A review of: America Abroad: The United States’ Global Role in the 21st Century By Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, Oxford University Press, 2016
Two Dartmouth Professors of Government, Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, have written a timely book examining whether it would be wise for the United States to continue with the basic global strategy it has pursued since the end of World War 2 — what the authors call “global deep engagement.” This strategy has been called into question not only by other academics, who propose an alternative strategy of American retrenchment, but also by several prominent candidates for President this year, including the Republican standard-bearer Donald Trump, the Democratic runner-up, Senator Bernie Sanders, and several of the earlier Republicans contenders. President Barack Obama has to some extent retreated from the deep engagement approach in some areas, while adhering to it in others.
To their credit, the authors make their case independent of commentary on the candidates, and stick to an argument for why the long term strategy is still a suitable one for American foreign policy practitioners.
The deep engagement strategy, according to the authors has three principal components:
Managing the external environment in key regions (Europe, Asia, the Middle East) to reduce near and long-term threats to U.S. national security,
Promoting a liberal economic order to expand the global economy and maximize domestic prosperity,
Creating, sustaining and revising the global institutional order to secure necessary interstate cooperation on terms favorable to U.S. interests.
