O que é este blog?

Este blog trata basicamente de ideias, se possível inteligentes, para pessoas inteligentes. Ele também se ocupa de ideias aplicadas à política, em especial à política econômica. Ele constitui uma tentativa de manter um pensamento crítico e independente sobre livros, sobre questões culturais em geral, focando numa discussão bem informada sobre temas de relações internacionais e de política externa do Brasil. Para meus livros e ensaios ver o website: www.pralmeida.org. Para a maior parte de meus textos, ver minha página na plataforma Academia.edu, link: https://itamaraty.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida;

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terça-feira, 15 de maio de 2018

Biblioteca digital do Quai d'Orsay: grande iniciativa

La bibliothèque diplomatique numérique lancée par le Ministère des Affaires étrangères !

Le 12 mars 2018, le Ministère des Affaires Étrangères a lancé sa bibliothèque diplomatique numérique. Plusieurs milliers de documents patrimoniaux détenus par le quai d’Orsay sont maintenant disponibles en ligne.
Ce site est le résultat d’une coopération avec la Bibliothèque nationale de France dans le cadre de son dispositif « Gallica marque blanche« . Un partenariat qui permet de réaliser « une bibliothèque numérique sur la base de l’infrastructure de Gallica mais paramétrée et personnalisée aux couleurs du ou des partenaire(s) contributeur(s) ». L’utilisateur bénéficie ainsi des modalités de recherche performantes de Gallica : moteur de recherche, recherche avancée et recherche plein texte. Les ressources documentaires sont également accessibles par thèmes :
« Seuls les pays de protectorat ayant acquis ultérieurement leur indépendance sont représentés (excluant donc ceux qui deviendront des territoires français d’outre-mer) » :
  • Maroc, 1912-1956
  • Tunisie, 1881-1956
  • Annam, 1887-1954
  • Cambodge, 1887-1954
  • Laos, 1899-1954
  • Tonkin, 1887-1954
A noter également le lien « Cabinet des découvertes » qui permet de consulter des documents particulièrement remarquables ou étonnants.
L’illustration est extraite du site du cabinet des découvertes du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères.

Seminario ‘Brasil, brasis’ na ABL: Gustavo Franco e Jorge Caldeira


Acadêmico Merval Pereira coordena na ABL o Seminário ‘Brasil, brasis’ de maio 2018 intitulado ‘As riquezas do Brasil’

