The Lessons of the Cold War for 21st-Century Strategy

This article assesses U.S. strategy during the Cold War and the lessons it holds for U.S. foreign policy in the 21st century, as laid out in a book recently published by Hal Brands of the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. Although some points in the book are debatable, the exercise overall is valuable for what analysts nowadays refer to as a resurgence of “great-power competition.”