Staying Power and the American Future: Problems of Primacy,Policy, and Grand Strategy

Many scholars, strategists and pundits contend that the US is in decline. They argue that America's national capabilities are significantly eroding, and that with the rise of important regional powers, its primacy in world affairs is rapidly diminishing as well. Yet America continues to possess significant advantages in critical sectors such as economic size, technology, competitiveness, demography, force size, power projection, military technology, and in the societal capacity to innovate and adapt. This article argues that the nature of material problems has been overstated, and that the US should be able to withstand modest erosion in its relative strength for some time to come without losing its predominant status. Instead, where limits to American primacy do exist, they are as or more likely to be ideational as they are material. The problem inheres as much or more in elite and societal beliefs, policy choices, and political will, as in economic, technological or manpower limitations at home, or the rise of peer competitors abroad.     

Schlock and Blah: Counter-insurgency Realities in a Rapid Dominance Era

This article examines the concept of ‘shock and awe’ in US military thought. It argues that the term derives from two main sources in defense thinking: rapidity in operations and overwhelming military superiority and is reflected in the concept of ‘full spectrum dominance’. However, the concept is not well attuned to fighting net-based counter insurgency war in a terrain such as Iraq which depends upon both intelligence gathering and adaptive military organizations. The article concludes that US military thinking should be more attuned to the effects of military force especially on political processes and the capacity of insurgents to mobilize popular support.