”[11] Should the U. S. actively oppose illiberal societies or merely set an example, a shining beacon and a City on a Hill? Should U.S. leaders tend to their own unruly garden at home, or trim back what Robert Kagan called the unruly jungle?[12] Should it retrench and wait for the swarm of foreign rivals to gather, or sit complacently at home?

Another missing choice: Lead, Shape, or Follow? The world does not organize itself, so who will take up the leadership of the international order? Imbrie’s answer to the Allies vs. Autonomy question assumes American leadership if collective solutions are necessary. In promulgating his vision for foreign policy, President Joe Biden stressed that America must lead again and that he would start to “rebuild confidence in our leadership, and mobilize our country and our allies to rapidly meet new challenges.”[13] During the current pandemic, many observers felt the marked absence of American leadership in a global crisis.[14] In the post-pandemic era, in an age where the author feels that U.S. power is waning, does Washington still have the credibility to sit at the head of the table and lead? Imbrie believes that it can even in what he calls our “post-dominant world,” but that it should adapt to geopolitical dynamics and compete more wisely.

Imbrie wraps up his overview of America’s pending decline with a short chapter outlining options for a refreshed grand strategy. In this final chapter, he summarizes a suite of prominent strategy schools to include Isolationism, Restraint, Deep Engagement, and Primacy.[15]

Imbrie’s description of Restraint is fair, but his evaluation of its merits is far too brief. As a strategy, it has distinctive implications for shaping foreign policy, for reframing U.S. alliances, and for shaping and using the military.[16] Advocates of Restraint seek more distance from many allies and partners, and far less forward military presence. Restraint is prudent about the use of force, but it is also a reactive strategy since U.S. forward engagement is so severely reduced. A strategy of Restraint says more about how U.S. policy makers can avoid mistakes and reduce costs, but it offers few prescriptions for advancing U.S. interests in a contested world. Imbrie recognizes the argument, noting that “by pulling back from active global leadership America risks ceding the ground to authoritarian rivals and sowing the seeds for greater instability down the road.”[17]

A new narrative about America’s role in the world is sorely needed, and Imbrie details the most critical questions.

Imbrie’s depiction of Deep Engagement equates it with liberal internationalism and stresses greater degrees of support to the liberal order. This builds on and extends Robert Art’s theory of Selective Engagement.[18] Art emphasizes core relationships with U.S European and Asian allies. Today, Deep Engagement advocates go beyond Art’s emphasis on core priorities and pursue global objectives into the periphery and developing world, which dissipate U.S. power.[19] A more selective approach offers clearer priorities and appreciates threats to vital interests, which offer a valuable appetite suppressant to defining U.S. interests and crusading.[20]

A new narrative about America’s role in the world is sorely needed, and Imbrie details the most critical questions. He concludes with a succinct central idea about what has to be done to build upon America’s enduring advantages and update its atrophied strategic machinery. The solution for Imbrie is to have the U.S.:

“…nurture its economic fundamentals, perceive its strengths and weaknesses clearly, link arms with its allies, set the rules of the road for international relations and deftly exploit the inefficiencies in rival models of authoritarian governance.”[21]

That is the gist of a disciplined form of selective engagement with allies and competitive foundation building at home. It reflects a useful set of good choices, and offers a sustainable approach that absorbs the best of the Restraint and Deep Engagement schools.[22] For those in search of the next big idea and the outline of a new national security strategy, Imbrie’s strategy is a viable candidate.[23]

Power on the Precipice offers insights for administration policy makers and ongoing strategy debates in a deeply polarized Washington. Adapting to an era of strategic competition requires a renewal of America’s foundations. The U.S. must deal with stronger rivals, with less international influence, sharper political divisions at home, and an economy that delivers for many but not all Americans.[24] Yet, the U.S. cannot focus solely on its domestic foundation and ignore its allies in the manner of Growltiger. Nor can it afford to be complacent about the risks of a China that has benefited from prior U.S. engagement and is now more willing to flex its power.[25]

Power on the Precipice eloquently frames the key choices and options if the U.S. wants to avoid becoming a 21st-century version of Growltiger. American decline is certainly not inevitable, which Imbrie stresses. There are many challenges to focus on, including getting the economy in order, resolving social inequality, and making security reforms for tomorrow’s wars.[26] This may well be the last stand for the U.S. to refashion a sustainable international order conducive to the prosperity and relative peace it has enjoyed the last 70 years. If American leaders fail to select the right answers to the basic choices presented in Power on the Precipice, there will be very little joy in Washington but a lot of dancing in far-away lands.

