There have been so many books on presidential doctrines and American grand strategy which engage a broad range of topics from historical to diplomatic, political, social and economic perspectives and include narratives written by both the academic and policy-making circles. As the scholarship on presidential doctrines and American grand strategy is voluminous, it might be asked whether or not any original contributions to this scholarship can be made. With his newly published book, The Obama Doctrine: American Grand Strategy Today, Colin Dueck, an associate professor in George Mason University's School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs, by proposing a new understanding of American grand strategy with regard to the Obama presidency, demonstrates that there remains much work for scholars to do.

Mining the journalistic reports, books, articles, leading newspapers (The Guardian, New York Times, and Washington Post), and the President's addresses, comments and writings, Dueck is able to shed light on what the Obama doctrine is. He challenges the criticism that President Obama had no strategy by showing that he indeed had “a kind of implicit grand strategy” (2), and that strategy was “one of overarching American retrenchment and accommodation internationally, in large part to allow the president to focus on securing liberal policy legacies at home” (2). He argues, in chapter 1, that President Obama's approach of incremental retrenchment of US military commitments overseas and focussing on what he calls “nation-building right here at home” (14) matches Obama's foreign-policy agenda and domestic-policy objectives. He adds that President Obama, like other American Presidents, tends to use elements of containment in some cases, and regime change in others, but President Obama's emphasis on mutual restraint, conciliation, encouraging cooperation and possible friendship makes his doctrine distinctive. In chapter 2, by carefully examining how Obama's grand strategy has been implemented in five leading categories of concern – (1) counterterrorism; (2) nuclear proliferation, including North Korea and Iran, (3) great-power competitors, namely China and Russia; (4) the Arab world; and (5) the relationship between US alliance commitments, defense spending, and the new American posture overseas – Dueck offers insight into the conceptualization of Obama's grand strategy and the constraints on its implementation. He also demonstrates that the Obama doctrine, with a focus on international accommodation and retrenchment, leads China, Russia, Iran and Islamist militants in the Arab world to naturally interpret that the United States’ desires to withdraw and disengage from international affairs creates a vacuum of power that they desire to fill. This unintended legacy seems to complicate scholars’ assessment of the Obama administration's grand strategy. Dueck underlines that President Obama has accomplished much of what he outlined in his overall strategy of international retrenchment and accommodation, and this is to shift American power, resources and attention from national security concerns to domestic progressive reforms.

After identifying the failures and successes of the Obama doctrine to retrench American international presence and encourage international cooperation through diplomatic accommodation, Dueck goes on to explore the domestic political dimension of the Obama doctrine. It is detailed in chapter 3 how the main domestic factors (public opinion, party politics, electoral politics, Congressional politics and presidential leadership) and American grand strategy influence one another. With a thorough analysis of the interactions between each of these domestic factors and American grand strategy, Colin Dueck demonstrates that “the domestic politics of the Obama doctrine worked in the president's favour” (152). President Obama cannot achieve all of his domestic goals, but no President has ever achieved everything he desired. Dueck points out,

In terms of domestic politics, he concludes, the Obama doctrine has been a great success.

The last two chapters offer Republicans and those interested in the future of Republican foreign policy some insight in the political advantages and international merits of the Republican foreign-policy stance in the future. Chapter 4 centres on analysing Republican alternatives to the Obama doctrine. Dueck suggests that there are three main schools of thought on American foreign policy in the Republican Party today, including anti-interventionists, internationalists, and nationalists. Though they are all conservative, they have divergent views and directions on issues of American grand strategy. By identifying their political strengths and limitations, Dueck describes several possible implications for Republican Party foreign policy in the general election of 2016. In chapter 5, the author shows his special interest in conservative American realism. He looks at this approach in relation to China, Russia, Iran and al Qaeda, and illustrates that this approach is crucial to identifying American interests “along with real, current challenges to those interests” (198). He also compares how differently President Obama and President Bush have employed conservative American realism in their foreign policies, and thus how they diverged in defining international threats to American interests, dealing with allies and adversaries, and pursuing trade policies.

The Obama Doctrine: American Grand Strategy Today provides a critical assessment of foreign policy in the Obama presidency and sketches alternative approaches to a more practical approach to advance American national interests. Dueck's analysis and explanation of the Obama doctrine and of the competing visions from Republicans represent a more complete picture of American grand strategy today. In order to examine the Obama doctrine thoroughly, the author relies heavily on documentary research. Though he draws from public record and secondary literature utilized by his peers, Dueck's different conclusions and sharp analyses, supported by exhaustive evidence, make his book a strong and interesting contribution to the existing scholarship on American foreign policy and presidential doctrines. His book should appeal both to a general audience interested in foreign policy, and to scholars and practitioners of the field.