In for a penny, in for a pound: The trouble with offshore balancing and why it matters that “1917” was not “1941”

Abstract

Over the past couple of decades, students of American grand strategy have debated the merits (or lack thereof) of an orientation toward the global balance of power that has come to be known as “offshore balancing.” Its critics hold offshore balancing simply to be another way of expressing the dangerous allure of strategic “restraint,” or even “isolationism.” Its enthusiasts, by contrast, see in it nothing other than the best conceivable grand strategy for America, enabling Washington to avoid the pitfalls of either too little or too much interventionism in global affairs. This article challenges both positions, and argues that the historical record of offshore balancing as an American strategic orientation leads to the conclusion that, far from being a crypto-isolationist grand strategy, it actually betrays close affinities with the so-called “maximalism” to which its champions believe it to be superior.