Jimmy Carter had no clear aims upon entering office, and his first two years were characterized by drift and inflation. Carter failed to address the inflation and America’s other economic problems, which contributed to his election defeat in 1980. He innovated in American grand strategy by using human rights against totalitarian states. The 1980 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan awakened Carter to the reality of the Soviet threat. He began arming the Afghan mujahideen and launched the rebuilding of America’s armed forces. He also secured the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt.

The Barack Obama administration insisted many of America’s problems with other nations were the fault of the Bush administration. This was true in the case of Iraq, but such thinking ignores the aims and interests of other states and the ideologies driving them. The administration launched a failed “reset” of relations with Russia, a war for regime change against Libya that repeated many Bush mistakes, endured the Syrian “red line” chemical weapons use debacle, and mounted a troop “surge” in Afghanistan while withdrawing from Iraq too early, feeding the environment that created Islamic State. Obama’s administration subverted democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan and launched the Third Iraq War against Islamic State while acknowledging it would be passed to the next administration. It signed the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran in order to delay Iran’s development of nuclear weapons until Obama left office. John Kerry admitted publicly that this deal would allow Iran to fund terrorist actions abroad.

This chapter examines the Trump and Biden administrations. The Trump administration resembled the Clinton administration in that both had presidents who were personally undisciplined, bereft of any knowledge of military or foreign affairs, and followed their own courses while their respective national security apparatuses charted different ones. They both achieved impeachment (twice for Trump), performed well economically, and had little interest in anything else. Trump continued the Afghanistan and the Islamic State wars. Trump raised tariffs and insisted the US was in a “trade war,” particularly with China. The chapter also examines the North Korea crisis, relations with Russia, and the beginning of the Ukraine War. It reveals the triumph of flawed strategic ideas such as hybrid war and the gray zone in American strategic thinking, as well as reborn Great Power Competition. Joseph Biden succeeded Trump. His short tenure has thus far been marked by losing the Afghan War by ordering a precipitous withdrawal, the highest inflation in forty years at least partially caused – by his own admission – by administration overspending, and the failure of the administration’s grand strategy of “integrated deterrence” demonstrated by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

This chapter begins by examining the James Monroe and John Quincy Adams administrations. They continued America’s expansionist drive and the quest for security. John Quincy Adams was one of America’s first grand strategists, and he and Monroe used Andrew Jackson to secure parts of Florida from Spain while also giving us the Monroe Doctrine, which meant the US wouldn’t tolerate establishment of any European footholds in the Western hemisphere. They also fought the First Seminole War. Andrew Jackson succeeded Adams as president. Achieving security against enemies foreign and domestic was his key aim. He fought against the Bank of the United States, pursued Indian Removal that famously produced the “Trail of Tears,” quashed the Nullification Crisis, and fought wars against the Blackhawk, Creeks, and Seminole. The Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, and John Tyler administrations are briefly examined on the way to the James K. Polk administration and the Mexican War. Polk’s victorious war, which included campaigns by Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, saw the US seize enormous tracts of Mexico, including California. Expansion was Polk’s aim. Expansionism became inextricably tied to Manifest Destiny in 1845.

George H. W. Bush had high hopes for a New World Order as the Cold War ended, but Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had other ideas. He invaded Kuwait and 1990, and Bush rallied the world against him to protect the sovereignty of other states and send a message to other would-be conquerors. Bush applied sanctions to Iraq to force a withdrawal and deployed US forces to Saudi Arabia as part of Operation DESERT SHIELD. Saddam refused to leave Kuwait, and in January 1991 Bush launched Operation DESERT STORM. After a six-week bombing campaign, the coalition forces drove the Iraqis from Kuwait in a lopsided three-day ground campaign. But the administration failed to convert clear military victory into a clear political result as it had failed to plan for how to end the war. Saddam Hussein claimed victory.

The George H. W. Bush administration proceeded to consolidate the US victory in the Cold War. It wanted a New World Order, a democratic peace to replace the Cold War competition. It began NATO expansion to Eastern Europe and became involved in Somalia but remained aloof from the growing tragedies in former Yugoslavia. Bill Clinton succeeded Bush as president. He combined no interest in foreign affairs with no knowledge of them, and insisted there was no such thing as grand strategy. He emphasized economics above all else and followed one course while his national security team followed another. The administration bungled regime efforts in Somalia and Haiti. National Security advisor Anthony Lake tried to implement a grand strategy of democratic enlargement, but other administration figures gave little support. The administration continued NATO expansion, fought wars in Bosnia and Kosovo against the Serbs, and waged a low-level struggle against Iraq. Clinton produced a budget surplus and economic growth.

The Second World War made the US a superpower. As the international situation deteriorated, Roosevelt began supporting the Allies via Lend-Lease and rearming the US, particularly via navy bills, and made the US the “arsenal of democracy.” Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and Tojo’s Japan formed the Tripartite Axis alliance. Roosevelt and Britain’s Winston Churchill agreed they would seek the defeat of the Axis, pursuing a “Germany First” offensive strategy while fighting defensively in the Pacific. The Allies argued over when and where to launch a Second Front and struggled to prepare the troops and material needed for this. The US and Great Britain defeated Germany’s U-boat campaign and launched a combined bomber offensive against Germany. The US and Britain fought in North Africa, then forced Italy from the war, and invaded Normandy, France, in Operation OVERLORD in June 1944. Germany surrendered in May 1945. In June 1942, the US won the pivotal Battle of Midway against Japan. The US then went on the offensive at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. The US launched history’s most successful submarine guerre de course against Japan, while mounting a two-pronged Pacific offensive and seeking to destroy the Japanese Navy. The offensives met at the Philippines, and then leapt to Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The dropping of the atomic bombs pushed Japan to surrender. The “Big Three” settled the postwar situation at Yalta and Potsdam.

Mexican War success fed the Sectional Crisis related to slavery’s extension. The Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan administrations are examined. Expansion remained an aim, and the Compromise of 1850 temporarily defused the sectional timebomb. America began developing deep relations with Asia, both economic and political. Buchanan failed to thwart Southern secession, which began after Abraham Lincoln’s election. The Confederacy, led by Jefferson Davis, fought for independence. Lincoln fought to preserve the Union but later made emancipation of the slaves a political aim. The Confederacy’s first strategy was a cordon defense. It moved to concentration, an offensive strategy, and a defensive strategy, accompanied by a self-imposed cotton embargo. The Union considered Winfield Scott’s Anaconda Plan, implemented a blockade of the South, applied simultaneous pressure under George McClellan and Henry Wager Halleck, later adding destruction of Southern resources and industry. Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman applied simultaneous pressure and attrition against the forces of Robert E. Lee, Joseph Johnston, and other Confederates to break the South’s armies and subdue it. Union efforts at Reconstruction under Andrew Johnson followed. These produced mixed results and contributed to Johnson’s impeachment. Reconstruction ended in 1877 under Rutherford B. Hayes.

A look at the latter part of the Peloponnesian War, especially the commemoration of figures like Gylippus and Lysander.