Introduction : recurring debates in American grand strategy -- Finding a place on the world stage : from Roosevelt to Roosevelt -- The debates raised by containment in the Truman administration -- Debating the implementation of containment : Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson -- Beyond containment? : Nixon, Ford, and Carter -- The culmination of containment : Reagan's grand strategy and the end of the Cold War -- Grand strategy in the absence of a clear threat : the foreign policy debates of the 1990s -- The rise and fall of the war on terror in U.S. grand strategy -- Don't do stupid stuff : grand strategy debates under Obama -- Conclusion : balancing the pendulum? : the past and the future of U.S. grand strategy.