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Military doctrine --- Unified operations (Military science) --- United States.

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In recent years, there has been growing interest among policymakers and foreign policy analysts in rethinking U.S. grand strategy, or the U.S. approach to the world. One of the most prominent alternatives to current U.S. grand strategy is a grand strategy of restraint, an approach that would define U.S. interests more narrowly, place a greater emphasis on diplomacy, reduce the size of the military and U.S. forward military presence, renegotiate or end U.S. security commitments, and raise the bar for the use of force. Advocates of restraint have broadly outlined their views, but there is a lack of detail about what a strategy of restraint would mean in practice for U.S. security policy. In this report, RAND researchers describe when the United States might use force in the Asia-Pacific region under a grand strategy of restraint, propose possible warfighting scenarios involving the defense of Japan that could guide U.S. Department of Defense planning, and describe how U.S. military posture in the region would change under such a strategy.

Security, International.

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Like all new administrations, U.S. President Joseph Biden's administration will reassess and possibly change the size of the U.S. defense budget. Such a decision involves balancing trade-offs; a larger budget gives the country more funds to promote and defend its global interests, it but also reduces funds available for domestic programs, including those that might do more to boost economic growth. The economic trade-offs associated with defense spending have been underexamined compared with other aspects of the debate about U.S. grand strategy. Yet these trade-offs might be of greater public interest in coming years. In early 2021, as the United States remains in a recession amid the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, questions about how different budget choices affect economic performance might become more salient. Once the immediate crisis has passed, the country will have an even larger public debt than before and might also have to grapple with the question of what level of defense spending is sustainable in the long term. In this report — the first in a series on the security and economic trade-offs associated with competing visions for U.S. grand strategy — the authors examine the relationship between U.S. defense spending and economic growth. To do so, they consider what the effect on growth would be if the United States were to adopt any one of three policy changes: reallocate funds between defense spending and infrastructure investments, change its overall level of defense spending and apply the difference to public debt, or increase taxes to finance defense spending.

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Scholars of grand strategy debate the merits of U.S. forward military presence and alliances. The authors of this report explore one element of this debate: the potential economic benefits of these security policies. The authors draw on the existing literature to identify possible pathways through which U.S. forward military presence and alliances could lead to economic benefits. In theory, these pathways include preventing conflicts that disrupt U.S. trade and investment, reducing fears of war that could inhibit peacetime exchange, and increasing U.S. bargaining leverage over security partners in economic negotiations. In practice, the United States has higher levels of bilateral trade with and investment in allied countries. Importantly, however, the existing literature has not evaluated whether this increase in bilateral trade and investment benefits the U.S. economy as a whole. The authors develop a new model that provides evidence that U.S. alliances increase bilateral trade in manufactured goods and that this has a modest but positive effect on U.S. economic welfare. Decisions about U.S. alliances and forward military presence should be based on a range of factors beyond these possible economic benefits. This report does not examine other pathways through which economic benefits may accrue or costs may arise - or effects on allies' and adversaries' behaviors - and therefore does not make recommendations as to whether or how the United States should change its security policies. Instead, the report describes potential economic benefits associated with U.S. military engagement, which should inform a broader assessment of the U.S. approach to the world.

Alliances --- Economic aspects --- United States --- Military policy --- Economic aspects. --- Military relations

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The United States is facing several national security challenges at the same time that the federal budget is under pressure because of public health and infrastructure crises. In response to these challenges, there has been growing public interest in rethinking the U.S. role in the world. Under one option, a realist grand strategy of restraint, the United States would adopt a more cooperative approach toward other powers, reduce the size of its military and forward military presence, and end or renegotiate some of its security commitments. To help U.S. policymakers and the public understand this option, the authors of this report explain how U.S. security policies toward key regions would change under a grand strategy of restraint, identify key unanswered questions, and propose next steps for developing the policy implications of this option. The authors find that regional policy under a grand strategy of restraint varies depending on the level of U.S. interests and the risk that a single powerful state could dominate the region. Because of China's significant military capabilities, advocates of restraint call for a greater U.S. military role in East Asia than in other regions. The authors recommend that advocates of a grand strategy of restraint should continue to develop their policy recommendations. In particular, they should identify what changes in great-power capabilities and behavior would imperil U.S. vital interests, maritime areas where the United States should retain superiority, priorities for peacetime military activities, and war scenarios that should guide U.S. Department of Defense planning.

Security, International. --- National security --- 2000-2099 --- United States --- United States --- United States. --- Foreign relations --- Military policy.