Selective Engagement

As it was stated above, offshore balancing describes a strategy in which United States favor regional powers in order to control the potential rise of hostile powers. Meanwhile, selective engagement advocates that the United States should intervene in regions of the world only if they directly affect its security and prosperity. Professor Robert J. Art stated the term of selective engagement at the e nd of Cold War. As the name says, the concept refers to staying engaged in international relations, but being very selective in the use of force. Different than the C. Laynes restrictive strategy offshore balancing, Robert Arts strategy deploy a larger military force, but significant smaller than the one used in collective security strategy. The selective engagement strategy shifts from military intervention to coercive diplomacy. If the case, the selective engagement strategy will discourage by having enough force to defend the national territory and interests, and, at the same time, being a nuclear deterrent, will have a conventional well equipped and trained force, capable to fight and win a military threat. The key feature is that even if US troops can be deployed anywhere in the world in order to fight and win, according to selective engagement, the US will have the flexibility choose in which conflicts will engage. According to Robert J. Art, selective engagement promotes six of the most important Americas foreign interests, and argues that the power projection must be made both thru military and economic power, neither one of them being enough on its own. Selective engagement is a precautionary strategy that ensures shaping events, and not reacting to them, since it is less expensive to prevent adverse situations that to deal with them. Secondly, partnership strategy is part of selective engagement because US needs military bases around the world, from which it can exert its power. Third, the most important regions for this strategy are Europe and Asia, since there are state powers with significant industrial and military potential. Also, the strategy should take into consideration the Middle East region as the primary source of oil for the

industrialized world. Fourth, unlike offshore balancing that promotes pragmatic alliances specific to every US interest, selective engagement promotes only two major alliances NATO and US Japan since these ensures the access to overseas military facilities in order to maintain regional stability in the three regions of interest for US: Europe, Asia and Middle East. The fifth promotes the idea of selective use of force if war cant be avoided, in terms of costs, risks and benefits. And, the last is the idea that the world still needs the US leadership in order to find solutions to collective problems. Robert Art concludes that selective engagement finds a compromise between the realist goals minimizing the spread of WMD and terrorism, secure access to oil supplies and maintaining the world peace and the liberal goals spreading democracy, human rights and free trade.

1.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/d-robert-worley/the-foreign-policydebate_1_b_2004032.html Robert J. Art 1 .A grand strategy for America a century foundation book , Cornell University press,2003 2. Selective engagement in the era of austerity , America s path grand strategy for the next administration , may 201 3. "Geopolitics Updated: The Strategy of Selective Engagement". International Security 23 (3): 80. Retrieved 9 May
2013.