Radu Georgescu.: How should we perceive the American grand strategy, taking into account the shifting dynamics of global power and influence?
Alexandru Cristian.: There are several definitions of grand strategy. For example: Colin Gray defines it as the „ purposeful employment of all instruments of power available to a security community”. Sir Hew Strachan sees grand strategy as forward looking, aspirational, and oriented on preventing or managing great power decline. Professor Edward Luttwak about grand strategy : “Grand strategy may be seen as a confluence of the military interactions that flow up and down level by level . . . with the varied external relations that form strategy’s horizontal dimension at its highest level.”
Any power has a strategy, a superpower has a grand strategy. The United States of America has a grand strategy that divides into two broad lines of action. The first course of action is to preserve the current hegemony. The second course of action is the achievement of cosmotelurocratic hegemony.
The main instruments of grand strategy are economy, technology, and military power with all their derivatives. The post-hegemonic era, of telurocratic or thalassocratic hegemony, will be an era of unprecedented hegemony, an era in which a state will be able to control the Earth’s surface, water mass, air and space beyond the Earth atmosphere – that is total hegemony.History has taught us that those who do not adapt are defeated, so the United States has adapted and become a hegemonic power under transformation.
R.G.: In what ways does the current grand strategy prioritize alliances and partnerships to achieve national objectives?
A.C.: Much of the US great strategy relies on alliances/partnerships to project power in the area. For example NATO, EU, ANZUS, partnerships with Japan, South Korea and other Latin American countries.
We have to emphasize that the United States of America controls a large part of the world’s waters and also the great economic corridors. America’s fleet is spread across the globe. The United States also prioritizes bilateral strategic partnerships.
R.G.: How does the United States balance its military commitments and diplomatic engagements in pursuit of its strategic goals?
A.C.: The United States always honors its commitment. I am convinced that the commitment to NATO will always be kept. There is a balance between the tools of American power projection. This balance makes the United States a brainy power. While the US soft power is represented by the country’s economy and culture, and the hard power is mixed air, land, and sea military force, the Brainy Power is a type of power based on brain gain, i.e. gaining brains for developing new power tools.
R.G.: What role does economic statecraft play in shaping the current American grand strategy, particularly in relation to trade agreements and economic sanctions?
A.C.: The United States pursues its interests wisely, and economic tools are used to bring added value to the American economy. The economy of the United States of America is the largest in the world and is highly interdependent and complex. Also, trade and financial agreements will be signed and agreed to only if they help the American economy. Any strategy aims to achieve an aim. Any strategy should fulfill their long terms objectives.
R.G.: How does the current grand strategy address emerging challenges such as cybersecurity threats and especially technological competition?
A.C.: American Grand Strategy also develops with the real help of technology. Cyber, space policy, and new technological breakthroughs are all parts of American grand strategy. The United States is constantly and secretly innovating and is in competition with other technological powers for technological supremacy. The reinvention of American hegemony will be represented by the new disruptive technologies emerging in the American economy. Of course, this competition also has negative effects, like the polarization of American society and imbalances and cleavages at the global level.
R.G.: To what extent does the promotion of democratic values and human rights factor into the current strategy, especially in its interactions with authoritarian regimes?
A.C.: Since the Founding Fathers, the United States has been founded on democratic values. Their promotion is part of the being of the American state; America without democracy or republic would not be America anymore. Of course, there is turbulence, strikes, riots, and crime. Let’s not forget the great strikes of the 19th century, the Prohibition period, the student revolts of the 1960s and 1970s, and the American unions, but also the fact that America overcame these great divisions. The mechanisms of democracy will always find solutions to overcome difficult times. The United States of America will always support democratic regimes, with all their imperfections.
R.G.: How does the current grand strategy approach regional conflicts and instability, particularly in areas of strategic importance like the Middle East and East Asia?
A.C.: These two are of major importance in American grand strategy. Let’s not forget the special relationship with Israel but also with Japan. Here, the United States will be doing its best to use all its instruments of power to implement its grand strategy of maintaining hegemony and damming other competitors. To advance its grand strategy and maintain its position, the United States must form a Steel Curtain from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. A Steel Barrier consisting of South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan, and a Strategic Triangle consisting of Alaska (american state), Australia and Chile, centered on Hawaii and Guam. All this can stem the rise of the Eurasian power bloc. The Steel Curtain will thus stop the expansion of the Russian Federation and the unification of the continental bloc. This corridor can also be extended to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Greece, to connect the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. An important role is played by Romania, the strategic partner of the United States of America, considering that we have the Danube Delta. The Steel Barrier can stem China’s power and ambitions towards the Pacific. The Strategic Triangle formed by the American state of Alaska, Australia, and Chile in the center can represent a strategic dam for the expansion of Chinese power.
R.G.: What adjustments, if any, should the United States make to its grand strategy in response to recent global events or geopolitical shifts?
A.C.: For the first time in history, hegemony will be imposed from top to bottom, from sky to Earth. Building a cohesive space policy and correlating it with all the areas involved in this process, the use of power resources and power tools will make the United States a space hegemon.
Thus, the hegemony of space, along with the control of the seas but also the regional partnership formats (Steel Curtain, Steel Barrier, Strategic Triangle), and the involvement in the development of the African continent can make the United States enter a post-hegemonic era, a cosmotelurocratic hegemony. The American hegemony to be imposed by the control of space and its resources will therefore become a cosmotelurocratic hegemony/cosmotelucrocracy – mastering the space beyond the atmosphere, the atmosphere, and the Earth (the concept “telurocratic” refers to it as a whole consisting of the terrestrial surface and the planetary water mass).
If the United States fails to impose this hegemony, then we will move towards multipolarity, but this will represent the failure of the American great strategy with huge consequences upon the balance of power at global level and turbulence in international affairs.
Disclaimer: This paper was prepared or accomplished by Alexandru CRISTIAN in his personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this interview are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of national/international institution or governement.
Alexandru Cristian is an historian, writer, lawyer born on October 23, 1987 in Brăila, county Brăila, Romania. He holds a Ph.D. Thesis in Information and National Security from the “Carol I” National Defense University in 2015. He graduated in Law in 2019 at Titu Maiorescu University in Bucharest. He published several studies over US- Romanian Relations like 140 years of Us-Romanian Relations, Partners without Partnership in 2020 published on Amazon Kindle Edition, Romania- The United States of America – Past, Present and Future, Prouniversitaria Publishing House, 2023. He studied Romanian-American diplomatic relations. He is a member of the American Academy of Poets.