A Academia Brasileira de Letras abre sua série de Seminários “Brasil, brasis” de 2018 com o tema As riquezas do Brasil, sob coordenação do Acadêmico e jornalista Merval Pereira (oitavo ocupante da cadeira 31, eleito em 2 de junho de 2011) e as participações do economista Gustavo Franco e do cientista político Jorge Caldeira. O coordenador-geral dos Seminários “Brasil, brasis” de 2018 é o Acadêmico e professor Domício Proença Filho.
O Seminário Brasil, brasis, com entrada franca e transmissão ao vivo pelo Portal da ABL, tem patrocínio do Bradesco.
OS CONVIDADOS
Bacharel (1979) e mestre (1982) em economia pela PUC do Rio de Janeiro e PhD (1986) pela Universidade de Harvard, Gustavo H. B. Franco é professor da PUC desde 1986 e está entre os mais importantes e influentes economistas do país.
Franco começou sua carreira no setor público em maio de 1993, como Secretário Adjunto de Política Econômica quando Fernando Henrique Cardoso assumiu o Ministério da Fazenda. Foi presidente do Banco Central do Brasil, e também diretor da Área Internacional do Banco Central entre 1993 e 1999.
O mais jovem entre os presidentes do Banco Central no período democrático, Franco presidiu a instituição em 1998, quando se observou a menor taxa de inflação de todo o período de existência do Banco Central: 1,6% ao ano de acordo com o IPCA. Teve participação central na formulação e condução do Plano Real, bem como nos debates associados à estabilização e às reformas que se seguiram.
Depois de deixar o Banco Central em 1999, fundou a Rio Bravo Investimentos, instituição líder em investimentos alternativos no Brasil, desde 2016 associada à Fosun, um dos mais destacados grupos privados chineses. Participa e participou de diversos conselhos consultivos e de administração. É autor ou organizador de dezoito livros, não apenas sobre economia, mas também sobre temas históricos e aspectos da obra de Machado de Assis, Fernando Pessoa, Goethe e Shakespeare.
Escreve regularmente para jornais e revistas desde 1988, em veículos como o Jornal do BrasilFolha de S. PauloVeja e Época. Hoje, é colunista do Globo e do Estado de S. Paulo.
Doutor em Ciência Política, mestre em Sociologia e bacharel em Ciências Sociais (FFLCH–USP), Jorge Caldeira é escritor, sócio-fundador da Mameluco Edições e Produções Culturais e possui ampla experiência profissional na área jornalística e editorial. Foi publisher da revista Bravo!, consultor do projeto “Brasil 500 Anos”, da Rede Globo de televisão, editor-executivo da revista Exame, editor da Ilustrada e da Revista da Folha, do jornal Folha de S. Paulo, editor de economia da revista Isto É e editor da Revista do Cebrap.
Jorge Caldeira é autor de Noel Rosa, de costas para o mar (Brasiliense), Mauá, empresário do Império (Companhia das Letras), Viagem pela história do Brasil (Companhia das Letras), A nação mercantilista (Editora 34), Ronaldo: glória e drama no futebol globalizado (Editora 34), O banqueiro do sertão (Mameluco), A construção do samba (Mameluco) e História do Brasil com empreendedores (Mameluco), além de organizar Brasil, a história contada por quem viu(Mameluco) e dos volumes Diogo Antonio Feijó e José Bonifácio, que integram a Coleção Formadores do Brasil (Editora 34). Escreveu, ainda, Júlio Mesquita e seu tempo (Mameluco), Nem Céu Nem Inferno (Três Estrelas), 101 Brasileiros que fizeram História (Estação Brasil), e História da Riqueza no Brasil (Estação Brasil). Caldeira ocupa a cadeira nº 18 da Academia Paulista de Letras.
15/05/2018

Flawed Sociology: o sociologo que não sai do seu mundinho...

Flawed Sociology: este sociólogo social-democrata acredita que existe um "sistema injusto", que condena jovens de menos de 20 anos da atualidade a disporem de um padrão de vida inferior ao de seus pais. Ele não se dá conta que milhares de pessoas, ao redor do mundo, ascenderam de uma miséria abjeta a uma pobreza aceitável graças a esse mesmo "sistema", que não está concebido contra ninguém, mas que funciona de acordo com a lógica de mercado, que remunera cada um de acordo com a sua capacidade, como diria o velho Marx. Como outros lunáticos da Sociologia, ele também pretende criar um sistema alternativo que seria mais benigno com os "losers", esquecendo que todas as tentativas de engenharia social empreendidas precedentemente redundaram em coisas muito piores do que as atualmente existentes nesse "sistema".
Paulo Roberto de Almeida 


