Just over 30 years ago, when the Soviet Union collapsed and many in the West celebrated the so-called “end of history,” one American strategist was not jubilant. Richard Nixon, a stalwart practitioner of realpolitik, saw the situation quite differently. His warnings to America’s leaders then bear even more relevance now, as the world he envisioned becomes a harsh reality. Such challenges require the development of a new American grand strategy for the 21st century.
The Richard Nixon Foundation launched the Grand Strategy Summit in 2022, a platform for senior officials in and out of government, business leaders, and media influencers to discuss and debate American foreign policy, develop actionable objectives, and coalesce ideas into a comprehensive grand strategy for the 21st century.
This year’s summit was held on September 25 at the Ritz Carlton in Washington, DC. Across four sessions and two one-on-one interviews, participants discussed strengthening America’s alliances, AI and energy policies, and the state of great power competition in the world.
Panelists did not shy away from domestic problems, either, because — as President Nixon believed and said many times — foreign policy and domestic policy are interrelated; America cannot exert itself as the leader of the free world while juggling myriad (and growing) issues at home with lackluster education, challenges associated with illegal immigration, and crippling inflation.
Ambassador Robert O’Brien — the former and most recent National Security Adviser, who chairs the Nixon Foundation’s board — spoke candidly with me to begin the Summit, listing major issues that should be addressed in any grand strategic framework. He wrote in a recent article in Foreign Affairs that any goal of a 21st century grand strategy should be “Washington’s friends would be more secure and more self-reliant, and its foes would once again fear American power.”
On the subject of dealing with and strengthening alliances, old and new, General Keith Kellogg — the Summit’s lunchtime keynote speaker — was adamant that “America First does not mean isolationism.”
On the subject of Israel, participants encouraged a look back to the Nixon administration’s support of Golda Meir’s government in the Yom Kippur War, namely how strong American support for Israel later deterred Soviet aggression in the Middle East, and opened the path toward peace that resulted in the Camp David Accords of 1978.
Nixon was a student of history and a practiced Cold Warrior, the combination of which gave him a unique ability to look at the global chessboard decades into the future — what he called the “long view” — and predict how peace would eventually be disrupted. Then plan to get ahead of it.
As president, he fashioned a well-coordinated grand strategy to bring “peace not just for our generation, but for future generations” by shoring up alliances with Europe and NATO, deepening relationships with non-communist Asian countries for the first time, and initiating a strategic opening to the People’s Republic of China to counter an aggressive and hostile Soviet Union. This triangulation tilted the global balance of power in America’s favor and, indeed, as one historian wrote, “his 1972 opening to China was the first great crack in the Cold War.”
That balance kept the peace for decades, which is why he saw the collapse of the USSR with such alarm. His warnings about the future power dynamic between the United States, China, and post-Soviet Russia are now coming true.
His Oval Office successors should rededicate themselves to developing strategic frameworks in America’s national interest to plan for tomorrow’s peace.
Jim Byron is President and CEO of the Richard Nixon Foundation. Follow the Nixon Foundation on Instagram, X and Facebook @nixonfoundation.