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The Pursuit of Dominance: 2000 Years of Superpower Grand Strategy
A sweeping yet concise account of history's empires that managed to maintain dominance for long stretches.
What should the United States do with its power? What goals should it have, and how should it pursue them? Ultimately, what do Americans want their country to be? These are questions of grand strategy. The United States is the most powerful actor in the international system, but it is facing a set of challenges that might lead to its decline as this century unfolds.
In The Pursuit of Dominance , Christopher J. Fettweis examines the grand strategy of previous superpowers to see how they maintained, or failed to maintain, their status. Over the course of six cases, from Ancient Rome to the British Empire, he seeks guidance from the past for present US policymakers. Like the United States, the examples Fettweis uses were the world' strongest powers at particularly moments in time, and they were hoping to stay that way. Rather than focusing on those powers' rise or how they ruled, however, Fettweis looks at how they sought to maintain their power. From these cases, one paramount lesson becomes Dominant powers usually survive even the most incompetent leaders. Fettweis is most interested in how these superpowers defined their interests, the grand strategies these regimes followed to maintain superiority over their rivals, and how the practice of that strategy worked.
A sweeping history of grand strategy, The Pursuit of Dominance looks at the past 2,000 years to highlight what--if anything--current US strategists can learn from the experience of earlier superpowers.
What should the United States do with its power? What goals should it have, and how should it pursue them? Ultimately, what do Americans want their country to be? These are questions of grand strategy. The United States is the most powerful actor in the international system, but it is facing a set of challenges that might lead to its decline as this century unfolds.
In The Pursuit of Dominance , Christopher J. Fettweis examines the grand strategy of previous superpowers to see how they maintained, or failed to maintain, their status. Over the course of six cases, from Ancient Rome to the British Empire, he seeks guidance from the past for present US policymakers. Like the United States, the examples Fettweis uses were the world' strongest powers at particularly moments in time, and they were hoping to stay that way. Rather than focusing on those powers' rise or how they ruled, however, Fettweis looks at how they sought to maintain their power. From these cases, one paramount lesson becomes Dominant powers usually survive even the most incompetent leaders. Fettweis is most interested in how these superpowers defined their interests, the grand strategies these regimes followed to maintain superiority over their rivals, and how the practice of that strategy worked.
A sweeping history of grand strategy, The Pursuit of Dominance looks at the past 2,000 years to highlight what--if anything--current US strategists can learn from the experience of earlier superpowers.
312 pages, Hardcover
Published December 2, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 26, 2024
This book examines the strategies used by several major powers (the Roman, Tang, Mongol, Ottoman, Hapsburg and British empires) throughout history to maintain their status and standing as great powers, and, in the conclusion, what this means for the United States in the early twenty-first century. It was a thoughtful and thought-provoking book, well-researched, but the analysis was quite high-level and at times there were generalisations that may not stand closer scrutiny from experts in each of the empires examined.
I often wondered how explicit the strategies of the different powers were - were they written in council documents, like policy statements of today - or approaches which grew over time and in which modern historians, strategists and policy makers have identified trends which collectively amount to a ‘grand strategy’? I suspect the latter, although in the case of the British Empire in the late nineteenth and twentieth century there were undoubtedly clearly articulated and documented strategies and policies.
Many will find the Introduction and Conclusion challenging, even controversial. Drawing on the historical comparisons, Fettlweis suggests that leaders and governments have always had to deal with complex security environments (and while weapons of mass destruction and the speed of communications and weapon impact are far faster in the modern era, complicating strategists calculations), are always pessimistic in their assessments and anxious about their decline as a power. He believes that this applies to the Pentagon and others in the national security community in the US today, particularly in their assessments of the threat posed by China. Thought-provoking but theoretical.
The book was published in 2023 and Fettweis wrote with optimism - Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had stalled and the disruption of the Trump era was an aberration of the past. I wonder if any of his analysis or conclusions would have been different if the book had been published after the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election? I found the optimism engaging; he identifies important elements of ‘progress’ - the current era is very different from the past with wars of territorial conquest almost non-existent since the United Nations was established and slavery and the slave abolished (although human trafficking still exists).
Sadly, this is one of the most poorly edited books I have come across. The text is littered with typos and errors, words are missing, some facts and dates are incorrect. I don’t know how this was possible, but it was terribly distracting and siapoointing.