Flawed Capitalism On Both Sides Of The Atlantic


by  on Social Europe, 

Given the scale of poverty and inequality in contemporary Britain (and indeed in the United States), no right-thinking person can presumably be fully happy with the organization of a system of rewards that leaves so many people under daily and severe financial pressure, keeping the millennial generation struggling to enjoy in their 20s even the modest life options enjoyed by their parents. And given too the steady failure of the US economy to maintain the value of blue-collar wages and of the UK economy to break out of a productivity trap that keeps general wages down and living standards stagnant, it is also presumably hard to avoid the conclusion that we are now in need on both sides of the Atlantic of an entirely new way of organizing both economy and society.
To make sense of where we find ourselves, and to locate a better way forward, my latest book Flawed Capitalism: the Anglo-American Condition and its Resolution, traces the similarities and differences between the two great examples of modern deregulated capitalism.
Both post-war US and UK economies are currently living downwind of two long periods of sustained growth, each associated with a distinctive social settlement.
  • The first – triggered by New Dealers in the US and by the Attlee governments in the UK – sustained 25 years of economic growth full employment and rising living standards on both sides of the Atlantic, on the basis of a social compact between private businesses and organized labor that allowed profits and wages to rise together. That social settlement ended in the stagflation of the 1970s.
  • The second – the one triggered by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives in the UK and by Ronald Reagan’s Republicans in the US – was not so balanced. Instead, it was a settlement predicated on the defeat of organized labor and the parallel creation of high levels of income inequality, with generalized living standards rising for later baby-boomers only on the basis of high and ultimately insecure levels of personal debt.
That second settlement did not simply fall. It crashed in the financial crisis of 2008 and attempts to revive it by conservative politicians in both countries have simply given us a second lost decade that now matches the 1970s in severity and despair.
With that in mind, Flawed Capitalism also argues that the current rise of right-wing populism in the advanced industrial world must be seen a product (with the Trump and Brexit votes as examples) of what Antonio Gramsci long ago called “morbid symptoms” – symptoms of madness generated in the interregnum between social settlements. If that formulation is right, ending those morbid symptoms will first require the creation of a new social settlement which alone can bring the interregnum to a close; and, to succeed in that closure, any new social settlement will have to be more progressive than the one it replaces, since it was its predecessor’s reactionary character that was the ultimate cause of its collapse.
Recent attempts to revive the neoliberal social settlement – by Tory-led governments in the UK, and by ultra-conservative Republicans in the US Congress and now White House – have had (and are continuing to have) similarly appalling social consequences. These include: intensified pressure on the living standards of working families, and the associated rise in levels of personal indebtedness; persistent and deepening poverty for the low paid, the unemployed, and those reliant on welfare benefits; the continuing failure to ease and improve the work-life balance for families; intensified racism and hostility to immigration; and the emergence of at least two “lost” generations on each side of the Atlantic – a working class one trapped in areas of declining industrial employment, and a more middle-class millennial one facing (among other things) mountains of student debt, rising housing costs and the burden of heavy transport and childcare expenses.
In the light of these adverse consequences of conservative attempts to prolong the Thatcher/Reagan settlements, Flawed Capitalism argues that the way forward to a new social settlement is both clear and urgent.
  • The way forward is clear – we need the rapid creation of a social settlement based on greater income equality, on a fairer gender balance and greater flexibility in hours and organization of employment. It should build on a new compact between a progressive state and a revitalized private sector, the two working together to raise productivity by harnessing the full set of talents currently lying dormant in a labor force increasingly alienated by wage, employment and family pressures.
  • The need is also urgent: without such a settlement, the material and social deprivations sustaining right-wing populism can only grow.
Flawed Capitalism argues that the British Labour Party – in its Corbyn-led form – offers a route to that new settlement if its progressive policy trajectory can be maintained; and the Democrats will find themselves with a similar opportunity in Washington DC in 2020 if the Sanders wing of the party prevails. So, the future is all to play for. We live in interesting times; but with the times come both opportunity and responsibility. An opportunity now exists to call into existence a new and more progressive social settlement. It is an opportunity that this generation of progressives must not waste. They can only waste it by failing to recognize it, and by failing to act.

Flawed Capitalism is published today in the UK and in the US

About David Coates


David Coates holds the Worrell Chair in Anglo-American Studies at Wake Forest University. He is the author of 'Answering Back: Liberal Responses to Conservative Arguments', New York: Continuum Books, 2010. You can visit his website at http://www.davidcoates.net. He writes here in a personal capacity.

Brasil: o ajuste economico ainda nao foi feito - FMI (Editorial Estadao)

Eu sempre disse, desde antes da Grande Destruição lulopetista, que a tarefa de reconstrução seria enorme, ingente, lenta e dolorosa. Até agora, o Brasil se limitou a colocar band-aid sobre suas fraturas mais graves. O trabalho verdadeiro ainda não começou.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

