From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing: America's Future Grand Strategy

The Soviet Union's collapse transformed the international system dramatically, but there has been no corresponding change in U.S. grand strategy. In terms of ambitions, interests, and alliances, the United States is following the same grand strategy it pursued from 1945 until 1991: that of preponderance.' Whether this strategy will serve U.S. interests in the early twenty-first century is problematic. Hence, in this article my purpose is to stimulate a more searching debate about future U.S. grand strategic options.2 To accomplish this, I compare the strategy of preponderance to a proposed alternative grand strategy: offshore balancing.