Why America Can't Retrench (And How it Might)

Peter Harris is Associate Professor of Political Science at Colorado State University, where his teaching and research focus on international security and US foreign policy. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow with Defense Priorities.

• AcknowledgementsDedicationIntroduction1 Waves of Expansion, 1857–present2 The Restraint Debate3 Making the Militarist State4 America’s Primacists5 Unfit for Peace6 Domestic Renewal7 Internationalism AnewNotes

“Why is it so hard to restrain American military commitments abroad? Harris offers an incisive explanation of how militarism became entrenched in the American state and shows how rethinking U.S. foreign policy can simultaneously renew American society.”Benjamin Coates, Wake Forest University“In this timely, thought-provoking analysis, Peter Harris makes a powerful case for greater transparency, openness, and pluralism in US foreign policymaking. Proponents of American ‘primacy’ and ‘restraint’ alike will benefit from his diagnosis of what’s gone wrong and how to correct it.”Peter Trubowitz, London School of Economics and Political Science“A manifesto for a twenty-first-century US foreign policy. Peter Harris makes a clear and compelling case that global military primacy is a losing grand strategy for the United States, both abroad and at home. More than that, he points the way toward a post-primacy revival of American internationalism and identifies the domestic reforms needed to get there. Essential reading.”Stephen​​​​ Wertheim, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace“essential reading”Responsible Statecraft