Grand strategic overview: epochal change and new realities for the United States

Abstract

This grand strategic overview highlights and analyzes the influence of epochal change on the state and conflict and the new realities with which the United States must now contend. This deep context is being provided so that (1) the belligerent and politicized non-state entities that have emerged in Mexico and the Americas can be better understood within the larger three-front grand strategic temporal conflict the US is now engaged in; and (2) the stark realities that the US faces – such as loss of unilateral world dominance, increasing debt and ongoing deficits, shifting demographics, inability to staunch the flow of and demand for illicit drugs, and an increasing prison population – are highlighted. Finally, this essay finishes with a discussion of the many important contributions contained in this edited work.