Politics and strategy: partisan ambition and American statecraft

1. Statesmen, partisans, and geopolitics. The two faces of grand strategy

Statesmen as strategic politicians

Grand strategy past and present

2. Grand strategy's microfoundations. Variations in grand strategy

A model of executive choice

Determinants of grand strategy

Research design and outline

3. Why states appease their foes. The appeasement puzzle

George Washington and the appeasement of Britain

Abraham Lincoln, Britain, and the Confederacy

Franklin Roosevelt, Hitler, and appeasement, 1936-1939

Appeasement reconsidered

4. When states expand. Theories of expansionism

James Monroe, Republican factionalism, and the Monroe Doctrine

William McKinley, Cuba, and the threat of domestic populism

George W. Bush, September 11, and the promise of party realignment

Expansionism : necessity or choice?

5. Why states underreach. Strategies of restraint

Jacksonian fissures and Martin Van Buren's strategic adjustment

Herbert Hoover, Republican sectarianism, and strategic retrenchment

Bill Clinton, the Democrats, and selective engagement

The paradox of strategic "underextension"

6. Statecraft's twin engines. American balancing in historical perspective

Geopolitics and partisan politics : managing cross-pressure

Secondary powers and nondemocracies

Barack Obama and grand strategy.