Restraint

The other side of the argument in America Abroad, and the book that gave the restraint school its name. Posen, who ran MIT’s Security Studies Program, argues that American grand strategy since the Cold War has been one of “liberal hegemony,” that it has been expensive and counterproductive, and that the US should shift to a narrower posture built around command of the commons rather than forward defense of everything at once.

Context: Cornell University Press, 2014, 234 pages, in the Cornell Studies in Security Affairs series. It is the standard citation for the restraint position in academic debates about US grand strategy, which is why it turns up as a required text next to the books arguing the opposite.

Why it’s on the list: Reading the anti-declinist and the restraint cases together is the point. Either one alone produces a tidier conclusion than the evidence supports.

Where I saw it: Assigned on a 2026 university syllabus for a course on U.S. security policy in the 21st century, alongside America Abroad and Command of Commerce. The same course assigns Mearsheimer and Walt on offshore balancing in the same stretch.

Connections

• America Abroad — the direct rebuttal, assigned on the same syllabus. Brooks and Wohlforth wrote America Abroad substantially against this position.
• Command of Commerce — the third book on the list, arguing the economic half of the anti-restraint case.
• The Anduril Thesis (Book) — the restraint argument and the rebuild-the-defense-industrial-base argument are not obviously compatible, and working out where they collide is worth doing.
• China