(iPoster) Racialized Dynamics and Grand Strategy

• In Event: Poster Sessions: International Security II & Normative Political Theory
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: International Security II

Abstract

What does race have to do with grand strategy? Readers of the existing literature might be forgiven for assuming that the answer to that question is “nothing at all,” given the near-complete lack of engagement with racialized dynamics in modern research on grand strategy. Insofar as that research is an offshoot of post-Cold War international relations (IR) in the United States — now widely recognized as having prioritized colorblind theoretical perspectives during the late 20th century — this is unsurprising. As IR scholars considered what grand strategy would replace containment, their major theories reflected the notion that race no longer mattered much in world politics. Yet recent research has amply shown that IR’s roots in the early 20th century were thoroughly steeped in racialized dynamics, and numerous recent and ongoing studies have examined how those dynamics bear on questions of international order and security. What implications do those findings hold for the study of grand strategy?

This paper argues that racialized dynamics bear on every major aspect of grand strategy. While scholars have defined that concept in various ways, most agree that it includes at least four key processes: (1) defining national interests, (2) interpreting the strategic environment, (3) prioritizing among various threats and opportunities, and (4) framing specific policy approaches. The empirical study of grand strategy seeks to explain why policymakers adopted specific grand strategies — in other words, why these four processes played out in specific ways within specific historical contexts. If racialized dynamics affect these processes, then, it follows that scholars seeking to explain grand strategic choices should engage research on race and international security.

This paper consists of two main sections, each divided into several subsections. It begins by discussing the concept of grand strategy, major debates over U.S. grand strategy since the end of the Cold War, and prominent critiques of the concept. It proceeds to consider each of the four processes noted above — how scholars of grand strategy have addressed it to date, how racialized dynamics bear on it, and what that implies about how scholars should study it moving forward.

Author

• Richard W. Maass, Old Dominion University