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Allies feared not the arrogance of American power in the late 1960s and 1970s but its retreat. For British and Australian policymakers, Senator J. William Fulbright symbolized congressional neo-isolationism. They believed his rhetoric, actions, and Senate leadership challenged American commitments worldwide and thereby threatened their national security and global stability. These nations encouraged US presidents to maintain commitments even as they adapted their foreign policies to accommodate the presumed American retreat. Fulbright saw the situation differently. He worried these policies eroded the American people’s faith in the democratic system, invited social unrest, and frittered away scarce resources in overzealous Cold War commitments. Rather than isolationism, he sought a return to the cooperation, compromise, and multilateralism of liberal internationalism.

This chapter argues that foreign policy debates in the election of 1940 have been underestimated. Franklin Roosevelt remained cautious regarding foreign policy issues, in part because he had an election to win, and also because his opponent, Wendell Willkie, did not wholly reflect the Republican Party on foreign policy matters. In addition, congressional isolationism was extremely strong. This chapter also argues that Willkie was more critical of Roosevelt on foreign policy issues than has generally been accepted. This was largely a result of straightforward party politics, and the selection of Willkie as the Republican candidate did not mean that foreign policy issues were off the table. In fact, they remained critical for both candidates throughout the campaign.

This introductory chapter lays out the central puzzle of the book: why do so many academics and policymakers advocate a specific form of grand strategy when the evidence drawn from military operations suggest that it is impossible to pursue a ‘one-size fits all’ strategy? We use a personal example, drawing on the experience of one of the authors (Dombrowski) to illustrate operational limitations. We argue that America faces a novel geostrategic environment, with notably new threats, actors, and forms of conflict. When these are combined with the more traditional problems inherent in the design and implementation of policy, outcomes are often unanticipated and sometimes perverse – ensuring that American grand strategy is less than the sum of its parts. In response, America pursues all six major variants of grand strategy simultaneously. We justify the selection of the US Navy and sea services in the book.

This chapter begins with a personal vignette from one of the authors (Reich) regarding scenario planning and its relationship to strategizing. In this chapter, we outline the major strands of contemporary US grand strategy, and identify the conditions under which each one is employed by policymakers and, ultimately, the U.S. Navy. It then examines theories that may explain why a series of strategies run simultaneously before comprehensively examining the contemporary contending variants of grand strategy. It outlines three major variants and then distinguish two sub-categories within each variant for a total of six. It compares and contrasts the key elements of each to illustrate how – despite the fact that they may share features –is ultimately configures in a unique way.

This chapter examines the shift from a traditional strategy of isolationism to an embryonic variant of a strategy of retrenchment (called “restraint”) in the Arctic region. The Arctic is an area where environmental and economic (natural resources) concerns dominate the US agenda. Security considerations such as contested sovereignty – and the question of what proponents of a strategy of restraint call “chokepoints” – are generally neglected. The chapter therefore begins with a vignette about the Russians planting a titanium flag on the bed of the Arctic Ocean as the segue to a broader discussion of the strategic implications of the ice melt. We focus on the emergence of a new “commons;’” the development of new chokepoints that American strategists currently debate; and the lack of desire (and capacity) of the US Navy to take on this new role.

This chapter examines the historic US policy of isolationism in the Western Hemisphere. It begins with a vignette about the U.S. Coast Guard cutter seized a submersible vessel (a rudimentary submarine) dubbed “Bigfoot” off the southwest coast of Costa Rica. The chapter then focuses on the use of the Navy and Coast Guard around the American littoral in battling illicit flows (notably drugs but also people) largely originating from Latin/Central America and the Caribbean. The central point of the chapter is to demonstrate that isolationist strategies are nothing new, nor simply historic. They are employed by the Navy and Coast Guard every day.

This chapter investigates the grand strategy proposals by some of the leading think tanks operating in Washington DC, demonstrating how their nominally impartial, and independent research reveals a dominant, bipartisan neoconservative/liberal-internationalist consensus on hegemony that further underlines the intertextual and practical interconnection between research expertise, professional knowledge and policymaking. The think tanks examined in this chapter were selected to assess those formally independent research outputs with the greatest policy impact under the Obama presidency, while also reflecting the widest range of political views on American grand strategy. The chapter examines how organisations supporting deviant grand strategy discourses of libertarian restraint (Cato) and liberal-progressive cooperative security (CAP) have attempted to shift the public policy debate and how the stigma of isolationism underwrites a powerful status quo in Washington DC.

Chapter 3 examines how Italian and Jewish immigration reform advocates adjusted to the new restrictive immigration regime that followed the passage of the 1924 act and how they worked to build political clout to push for reform under the aegis of Roosevelt’s New Deal. During this period, family reunification remained the only argument that helped them gain some traction with legislators as both groups gained more political visibility with representation at every level of government. Despite the pervasive isolationism, push for assimilation, and the strain from the Great Depression, Italian and Jewish immigration reform advocates successfully used family reunification to help more migrants enter the United States as the 1930s came to an end. Those who could not enter often resorted to illegal immigration. The Anti-Semitism that animated many officers in the U.S. State Department, however, made sure that the very generous annual quota for Germany went mostly unfilled for the entire decade even as thousands of German Jews continued to apply for visas for the United States to flee Nazi Germany.

This chapter discusses the British relationship with the Continent through the usage of the term Iron Curtain, both in broader popular discourses and with a particular focus on three travel narratives (by David Shears, Anthony Bailey and Tim Moore) that span almost fifty years of British and European history – from the pre-détente Cold War years to the Brexit era. The narratives reflect the evolution of British views of borders and geopolitical orientations, engaging with the Iron Curtain as the hardest European border to date as well as Britain’s position towards/within Europe. Significantly, the travel narratives represent the Iron Curtain not only as a (changing) material structure, but also as a lasting trope of exclusion and isolation. The analysis is informed by Henri Lefebvre’s theory of space as well as border studies and cultural explorations of nostalgia.