Frank Hoffman currently serves at the National Defense University in the Institute for National Strategic Studies. He earned his Ph.D. in War Studies at King’s College, London. This review essay reflects his own views and not necessarily those of the U.S. government or the Department of Defense.

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Header Image: Capitol, Washington D.C. (Harold Mendoza).

Notes:

[1] Later made famous as the basis for the long-running musical “Cats,” see T. S. Eliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co, 1982).

[2] Andrew Imbrie, Power on the Precipice: The Six Choices American Faces in a Turbulent World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020).

[3] Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Vintage, 1989).

[4] Michael Beckley, Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World's Sole Superpower (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018).

[5] Imbrie, pp. 34–35.

[6] On the influence of corruption in the United States, see Sarah Chayes, On Corruption in America: And What Is at Stake (New York: Knopf, 2020).

[7] Mira Rapp-Hooper, Shields of the Republic: The Triumph and Peril of America’s Alliances (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020), p. 195.

[8] Imbrie, p. 166.

[9] Rebecca Lissner and Mira Rapp-Hooper, An Open World: How American Can Win the Contest for Twenty-First Century Order (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020).

[10] Walter McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State, The American Encounter with the World Since 1776 (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1997).

[11] Robert Merry, “The Perils of Our Liberal Hegemony,” The American Conservative, September 24, 2018,https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-perils-of-our-liberal-hegemony/. This is Merry’s review essay of John Mearsheimer’s The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018).

[12] Robert Kagan, The Jungle Grows Back and Our Imperiled World (New York: Vintage, 2019).

[13] Joseph Biden, “Why America Must Lead Again, Rescuing U.S. Foreign Policy After Trump,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2020, p. 65, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-01-23/why-america-must-lead-again.

[14] Mark Landler, “A Fumbled Global Response to the Virus in a Leadership Void,” New York Times, March 11, 2020, p. 1, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/world/europe/coronavirus-leadership-trump.html.

[15] Barry Posen and Andrew Ross, “Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy,” International Security Vol.21, no.3 (Winter 1996/1997), pp. 5–53, https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/21/3/5/11549/Competing-Visions-for-U-S-Grand-Strategy.

For my own take on contemporary options see Frank Hoffman, “American Grand Strategy: Forward Partnering,” Orbis Vol. 57, no. 1 (Winter 2013), pp. 20–40, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0030438712000762.

[16] For the most comprehensive proponent see Barry Posen, Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015).

[17] Imbrie, p. 194.

[18] Robert J. Art. “Geopolitics Updated: The Strategy of Selective Engagement,” International Security, Vol. 23. no. 3 (Winter 1998/1999), pp. 5-42. https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/geopolitics-updated-strategy-selective-engagement.

[19] James A. Winnefeld, Michael J. Morell, and Graham Allison, “Why American Strategy Fails Ending the Chronic Imbalance Between Ends and Means,” Foreign Affairs, November/ December, 2020, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-10-28/why-american-strategy-fails.

[20] Frank Hoffman, “Strategy as Appetite Suppressant,” War on the Rocks, March 3, 2020, https://warontherocks.com/2020/03/strategy-as-appetite-suppressant/.

[21] Imbrie, p. 204.

[22] Loren Dejonge Schulman and Alex Tippett, “Make Good Choices: National Security Transitions and the Policy and Process Decisions,” War on the Rocks, November 6, 2020, https://warontherocks.com/2020/11/make-good-choices-national-security-transitions-and-the-policy-and-process-decisions/.

[23] Dominic Tierney, “In Search of the Biden Doctrine,” Philadelphia, PA, Foreign Policy Research Institute, November 9, 2020, https://www.fpri.org/article/2020/11/in-search-of-the-biden-doctrine/.

[24] Colum Lynch and Robbie Gramer, “Senior Officials Concede Loss of U.S. Clout as Trump Prepares For U.N. Summit,” Foreign Policy, September 5, 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/05/senior-officials-admit-loss-of-u-s-clout-as-trump-heads-to-u-n-summit-united-states-declining-influence-united-nations-china-rise-internal-state-department-meeting-diplomacy-international-organization/; Richard Wike, Janell Fetterolf and Mara Mordecai.  “U.S. Image Plummets Internationally as Most Say Country Has Handled Coronavirus Badly,” Pew Research Center, September, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/09/15/us-image-plummets-internationally-as-most-say-country-has-handled-coronavirus-badly/.

[25] T.S. Eliot, ‘Growltiger’s Last Stand,” http://www.catquotes.com/growltigerslaststand.htm

[26] For suggestions see Christopher Dougherty, “Why America Needs a New Way of War,” Washington, DC, Center for a New American Security, June 12, 2019, https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/anawow.