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Bruce W. Jentleson

Strategic Recalibration:
Framework for a 21stCentury National Security
Strategy

T

he release of the Obama administration’s 2014 National Security
Strategy comes amidst increasing criticism of its strategic savvy. Some are rank partisan, some Monday-morning quarterbacking. Some, though, reflect the intensifying debate over the optimal U.S. foreign policy strategy for our contemporary era.
At one end of the debate are those advocating retrenchment, who see limited global threats on one hand and prioritize domestic concerns on the other—be they the budget-cutting of the Tea Party right or the nation-building-at-home of the progressive left. At the other end are neoconservatives and others pushing for re-assertiveness. This is based on a bullish assessment of U.S. power and the contention that it still is both in the U.S. national interest and that of world order for the United States to be the dominant nation. While retrenchment overestimates the extent to which the United States can stand apart, reassertiveness overestimates the extent to which it can sit atop.
The United States must remain deeply and broadly engaged in the world, but it must do so through a strategy of recalibration to the geopolitical, economic, technological, and other dynamics driving this 21st-century world. This entails a re-appraisal of U.S. interests, re-assessment of U.S. power, and re-positioning
Bruce W. Jentleson is a Professor at Duke University, Sanford School of Public Policy, and currently Distinguished Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
From 2009–2011, he served as Senior Advisor to the State Department Policy
Planning Director. He is also an Editorial Board Member for TWQ. He can be reached at bwj7@duke.edu and on Twitter@BWJ777.
Copyright # 2014 The Elliott School of International Affairs
The

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