Restraint

Why it’s on the list: The book that gave the restraint school its name: Posen, who ran MIT’s Security Studies Program, argues that American “liberal hegemony” since the Cold War has been expensive and counterproductive, and that the US should narrow to a posture built on command of the commons rather than forward defense of everything at once. Read beside the anti-declinist case, because either alone produces a tidier conclusion than the evidence supports.

Where I heard about it

• A 2026 university syllabus — assigned in a course on U.S. security policy in the 21st century, alongside America Abroad and Command of Commerce (and Mearsheimer and Walt on offshore balancing), shared with me in a July 2026 conversation about whether the China threat is over- or under-priced.

About this edition

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.

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