Department of Defense. 05 January 2012.
http://www.defense.gov/news/Defense_Strategic_Guidance.pdf

Stephen M. Walt. Foreign Policy, 01 December, 2011.
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/12/01/a_bandwagon_for_offshore_balancing

Excerpt:

…offshore balancing is the right strategy even when our coffers are full, provided that no peer competitors are threatening to dominate key strategic regions. Even during good times, it makes no sense to take on unnecessary burdens or to allow allies to free-ride on Uncle Sam’s hubristic desire to be the “indispensable nation” in almost every corner of the world. In other words, offshore balancing isn’t just a strategy for hard times; it is also the best available strategy in a world where the United States is the strongest power, prone to trigger unnecessary antagonism, and vulnerable to being dragged into unnecessary wars.

Carl Conetta. PDA Briefing Memo #52, 25 October 2011.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1110bm52.pdf

Excerpt:

The sharp rise in the Pentagon’s base budget since 1998 (46% in real terms) is substantially due to strategic choice, not security requirements, per se. It reflects a refusal to set priorities as well as a move away from the traditional goals of military deterrence, containment, and defense to more ambitious ends: threat prevention, command of the commons, and the transformation of the global security environment. The geographic scope of routine US military activity also has expanded.

companion piece: The Pentagon’s New Mission Set: A Sustainable Choice?, by Carl Conetta. An updated and expanded excerpt from the Report of the Task Force on a Unified Security Budget (USB) for the United States, August 2011. http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/111024Pentagon-missions.pdf

The White House, May 2010. Hosted on the Commonwealth Institute website.
http://www.comw.org/qdr/fulltext/1005NSS.pdf

Steve Clemons. TPM Cafe, 13 February 2010.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/13/several_years_ago_i_met/

Council on Foreign Relations, November 2009.
http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/PublicOpinionProject.pdf

Project website — http://www.cfr.org/thinktank/iigg/pop/

Excerpt:

Publics around the world—including in the United States—are strongly internationalist in orientation. They believe that global challenges are simply too complex and daunting to be addressed by unilateral or even regional means. In every country polled, most people support a global system based on the rule of law, international treaties, and robust multilateral institutions. They believe their own government is obliged to abide by international law, even when doing so is at odds with its perceived national interest. Large majorities, including among Americans, reject a hegemonic role for the United States, but do want the United States to participate in multilateral efforts to address international issues.

Michael T. Klare. Tom Dispatch, 26 October 2009.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175131/michael_klare_the_great_superpower_meltdown

Excerpt:

How much longer will Washington feel that Americans can afford to subsidize a global role that includes garrisoning much of the planet and fighting distant wars in the name of global security, when the American economy is losing so much ground to its competitors? This is the dilemma President Obama and his advisers must confront in the altered world of 2025.

article references http://www.comw.org/wordpress/dsr/global-trends-2025

David Isenberg. PRIO, 15 October 2009.
http://www.prio.no/sptrans/-1720057691/Isenberg Private Military Contractors PRIO Report-2009.pdf

Syed Saleem Shahzad. Asia Times, 15 October 2009.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KJ15Df03.html

Douglas MacGregor. Defense News, 28 September 2009.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4296926&c=FEA&s=COM

Lewis Carroll. (English Logician, Mathematician, Photographer and Novelist, especially remembered for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. 1832-1898)

an expert online panel, National Journal National Security Expert Blog, 10 August 2009.

William Pfaff. Tribune Media Services, 05 August 2009.

excerpt:

…the more wars you undertake abroad, the more places you intervene, and the more bases you build around the world, the less secure you are.

Hillary Rodham Clinton. Washington, DC: Council on Foreign Relations, 15 July 2009. Audio and video available.

P. Michael Phillips. Parameters, Summer 2009.
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/parameters/Articles/09summer/phillips.pdf

Excerpt:

The state as described in this article differs greatly from the ideal imagined in the Westphalian paradigm. States do not universally enjoy unrestricted sovereignty. Nor are they equal. In fact, the sovereignty of a great number of the states in the international system is merely ascriptive.

Because these imperfect conditions have more or less existed since long before 1648, it may be more helpful to think of any observed chaos in the international system as the natural condition, rather than a decline into disorder. If the system is not melting down, are so-called nonstate actors as signifcant for the long-term as they appear to be for the present?

The return of multipolarity is a long-overdue blessing in disguise. Shaped properly, the rise of other credible powers may permit Washington to more widely distribute the responsibility of collective security among a more diverse and culturally relevant audience. Shepherding—not resisting—the emergence of multiple spheres of influence within a reconceptualized normative framework, one moving beyond simple Wilsonian idealism, has potential to co-opt potential troublemakers and might offer a better vehicle for expanding global prosperity by increasing the number of empowered stakeholders. Such a system might, over time, evolve into a practical security council of states reflecting not ancient martial relationships, but in-
stead the distribution of actual global power. Most importantly, the United States would be empowered to devise a transition away from the draining role of world policeman to one more befitting a global ombudsman. This shift can at once conserve American power for the long haul while insulating the nation from ultimate responsibility. Finally, such a system would more effectively highlight state troublemakers and allow the United States to focus its finite resources on real rather than imagined threats.