O risco-chave, segundo o FMI

O Brasil poderá entrar em nova crise, e até em recessão, se o próximo governo abandonar a pauta de ajustes e reformas, alertou diretor do Fundo
Editorial O Estado de S. Paulo, 15 de maio de 2018
O Brasil poderá entrar em nova crise, e até em recessão, se o próximo governo abandonar a pauta de ajustes e reformas, disse o diretor do Departamento de Hemisfério Ocidental do Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI), Alejandro Werner. Ele destacou a importância da reforma da Previdência, mas um crescimento mais rápido e sustentável, acrescentou, dependerá de mudanças mais amplas. Uma política inovadora deve incluir, entre outros pontos, segundo o diretor do FMI, abertura econômica e simplificação do sistema tributário. Werner comentou as perspectivas do País ontem, em Nova York, num evento da Fundação Getúlio Vargas e da Câmara de Comércio Brasileira e Americana.
Advertências muito parecidas têm sido formuladas no Brasil por economistas conhecidos pela competência técnica e pelo bom senso. As avaliações apresentadas por Alejandro Werner põem a discussão, no entanto, num cenário mais amplo. Ele dirige uma equipe familiarizada com a economia de toda a América Latina e empenhada em acompanhar 0 dia a dia das crises, das políticas, das estratégias de ajustes e mudanças e, naturalmente, dos sucessos e fracassos.
Esse panorama é discutido no relatório de perspectivas econômicas das Américas divulgado na sexta-feira passada numa entrevista coletiva em Lima. As economias estão em crescimento em quase todo o hemisfério, do Canadá à Argentina e ao Chile, mas, em vez de apenas festejar a recuperação, os autores do estudo lançam uma exortação: é preciso aproveitar o impulso para levar adiante as pautas de reformas.
A exortação vale especialmente para os países latino-americanos, e, dentro desse conjunto, para Brasil e Argentina. Apesar da retomada do crescimento e da melhora de alguns indicadores importantes, as duas maiores economias da América do Sul ainda têm de enfrentar uma pesada agenda de consertos e reformas. A Argentina, muito vulnerável a problemas externos e, portanto, a pressões cambiais, acabou pedindo ajuda ao Fundo pouco antes da divulgação do relatório. O Brasil, com bom volume de reservas, contas externas saudáveis e inflação bem abaixo da meta oficial, tem mais espaço para se mexer. Não pode, no entanto, retardar por muito tempo, a continuação do programa iniciado pelo governo Temer. Os perigos maiores foram apontados com clareza no pronunciamento de Alejandro Werner em Nova York.
Sem rápida melhora das finanças oficiais, a dívida pública poderá em breve superar 100% do Produto Interno Bruto (PIB). Sem perspectiva de melhora, os mercados poderão retrair-se. Com isso o financiamento se tornará muito difícil e custoso, o País poderá entrar em nova crise e afundar de novo em recessão. A lista de ações para arrumar a economia, torná-la mais segura e aumentar a capacidade de crescimento inclui, além da reforma da Previdência e de mudanças no sistema tributário, alterações na alocação de crédito, abertura ao comércio, maior integração nos mercados globais, melhora da infraestrutura e redução da burocracia.
Dois fatores positivos são apontados: 1) o atual governo tomou iniciativas na direção correta, propondo o teto de gastos e iniciando as correções; 2) a reativação da economia proporciona condições para um ajuste mais intenso na fase inicial e para o avanço na pauta de reformas. A proposta de aproveitar o impulso vale para todo o hemisfério, especialmente para a América Latina, mas aplica-se muito especialmente ao Brasil.
O caso brasileiro se destaca, no entanto, por mais um fator de preocupação: o “risco-chave”, segundo o relatório, é o de alteração do programa econômico depois das eleições presidenciais, com “maior instabilidade no mercado e maior incerteza quanto às perspectivas de médio prazo”. De modo geral, a expectativa de continuidade dos ajustes aparece nos comentários sobre os demais países da América Latina. Ao traduzir o quadro eleitoral em termos de grave incerteza econômica, os técnicos do FMI mostram boa informação e realismo. Longe de ser um excesso retórico, a expressão “risco-chave” é um alerta preciso.

segunda-feira, 14 de maio de 2018

Mocao de louvor das esquerdas a CIA - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Moção de louvor das esquerdas à CIA

