Includes bibliographical references and index.

Machine generated contents note: Strategic success considered -- Missed opportunities and uncertain prospects -- The quiet crisis: presidents and strategy in recent decades -- Voters, presidents, and the future of US strategy -- The management of predictable failure -- Conclusion -- 1.Beyond all expectations: the American rise to preeminence -- Surviving: independence and state-building -- Thriving: the early expansion of the republic -- Slavery, territorial consolidation, and external conquest -- A near-death experience: the Civil War -- Holding fire: American reluctance to join the great powers -- Titan: the new world arbiter of European politics -- Conclusion -- 2.Victory disease: Cold War triumph and its aftermath -- The Soviet challenge: the United States as protecting power -- Erratic quality: the Cold War presidents and containment -- Misadventures: Washington's Cold War errors considered -- Plinking rats: an unimpressive hegemony -- Conclusion -- 3.The slow drift: power without strategic clarity -- History, again: the return of great power military competition -- A too-narrow focus: the global war on terrorism in context -- Risky inertia: the fixation on counterterrorism -- Conclusion: crafting a grand strategy for a multipolar world -- 4.The decider: the importance of presidential greatness -- Term-limited emperors: the presidency and foreign policy -- For good or ill: the presidency and American strategic culture -- Failure within the policy elite: the NSS example -- Warlords: presidents as military leaders -- Warning the warlord: public criticism as counsel -- Conclusion -- 5.Feet of clay: making inadequate strategists and war leaders -- Shutting the school: the decline of strategic education -- A shallow pool: the strategic knowledge of potential presidents -- Conclusion: the wrong questions -- 6.Lost wars, bleak peace: the tragedy of presidential weakness -- Repeating errors: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond -- Leveraging Mars: the uses and limits of military power -- The flight from reality: threats, diplomacy, and strategic circularity -- No longer alone: America in a world great power competition -- Tyranny's rewards: America's great power competitors -- Conclusion.