77 Fall 2026 hat is America’s “Grand Strategy”? This question has bedeviled academics and analysts since the end of the Cold War. Wistful dreams of the “end of history” and the “peace dividend” did not define a grand strategy. Nor did resting the Minsk agreement on the naïve hope that Russia would respect Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty. The wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, which weakened American power and prestige and strengthened Iranian hegemonic aspirations, likewise reflected strategic failure. Nor can we characterize as “grand strategy” the drawing of red lines in Syria and not enforcing them; betting big on a nuclear deal with Iran that by its own terms would have expired after ten years; flirting with Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping; disparaging NATO; or casting an acquisitive eye toward Greenland, the Panama Canal and even Canada. Most recently, the chaotic cycle of outlandish threats followed by sudden retreats in the Iran conflict has left our most seasoned foreign policy experts scratching their heads, wondering how the United States can possibly emerge from the latest mess that has masqueraded as foreign policy and devise a sophisticated grand strategy for the highly volatile 21st century. Fortunately, the brilliant lawyer and scholar Nicholas Rostow offers a groundbreaking new approach in his book, Proportional to the Mischief: International Law and U.S. Grand Strategy. Rostow’s core argument is that grand strategy and international law should be considered holistically rather than separately. Rostow begins (quoting John Lewis Gaddis) by defining “grand strategy” as “the calculated relationship of means to large ends.” Rostow then adds international law to the mix, arguing it must be considered and included “in the development and implementation of U.S. grand strategy,” because “grand strategy has broader context, reach and content than military strategy.” International law, Rostow argues, defines relations among states and establishes “trace lines defining lawful action . . . for grand strategies and the means used to pursue them.” Rostow notes the core principles of international law most relevant to formulating U.S. grand strategy – necessity, proportionality, and distinction between civilian and military targets – lie at the heart of the fundamental principle that the threat or use of force is prohibited except in individual or collective self-defense. Rostow’s key thesis bears quoting (taken from two different chapters and combined here): International law can help the government to develop, refine and implement a grand strategy. It can assist in the process of thinking through ends, ways and means. In fact, because international law infuses international relations, it therefore affects grand strategy whether one wants it to do so or not. It can be used to sharpen what a state is aiming to achieve by insisting on answers to the question, what is sought, by requiring the objective to be lawful under international law . . . the goal is not only to strengthen international peace and security, but to avoid fecklessness. Strategists can use international law — what is and what is not lawful — to define the size of the international playing field or table if you will, and Reviewed by Steven E. Zipperstein W BOOK REVIEWS Proportional to the Mischief: International Law and U.S. Grand Strategy By Nicholas Rostow (Carolina University Press, 2026, 252 pp.)
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