Dallas D. Owens and Ionut C. Popescu. Strategic Studies Institute Colloquium Brief, Army War College, 22 May 2009. Posted on the Commonwealth Institute Website (printable .pdf file).

www.informationdissemination.net, 20 March 2009.

Excerpt:

Any meaningful strategy must be based on detailed force plans, procurement plans, program budgets, and measure of effectiveness.

If God really hates you, you may end up working on a Quadrennial Defense Review: The most pointless and destructive planning effort imaginable. You will waste two years on a document decoupled from a real world force plan, from an honest set of decisions about manpower or procurement, with no clear budget or FYDP, and with no metrics to measure or determine its success.

If God merely dislikes you, you may end up helping your service chief or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs draft one of those vague, anodyne strategy documents that is all concepts and no plans or execution.

If God is totally indifferent, you will end up working on our national strategy and simply be irrelevant.

Colin S. Gray. Strategic Studies Institute Monograph, Army War College, 13 January 2009. Posted on the Commonwealth Institute Website (printable .pdf file).

Shawn Brimely. Parameters, Winter 2008-2009. Posted on the Commonwealth Institute Website (printable .pdf file).

Eugene Gholz and Daryl G. Press. presented at America and the World, a Tobin Project Conference at Airlie, 14-16 November 2008. Hosted on the Commonwealth Institute website.
http://www.comw.org/qdr/fulltext/08Gholz&Press.pdf

Excerpt:

… an “over-the-horizon” approach would protect vital US oil interests without incurring the serious costs of the current strategy. It would counter the traditional military threats to Gulf oil interests as effectively as the current strategy, and it would do a better job mitigating the more serious future threats in the Gulf: terrorism against oil infrastructure and domestic instability within oil-producing countries. Furthermore, an over-the-horizon approach would bring US policy in line with American values.

Barry R. Posen. testimony before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, 15 July 2008.
http://web.mit.edu/ssp/people/posen/A_Grand_Strategy_of_Restraint_and_Renewal_testimony_for_congress_july_15.pdf

Excerpt:

The United States is a powerful country. Nevertheless, it is not as powerful as the foreign policy establishment believes. Political, military, and economic costs are mounting from U.S. actions abroad. At the same time, the U.S. has paid too little attention to problems at home. Over the last decade Americans became accustomed to a
standard of living that could only be financed on borrowed money. U.S. foreign policy elites have become accustomed to an activist grand strategy that they have increasingly funded on borrowed money as well. The days of easy money are over. During these years, the U.S. failed to make critical investments in infrastructure and human capital. The U.S. is destined for a period of belt tightening; it must raise taxes and cut spending. The quantities involved seem so massive that it is difficult to see how DOD can escape being at least one of the bill payers. We should seize this opportunity to re-conceptualize U.S. grand strategy from top to bottom.

Jeffrey W. Taliaferro. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, San Francisco Hilton, San Francisco, CA, 26-29 March 2008.
http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/5/0/8/0/pages250803/p250803-1.php

Stephen Van Evera. in Melvyn P Leffler and Jeffrey W Legro, To Lead the World: American Strategy after the Bush Doctrine, Oxford Press, 2008. Hosted on the Commonwealth Institute website.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/vanevera-farewell-to-geopolitics.pdf

Michael C. Desch. International Security, Winter 2007/2008.
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/isec.2008.32.3.7

Barry Posen. The American Interest online, Nov-Dec 2007.
http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=331

Excerpt:

Iraq should therefore be seen not as a singular debacle, but as a harbinger of costs to come. There is enough capacity and motivation out in the world to increase significantly the costs of any U.S. effort to manage global politics directly. Public support for this policy may wane before profligacy so diminishes U.S. power that it becomes unsustainable.

Daryl Press and Benjamin Valentino. from How to Make America Safe: New Policies for National Security, The Tobin Project, 2006.
http://www.tobinproject.org/downloads/NS_Balanced_Foreign_Policy.pdf

Excerpt:

… America’s current foreign policy relies too heavily on military force to promote U.S. interests. Although military force is sometimes necessary, U.S. policy should be balanced and rely more on America’s other tools of foreign policy—e.g., our unrivaled economy, and the global appeal of our values. Through a balanced foreign policy, the United States can achieve its important foreign policy goals, while reestablishing our country as a beacon of freedom and human rights, at
a fraction of the costs of the current policy.

Steve Van Evera. from How to Make America Safe: New Policies for National Security, The Tobin Project, 2006.
http://www.tobinproject.org/downloads/NS_American_Foreign_Policy_For_New_Era.pdf

Excerpt:

The world’s major powers should organize themselves into a new concert—along lines of the 1815 Concert of Europe—to take united action against WMD proliferation, terrorism, and threats to the global commons. The U.S. should lead in creating and sustaining this new concert.