Strategy

Brands offers seven key lessons for his readers about what he terms a “twilight struggle,” a period of high-stakes competition between great powers that occurs between the darkness of war and daylight of peace.

Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press argue in “The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution” that the Atomic Age isn’t too different from other ages. Geopolitical rivalries, arms races, military doctrines, stalemates, and much else are still the same.

Assassinating Iranian Major General Qaseem Soleimani was a justified act. But it took place within the context of a largely unjust and strategically indefensible grand strategy, so it is unlikely to be a net positive in the long run.

All in all, American Power and Liberal Order is an excellent book providing a spirited defense of what has largely been a successful American grand strategy for the past 70 years. The big question remains whether the same framework could work for the next 70 years, or whether new external challenges and internal political changes call for a different approach.

The American strategy in fighting Islamic State (ISIS) in Northern Iraq and Syria seems to be working. President Obama deserves some credit for this success, along with the US military and President Trump.