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).

List of Figures; Abbreviations; Thinking about grand strategy in peace and war; Part I. From Backwater To Great Power: 1. The fight for sovereignty, 1775-1801; 2. Expansion, sovereignty, and war, 1801-1817; 3. Seeking a continent: expansion, Indian removal, and the Mexican War, 1817-1849; 4. Schism, civil war, and reconstruction, 1849-1877; 5. Conquering a continent: the Indian Wars, 1865-1897; 6. American empire, 1897-1913; Part II. From Great Power to Superpower: 7. Stepping on the global stage, 1913-1921; 8. The interwar interlude, 1921-1939; 9. Moving astride the world: the Second World War, 1939-1945; 10. The hot peace and the Korean War, 1945-1953; 11. The hot peace: the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson years, 1953-1969; 12. The Vietnam War, 1961-1969; 13. Détente and defeat: Nixon, Ford, and Vietnam, 1969-1977; 14. For want of a vision: the Carter years, 1977-1981; 15. Winning the hot peace: Reagan's great power competition, 1981-1990; Part III. The Post Cold War World: 16. The Gulf War, or First Iraq War, 1990-1991; 17. The new world disorder: Bush and Clinton, 1991-2001; 18. Wilsonian revolutionaries: Bush and war, 2001-2009; Part IV. Retreat and Defeat: 19. Retrenchment, engagement, and war: the Obama years, 2009-2017; 20. Retrenchment, engagement, and weakness: Trump and Biden, 2017-2022; Conclusion; Acknowledgements; Notes; Index.