Purpose and Power

Across the full span of the nation’s history, Donald Stoker challenges our understanding of the purposes and uses of American power. From the struggle for independence to the era of renewed competition with China and Russia, he reveals the grand strategies underpinning the nation’s pursuit of sovereignty, security, expansion, and democracy abroad. He shows how successive administrations have projected diplomatic, military, and economic power, and mobilized ideas and information to preserve American freedoms at home and secure US aims abroad. He exposes the myth of American isolationism, the good and ill of America’s quest for democracy overseas, and how too often its administrations have lacked clear political aims or a concrete vision for where they want to go. Understanding this history is vital if America is to relearn how to use its power to meet the challenges ahead and to think more clearly about political aims and grand strategy.

Author Biography

Donald Stoker is Professor of National Security and Resource Strategy at the National Defense University’s Dwight D. Eisenhower School in Washington, DC. He is the author or editor of thirteen books, including The Grand Design: Strategy and the US Civil War, 1861-1865 (2010), winner of the Fletcher Pratt award, and Why America Loses Wars: Limited War and US Strategy from the Korean War to the Present (2022).