Paulo Roberto de Almeida


Em nome das esquerdas em geral (mas não autorizado por elas), as organizações, partidos e movimentos seguintes, mas não limitados a eles, PCB (ou o que restou dele), PCdoB, PCBR, PT, PSOL, PSTU, PCO, antigos movimentos guerrilheiros (ALN, VPR, MRE-8, VAR-Palmares, Colina, Destacamento do Araguaia, Grupo dos Onze, etc., etc., etc.), neobolcheviques esquizofrênicos de todos os matizes (MST, MTST, etc., etc.), veem a público declarar sua satisfação (desculpando-se pelo tardio da hora) e emitir esta nota de louvor e de reconhecimento enfático à excelente organização profissional que é a CIA, que sempre foi, e que continua sendo (com alguns deslizes, claro, que ninguém é perfeito), pela exposição fiel, objetiva, clara e inegável da verdade histórica dos fatos que cercam ainda o submundo da repressão a todos os companheiros torturados, mortos e desaparecidos nos anos de chumbo da ditadura militar.
A gratidão de todos nós (ou seja, das esquerdas, que continuam alopradas), à CIA, ao Departamento de Estado, ao imperialismo americano (ainda assim democrático e liberal), por essa demonstração cabal de que a verdade histórica acaba prevalecendo contra ventos e marés (aliás, até mesmo contra a nossa versão dos fatos, quando pretendemos fraudulentamente que estávamos lutando pela democracia, quando de fato estávamos empenhados em criar uma ditadura do proletariado no Brasil, um horroroso regime stalinista, do qual nos salvaram os militares, a CIA, o imperialismo americano, etc., etc., etc.).
Impossibilitados de vir a público decentemente para emitir esta nota de louvor à CIA e para reconhecer nossos erros e grandes equívocos do passado, que nem a Comissão da (Meia)Verdade foi capaz de reconhecer (o fato de que fomos nós que provocamos a "tigrada" dos quarteis), delegamos a alguém mais conectado na verdade do que nas fantasias de direita e de esquerda, este encargo de sinceramente reconhecer o papel positivo, objetivamente fiel aos fatos, intelectualmente honesto, altamente profissional, da CIA e de todas essas agências imperialistas, que mesmo tardiamente, acabam por completar o teatro de sombras sob o qual ainda vive o Brasil.
As esquerdas agradecem ao autor destas linhas (direitistas: abstei-vos de comentários indesejados e equivocados, p.f.)

Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Brasília, 12 de maio de 2018


1.     Home 
2.      Historical Documents 
4.     Document 99
FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1969–1976, VOLUME E–11, PART 2, DOCUMENTS ON SOUTH AMERICA, 1973–1976
99. Memorandum From Director of Central Intelligence Colby to Secretary of State Kissinger 1
Washington, April 11, 1974.
SUBJECT
·      Decision by Brazilian President Ernesto Geisel To Continue the Summary Execution of Dangerous Subversives Under Certain Conditions
1. [1 paragraph (7 lines) not declassified]
2. On 30 March 1974, Brazilian President Ernesto Geisel met with General Milton Tavares de Souza (called General Milton) and General Confucio Danton de Paula Avelino, respectively the outgoing and incoming chiefs of the Army Intelligence Center (CIE). Also present was General Joao Baptista Figueiredo, Chief of the Brazilian National Intelligence Service (SNI).
3. General Milton, who did most of the talking, outlined the work of the CIE against the internal subversive target during the administration of former President Emilio Garrastazu Médici. He emphasized that Brazil cannot ignore the subversive and terrorist threat, and he said that extra-legal methods should continue to be employed against dangerous subversives. In this regard, General Milton said that about 104 persons in this category had been summarily executed by the CIE during the past year or so. Figueiredo supported this policy and urged its continuance.
4. The President, who commented on the seriousness and potentially prejudicial aspects of this policy, said that he wanted to ponder the matter during the weekend before arriving at any decision on [Page 279]whether it should continue. On 1 April, President Geisel told General Figueiredo that the policy should continue, but that great care should be taken to make certain that only dangerous subversives were executed. The President and General Figueiredo agreed that when the CIE apprehends a person who might fall into this category, the CIE chief will consult with General Figueiredo, whose approval must be given before the person is executed. The President and General Figueiredo also agreed that the CIE is to devote almost its entire effort to internal subversion, and that the overall CIE effort is to be coordinated by General Figueiredo.
5. [1 paragraph (12½ lines) not declassified]
6. A copy of this memorandum is being made available to the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. [1½ lines not declassified] No further distribution is being made.
W.E. Colby

1.Summary: Colby reported that President Geisel planned to continue Médici’s policy of using extra legal means against subversives but would limit executions to the most dangerous subversives and terrorists.
Source: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the Director of Central Intelligence, Job 80M01048A: Subject Files, Box 1, Folder 29: B–10: Brazil. Secret; [handling restriction not declassified]. According to a stamped notation, David H. Blee signed for Colby. Drafted by Phillips, [names not declassified] on April 9. The line for the concurrence of the Deputy Director for Operations is blank.

