The title of this book asks what is good about grand strategy. Before reading Hal Brands’s impressive study, I agreed with its central argument, that “a coherent grand strategy is fundamental to competent statecraft” (p.7). In the classroom, I teach—or rather, I preach—that good national security policy requires an overarching strategy to apply the right mix of economic as well as military tools to protect a country’s clearly defined interests. Thinking through the causal chain connecting a state’s resources to its international objectives seems like the only logical way to conduct foreign policy. Doing well in international politics requires a good grand strategy.

Brands illustrates this point by examining the foreign policy records of four U.S. presidents: Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. Through a detailed history of these administrations, he shows how a well-crafted grand strategy, smartly implemented, can improve a country’s fortunes in global affairs. What constitutes a good grand strategy and what successful application of such a strategy entails serves as the central purpose of these case studies. The lessons learned distilled from the experience of these four administrations represent the major contribution of this impressive book.

Two of the cases show the promise of grand strategy. The Truman era demonstrates the power of grand strategy to guide foreign policy for decades. Although the concept of “containment” varied in content over the decades, the general aim of isolating the Soviet Union economically and militarily with a network of alliances served as the guiding principle that policymakers across different administrations agreed the United States should follow. Similarly, Reagan’s grand strategy aimed at exploiting weaknesses inherent in the Soviet system of governance. The strategy not only challenged Moscow’s military might but also sought to undermine its economic and ideological vulnerabilities as well. However, as Brands notes, the key to Reagan’s success in unwinding the Cold War stemmed from knowing when to adjust such a strong vision to meet the demands of a new strategic situation, namely, a Soviet Union willing to cooperate.

Another two cases show the perils of getting grand strategy wrong. The duo of Nixon and Henry Kissinger sought to offset the decline in American relative power, which had accompanied the stalemate of the Vietnam War during the late 1960s. As a way to maintain the U.S. global position, they pursued greater cooperation with the Soviet Union and opened a path to normalized relations with China. They centralized foreign policy, controlling the ship of state with their own hands, bypassing the bureaucracy and inadvertently creating an atmosphere of secrecy. Although their policy of détente managed to improve superpower relations for a period of time, it could not ultimately moderate Soviet behavior, as the Cold War competition continued. Compounding the problem with this policy was the clandestine nature of its process: “Concentrating power permitted boldness and dexterity, but it also created a poisonous mood within government and limited the collective wisdom that could be brought to bear on difficult problems” (p.101).

Finally, the administration of George W. Bush failed to recognize the limits of U.S. military might. They responded to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, by trying to transform the politics of the Middle East. Regime change and military occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq represented the first steps in this lofty plan, which began to unravel quickly in the administration’s second term. According to Brands: “These failures stemmed partly from the inadequacies of planning and process in the execution of policy and partly from deeply rooted conceptual flaws within the grand strategy itself” (p. 189).

After working through the detailed history of these four administrations, I am left with two questions that cause me to doubt the value of the grand strategy enterprise. First, how do we know when grand strategy deserves credit for success, or failure, in foreign policy? Readers need some way to assess the role of grand strategy in the foreign policy successes or failure of these four administrations. Grand strategy specifies a set of tools used by a country to protect and to achieve the national interests. However, doing well, or poorly, in foreign affairs depends on a multitude of variables. The difficulty lies in interpreting the past. The evidence connecting grand strategy to success often appears tenuous. Did the Reagan administration, for example, produce the fall of the Soviet Union because of its brilliant grand strategy, or did other factors bring down the “Evil Empire”? Some scholars might argue that Reagan’s policies forced the Soviets to adopt reforms that eventually led to their demise. It also seems plausible to argue that the Reagan administration was lucky that they got Mikhail Gorbachev as the leader of the Soviet Union and not another Yuri Andropov (with healthier kidneys).

Second, and closely related to the first point, does a successful foreign policy stem from the faithful pursuit of a visionary grand strategy or because policymakers demonstrated the acumen to depart from it? Grand strategy ties specific means to the achievement of a country’s foreign policy ends. As in war, however, to quote Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” In this case, a country’s grand strategy as a concept must come into contact with international politics. The detailed design seems always to require adjustment. Success seems to depend largely on the ability of policymakers to adapt and innovate. Their flexibility and willingness to depart from the grand strategic design seems more important than the original design itself. Reagan, for instance, knew when to turn off the Cold War. Wisely, they abandoned rollback for arms control and security cooperation. The Bush administration, in contrast, refused to abandon its grand strategy even though they faced plenty of evidence that it had failed.

Both of these questions suggest to me that policymakers should focus more on defining their country’s national interests than on specifying and then following a detailed grand strategy. To do otherwise would ignore the complexity of international politics. There are too many wild cards for any grand strategy to anticipate. In each of the historical cases, policymakers achieved their aims when they could abandon their original script and improvise. The key lesson I draw, therefore, from Hal Brands’s masterly study is that the art of improvisation matters more than adhering to a sophisticated grand strategy. A prudent and flexible approach to pursuing the national interest might not sound grand, but the evidence in What Good Is Grand Strategy? convinces that it is effective.