Foreign Policy Research Institute A Nation Must Think Before it Acts What Good is Strategy? Power and Purposes in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush

VENUE:FPRI

What Good is Strategy? Power and Purposes in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush

About the Event

Grand strategy is one of the most widely used and abused concepts in the foreign policy lexicon. Hal Brands explains why grand strategy is a concept that is so alluring—and so elusive—to those who make American statecraft. He explores what grand strategy is, why it is so essential, and why it is so hard to get right amid the turbulence of global affairs and the chaos of domestic politics. At a time when “grand strategy” is very much in vogue, Brands critically appraises just how feasible that endeavor really is. Taking a historical approach to this subject, Brands examines how four presidential administrations sought to “do” grand strategy at key inflection points in the history of modern U.S. foreign policy. Examples ranging from the early Cold War to the Reagan years to the War on Terror demonstrate grand strategy can be an immensely rewarding undertaking—but also one that is full of potential pitfalls on the long road between conception and implementation.

Hal BrandsHal Brands, a part of Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, is a historian who has previously worked at the Institute for Defense Analyses, and has served as a member of the RAND Corporation Grand Strategy Advisory Board. He is an affiliate of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy and serves on the Executive Board of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies. He is the author of From Berlin to Baghdad: America's Search for Purpose in the Post-Cold War World (University Press of Kentucky, 2008), Latin America's Cold War (Harvard University Press, September 2010), and What Good is Grand Strategy? (Cornell University Press, 2014). Brands earned a PhD, MA and MPhil. in History from Yale University, and a BA from Stanford University.


Venue

FPRI

123 S. Broad St, Suite 1920
Philadelphia. PA. US. 19109


Registration

  • Live attendance is open to FPRI Members at the Friends Level;
  • Attendance via the web is open to all FPRI Members
  • Luncheon immediately following the program is open to FPRI Members at the $500 level.

Reservations are required. RSVP: events@fpri.org

For more information contact 215 732 3774, ext 200 or events@fpri.org.

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Speakers

Ronald J. Granieri

Ronald J. Granieri - Dr. Ronald J. Granieri is the Executive Director of FPRI’s Center for the Study of America and the West, and host of People, Politics, and Prose, a monthly series of events. ; Moderator

Hal Brands

Hal Brands - Hal Brands is a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Program on National Security, and is a Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).