The End of Grand Strategy: US Maritime Operations in the Twenty-First Century: book review

Halem on Reich and Dombrowski, 'The End of Grand Strategy: US Maritime Operations in the Twenty-First Century' [review]

Simon Reich, Peter Dombrowski. The End of Grand Strategy: US Maritime Operations in the Twenty-First Century. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018. 252 pp. $30.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-5017-1462-7.
Reviewed by Harry Halem (University of St. Andrews)
Published on H-Diplo (May, 2018)
Commissioned by Seth Offenbach (Bronx Community College, The City University of New York)
Printable Version: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=51534

Winston Churchill’s The World Crisis: 1911-1918 (1923), his account of the Great War, is a unique writing on major warfare. Churchill experienced the conflict at the strategic level, as both First Lord of the Admiralty and Minister of Munitions, and in the physical trenches, serving as a battalion commander on the western front. The confusion and brutality of combat may have made others reconsider their conception of warfare as an instrument of high policy; despite not seeing significant frontline combat, Churchill personally made thirty-six excursions into no man’s land. Nevertheless, Churchill remained convinced of the unity between strategy and politics, particularly at the apex of decision making. As he wrote in The World Crisis, “at the summit, true politics and strategy are one.”[1]
Strategy, however, has multiple aspects. It can be defined as a contest of wills. Therefore, any situation with counterpoising forces involves strategy; each side attempts to force the other to conform to its will. Strategy defines international politics in particular. Nevertheless, one can distinguish between different levels of strategy, from the technical through the operational, theater strategic, and at the highest point, grand strategic.
This last, highest, and most elusive sort of strategy is Simon Reich and Peter Dombrowski’s topic in The End of Grand Strategy: US Maritime Operations in the Twenty-First Century. Their selection is particularly relevant, given the defining role of debates over grand strategy in the US policy community. Grand strategy can be understood as the relationship between all of a state’s potential implements of power and its ultimate desired end state. Such a concept demands a set of foundational principles about the world, nature of politics, and a state’s role, and a set of deductive conclusions following from those principles that link nearly every aspect of policy into a cohesive whole.
Naturally, commanding personalities will define a field obsessed with such a topic. Constructing policy despite the natural inconsistencies of political interaction, the scope of issues a great power encounters, and the range of threats policymakers must respond to demands a confident articulation of organizing principles and resulting state actions. The grand strategist must believe that a great power can force the world to conform to its vision, provided policy is derived from the proper assumptions and executed with sufficient political will. This perspective explains the intensity of grand strategic debates in the United States; proponents of each strategic paradigm are convinced of the fundamental accuracy of their own approach, and by extension, must conceive of pursuing an alternate path as foolhardy at best, and suicidal at worst.
In the context of such discussion, Reich and Dombrowski advance a provocative thesis that bluntly challenges the concept of grand strategy itself. They contend that changes in the contemporary geopolitical environment, in the form of “new threats, actors, and forms of conflict,” combine to make American grand strategy “less than the sum of its parts” (p. 2). If this is indeed true, the vigorous, often acrimonious debate over grand strategy in the US policy community is not only counterproductive but also dangerous; premised on the illusion that America can manipulate the surrounding world with the right policies and sufficient willpower, the pursuit of grand strategy blinds policymakers to the actual facts on the ground that should dictate American action.
Reich and Dombrowski’s project has a number of strengths. Challenging conventional thinking is always beneficial in an innately conservative community. At a minimum, it forces members of that community to articulate their core premises more fully and develop their logic more explicitly. Moreover, Reich and Dombrowski’s approach offers a description of US grand strategic theory found in no other text and a set of developed case studies that flesh out each identified strategic approach. Nevertheless, upon examination, their argument falls short of its ultimate goal of dismantling the grand strategic approach.
Two general understandings of grand strategy exist, the “narrow” and the “broad.” The narrow conception restricts grand strategy to solely traditional security issues. Barry Posen’s “theory of security” approach serves as an example; he contends that a state’s grand strategy is its conception of what makes itself secure against physical threats.[2] By contrast, the broad approach integrates a number of nontraditional issues and elements of power into its viewpoint: B. H. Liddell Hart’s study is a form of this perspective.[3] Reich and Dombrowski avoid asserting themselves on either side of the debate, instead developing arguments using each criterion for grand strategy. Such an approach strengthens their overall case, by avoiding the chronic disagreements between narrow and broad views of grand strategy.