I often wondered how explicit the strategies of the different powers were - were they written in council documents, like policy statements of today - or approaches which grew over time and in which modern historians, strategists and policy makers have identified trends which collectively amount to a ‘grand strategy’? I suspect the latter, although in the case of the British Empire in the late nineteenth and twentieth century there were undoubtedly clearly articulated and documented strategies and policies.
Many will find the Introduction and Conclusion challenging, even controversial. Drawing on the historical comparisons, Fettlweis suggests that leaders and governments have always had to deal with complex security environments (and while weapons of mass destruction and the speed of communications and weapon impact are far faster in the modern era, complicating strategists calculations), are always pessimistic in their assessments and anxious about their decline as a power. He believes that this applies to the Pentagon and others in the national security community in the US today, particularly in their assessments of the threat posed by China. Thought-provoking but theoretical.
The book was published in 2023 and Fettweis wrote with optimism - Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had stalled and the disruption of the Trump era was an aberration of the past. I wonder if any of his analysis or conclusions would have been different if the book had been published after the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election? I found the optimism engaging; he identifies important elements of ‘progress’ - the current era is very different from the past with wars of territorial conquest almost non-existent since the United Nations was established and slavery and the slave abolished (although human trafficking still exists).
Sadly, this is one of the most poorly edited books I have come across. The text is littered with typos and errors, words are missing, some facts and dates are incorrect. I don’t know how this was possible, but it was terribly distracting and siapoointing.
December 22, 2024
Don’t bother with this one honestly.
August 21, 2024
The content of the book was pretty interesting. Looking at the total history of each empire from a grand strategy point of view is different. I am not sure he made his points as well as he wanted to but the overall scheme was certainly eye-catching. However, production values marred the overall effort. There were far to many typos or missing words in the text. I have to chalk that up to the publisher but it was noticeable enough to be a little distracting.
March 27, 2024
Meh. Lacks coherence and it isn’t clear what the argument is. The case studies are isolated from each other and while interesting there is nothing new there. The most dramatic shortcoming is that there is very little connection between the historical case studies and the last chapter on US decline.
July 30, 2023
The author's research questions as stated on the dust jacket flaps are as follows:
"What should the United States do with its power?"
"What goals should it have, and how should it pursue them?"
"Ultimately, what do Americans want their country to be"?
The author's argument and answer to any of the above questions can be found immediately in the next paragraph on the same flap, and only really appears in the last 20+ pages in the conclusion.
The book otherwise reads like any other general history/knowledge book, with chapters separated into bland narrations of case studies which provide a very surface-level understanding of certain historical events that is practically devoid of meaningful nuance. There is otherwise hardly any identifiable central thread in this work.
"What should the United States do with its power?"
"What goals should it have, and how should it pursue them?"
"Ultimately, what do Americans want their country to be"?
The author's argument and answer to any of the above questions can be found immediately in the next paragraph on the same flap, and only really appears in the last 20+ pages in the conclusion.
The book otherwise reads like any other general history/knowledge book, with chapters separated into bland narrations of case studies which provide a very surface-level understanding of certain historical events that is practically devoid of meaningful nuance. There is otherwise hardly any identifiable central thread in this work.
March 8, 2023
You got to be appeasement maxing. Get those appeasement numbers up. It might be bad at some point, but at current margins, that’s not relevant. More appeasement the better
And decline? The USs decline is LAUGHABLE. The UK gave up half the world after London got bombed to shit. The US barely left Afghanistan. That’s rookie disengagement. That’s a pathetic display of pathetic retreat.
Finally ask yourself: who does grand strategy serve? If it’s … *seth finish from here *
See my profile for star scoring rules
And decline? The USs decline is LAUGHABLE. The UK gave up half the world after London got bombed to shit. The US barely left Afghanistan. That’s rookie disengagement. That’s a pathetic display of pathetic retreat.
Finally ask yourself: who does grand strategy serve? If it’s … *seth finish from here *
See my profile for star scoring rules
May 20, 2023
Despite this being a highly interesting and relevant subject, the amount of historical inaccuracies on the part of the author can make this a painful read. Not to mention the fact that it really lacks an overarching point. The case selection is interesting, but they rather become individual (and at times interesting) chapters seemingly lacking a coherence with what he is trying to argue.
July 10, 2025
Great book. Concise and picks out the key elements of grand strategy across the various case studies. Would have benefitted from a chapter on analysis of US grand strategy historically, particularly during the cold war, rather than just tying it up in the conclusion by discussing the post-9/11 world
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews