Abstract: In spite of fiscal pressure at home and China’s continued rise abroad, the United States shows no signs of reversing its costly grand strategy of deep engagement. In the context of America’s relative decline, we evaluate existing proposals to ease pressure on the United States. We argue that the key aspects of American decline are often operational rather than strategic in nature; consequently that the undifferentiated fashion in which rise and decline is often presented is not useful in describing current changes or in proposing how to address them. Problems at the operational level do not necessarily demand higher-level strategic level alterations. As such, although restructured forms of deep engagement will help alleviate resource constraints in the medium to long term, their utility in addressing the operational changes wrought by relative decline are less apparent. Given that resource constraints are not necessarily the primary concern, therefore, the major strategic elements of American deep engagement are more durable than commonly supposed. America’s current strategic objectives are not constrained by changes by virtue of its relative material decline with respect to China but by changes in the operational environment. Full text available here.