The American strategic community can be separated into three distinct, but overlapping, schools of thought. The first of Reich and Dombrowski’s major analytical strengths is explicating the assumptions that underpin each of these schools and indicating the specific sub-variants of all three approaches. Two of the three strategic perspectives will be well known to the informed reader. Hegemony is contrasted with its traditional rival, retrenchment. While the former entails unilaterally exercising American power or ensuring America’s visible leadership role, the latter entails only selectively engaging in relevant security issues and otherwise refusing to expend resources on missions tangential to physical security. Reich and Dombrowski’s sponsorship strategy, however, is both novel and coherently explains a number of American policy decisions. It involves manipulating formal and informal international institutions (used in a broad sense) to encourage other actors to take the lead on issues important to American security, but which the US lacks the resources to address.
Reich and Dombrowski’s second greatest analytical strength is their explication of each grand strategy’s specific sub-variants in the context of maritime operations. Maritime policy is a reasonable focus for a discussion of strategy; issues ranging from traditional warfighting to counterpiracy, counterterrorism, and humanitarian relief all fall under the maritime domain, meaning American maritime and naval policy is indicative of the United States’ approach to different situations. The authors use their detailed descriptions of specific situations to contrast the contexts in which different strategies are applied. Of particular note are their detailed discussions of the US Navy’s maritime exercises in the Pacific; American maritime counterterrorism, counterpiracy, and counter-proliferation efforts; and US lack of engagement in the Arctic. At a minimum, The End of Grand Strategy presents highly comprehensible policy overviews and histories of each topic engaged with.
Third, Reich and Dombrowski demonstrate the degree to which civilian policy choices have transformed the military’s role from a purely warfighting arm to a humanitarian and law enforcement organization. The authors avoid the pitfalls of biased discussions that castigate the degradation of the military’s warfighting capabilities or praise the growth in its ability to respond to nontraditional policy issues. Instead, they remain objective, assessing the mechanical results of American policy choices through the prism of naval operations. Their evaluation reveals the precise effects of the policy insistence on Military Operations Other Than War on the navy, specifically detailing how the service is forced to use high-end platforms for what are essentially maritime police actions.
The End of Grand Strategy’s three major strengths make it a worthwhile text for those interested in contemporary American maritime operations. However, the authors fail in their ultimate, more ambitious goal of refuting the concept of grand strategy itself. Reich and Dombrowski premise their argument on the assumption that a distinct difference exists between the contemporary international environment and its historical antecedents. New threats, new threat sources, and new means of responding to these threats are thought to have modified the international environment sufficiently to preclude traditional grand strategy. Unlike other commentators, Reich and Dombrowski do not argue that changes in the international environment entail a complete abandonment of traditional paradigms. By contrast, each detailed case study they present offers a scenario in which a specific grand strategy applies to a certain context. However, they do contend that the changes they identify in the international system make it impossible for any specific grand strategy to respond to all issues facing the US. From this statement, the authors derive the conclusion that the employment of multiple, contradictory strategies tailored to each threat and situation is not probable but “inevitable” (p. 31). Grand strategy, by contrast, never evolves with these threats. Instead, strategists employ the same deductive approach, prioritizing certain issues (state or nonstate, traditional or nontraditional) and producing largely static frameworks that are increasingly divorced from reality.
