In recent years, there have been growing calls from both sides of the aisle for the United States to rethink its global role. Domestic challenges are putting additional pressures on the federal budget, and these pressures could lead to greater demands to reexamine the policy choices that drive national security spending. This report presents one option for a new U.S. approach to the world: a realist grand strategy of restraint. Like the current U.S. grand strategy, a grand strategy of restraint emphasizes great-power relations and identifies China as the greatest potential threat to the United States. Yet, in other regards, advocates of restraint disagree with the current U.S. approach. Under a grand strategy of restraint, the United States would have a much narrower conception of its interests, reduce its forward military presence, renegotiate or end many of its existing security commitments, resolve conflicts of interest and cooperate more with other great powers, and have a higher threshold for the use of military force.

In this report, we identify the broad approaches and specific regional security policy recommendations that advocates of restraint have articulated. We then examine what next steps are needed to operationalize a grand strategy of restraint. Where the policy implications of restraint are underdeveloped, we identify the questions that advocates of restraint need to answer and the additional analysis necessary for developing more-specific policy recommendations. We do not evaluate whether the arguments put forward by advocates of restraint are sound or whether adopting such a strategy is, on the whole, advisable. Rather, we take advocates of restraint on their own terms and explain how U.S. regional security policies would change if their proposals xii Implementing Restraint were adopted. By identifying the policy prescriptions that flow from restraint and offering a roadmap for developing these implications further, this report can help policymakers and the public engage with the logic of a grand strategy of restraint and evaluate its costs and benefits.

Findings

• Advocates of restraint have threat assessments and assumptions that differ from those of policymakers who have shaped U.S. grand strategy since the end of the Cold War.

• Generally, advocates of restraint would rely more on diplomacy to settle conflicts of interest, encourage other states to lead, and preserve military power to defend vital U.S. interests.

• If a grand strategy of restraint were used, the United States would have a smaller military, fewer security commitments and forces based abroad, and a higher bar for the use of military force compared with current grand strategy.

• The specific implications of this grand strategy vary by region depending on the level of U.S. interests and the risk that a single power could dominate the region.

• Advocates of restraint seek a more cooperative approach with current U.S. adversaries, such as Russia and Iran.

• The primary area of disagreement among advocates of restraint is the U.S. strategy in the Asia-Pacific.

• Advocates of restraint note that the rise of single powerful state in East Asia, Europe, or the Persian Gulf would imperil vital U.S. interests but have not yet offered policymakers guidance on how to know that such a threat is emerging.

• To generate more-specific policy implications for each region, advocates of restraint need to expand on their logic and conduct additional analysis. 

Recommendations to Analysts for Developing the Policy Implications of a Grand Strategy of Restraint

• Evaluate the core claims underlying a grand strategy of restraint to validate and refine its policy prescriptions.

• Develop risk-mitigation strategies to hedge against the possibility that one of the core assumptions of a grand strategy of restraint is fully or partially incorrect.

• Specify the conditions under which the United States would stop military retrenchment or even increase its military engagement within each region.

• Clarify what changes in great-power capabilities and behavior would constitute a serious threat to vital U.S. interests.

• Provide guidance on whether and how to respond to China’s, Russia’s, and Iran’s gray zone activities.

• Identify the maritime areas where the United States should retain superiority.

• Offer prescriptions on how the United States should evaluate threats and operate in the space and cyber domains.

• Identify scenarios to guide U.S. Department of Defense planning and U.S. force posture decisions.

• Provide priorities for U.S. military peacetime activities, such as exercises.

• Develop policies toward Africa, the Americas, and the Arctic.

• Develop proposals on trade and other international economic issues.

• Assess the cost savings associated with core policy prescriptions