America's Path: Grand Strategy for the Next Administration

America confronts a world in transition. Whatever the outcome of the November 2012 presidential election, America’s next president will face many challenges. To lead America wisely, the president and his administration must answer several questions: What kind of world does America face and how is the strategic landscape evolving? What are America’s core national interests? How should America pursue its interests and what threatens them? What opportunities exist and how can America seize them? How should America convey its purpose, both at home and globally? In America’s Path: Grand Strategy for the Next Administration, editors and CNAS experts Richard Fontaine and Dr. Kristin M. Lord bring together four strategists - Dr. Robert J. Art, Dr. Richard K. Betts, Dr. Peter Feaver and Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter - with diverse backgrounds and perspectives to advance a common mission of promoting informed debate about America’s role in the world and the best ways to fulfill it.

Please note that chapters are bookmarked within the Table of Contents.

Introduction: Debating America's Future
By Richard Fontaine and Kristin M. Lord

Chapter I: Selective Engagement in the Era of Austerity
By Robert J. Art

Chapter II: American Strategy: Grand vs. Grandiose
By Richard K. Betts

Chapter III: A Grand Strategy of Network Centrality
By Anne-Marie Slaughter

Chapter IV: American Grand Strategy at the Crossroads: Leading From the Front, Leading From Behind or Not Leading at All
By Peter Feaver