However, the new trends they identify—the diffusion of capabilities, increasing creativity of American adversaries, growing strength of non-state groups, and rise of nontraditional hybrid conflicts—are not necessarily new, nor relevant. Technological diffusion may be a greater issue over time, but the resource base of the nation-state seems likely to preclude a challenge from substate actors in the foreseeable future. The growing creativity, and strength, of terrorist groups does present a challenge to state security. But it is increasingly apparent that these non-state groups are typically connected to, or facilitated by, a state benefactor. Even when fully independent of state control, in the case of ISIS and its franchises, one cannot help but think that these non-state groups lack independent relevance. ISIS’s graphic beheadings remain a distinct moral crime and a marker of the group’s innate savagery. However, now that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s self-proclaimed caliphate lies in ruins, it is clear that ISIS’s primary effect was in facilitating the growth of Russo-Iranian power. Absent the collapse of the Iraqi state, Iran would still struggle to link its Lebanese proxy territories with its Persian heartland. Iran therefore owes its position in the Near East today to ISIS’s rise and fall. Similarly, Russia has gained a significant foothold in the Mediterranean for arguably the first time in its history. Vladimir Putin used ISIS, along with the existence of radical elements of the Syrian opposition, to insert Russian forces into the Near East. Despite ISIS’s high profile, it seems that the group’s main aftereffects will be related to state action. The fundamental changes predicted in the international system, therefore, are likely not as fundamental as Reich and Dombrowski predict. In such an environment, strategy remains critical.
Moreover, Reich and Dombrowski ultimately make a normative argument that does not follow from their positive evidence. They may be correct that strategic debate in the US has stagnated. As they note, military bureaucracies tend to suppress innovation and prioritize institutional replication absent vigorous efforts to the contrary. However, judging the relative importance of the changes in the international system Reich and Dombrowski identify should not be contingent on policy attention. As they repeatedly argue, not only are US legislative objectives drastically different from the military’s preferences, but policymakers also create policy based on internal domestic pressure, often vice actual strategic thinking. Reich and Dombrowski explicitly attempt to avoid “normative prescription” (p. 5). But their contention, that grand strategy is impossible in the present age, rests on the unequivocal, uncritical acceptance of American policy priorities. The US clearly employs a number of distinct strategies depending on the policy issue and uses high-end naval assets for low-end missions. This does not mean that it should act as such. The US military primarily used F/A-18s, F-16s, and F-15s for air support missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would obviously be absurd to argue that, because the US employed such high-end platforms for low-end missions, the traditional concept of strategy is dead. If anything, Reich and Dombrowski’s text indicates the need to refocus policy discussions on strategy and avoid whittling away the US military’s combat power by employing multi-billion-dollar surface warships as glorified Coast Guard cutters. Simply because American policymakers demand that the military respond to a whole spectrum of threats does not mean that such a policy is wise. Reich and Dombrowski’s book has relevance in prompting discussion over the structure and shape of grand strategy, but not its end altogether.
All strategy is inexact. By definition, it involves an adversary unwilling to submit to one’s will. The randomness of events and multiplicity of issues any nation must face makes strategy creation a difficult task. Even during the strategically idealized Cold War, the US selected several different grand strategies to counter the Soviet Union, shifting between aggressive and defensive approaches depending on the overall balance of forces and specific contexts. Absent a unifying principle around which to collect strategy, the US has drifted from crisis to crisis without a broader direction in foreign policy. The result of this disunified policy has been the deterioration of America’s strategic position over the past three decades. Russia is poised to replace the US as the predominate foreign power in the Near East, facilitated by contradictory American policy apropos Iran and ISIS. A theatrical, totalitarian cult-of-personality dictatorship holds a global superpower’s undivided attention, after decades of failed negotiations and policy neglect. A kleptocracy with a GDP less than half of the United States’ dictates the pace and intensity of events from the Baltics to the Black Sea, a situation enabled by vacillation between faux firmness and reset attempts with the Kremlin.
The United States’ inability to articulate a unified, coherent response to these issues does not indicate the futility of grand strategy but the inadequacy of the Washington policymaking apparatus. The question therefore becomes, can America’s leaders articulate a grand strategy in an increasingly unstable world and meet the challenges that the Republic faces? Reich and Dombrowski unintentionally offer an answer. It provides no cause for optimism.
Notes
[1]. Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis: 1911-1918, abridged and rev. ed. (New York: Free Press, 2005), 294.
[2]. Barry Posen, Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014), 1.
[3]. B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy, 2nd rev. ed. (London: Faber & Faber, 1967), 322.

Citation: Harry Halem. Review of Reich, Simon; Dombrowski, Peter, The End of Grand Strategy: US Maritime Operations in the Twenty-First Century. H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. May, 2018. URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=51534