Grand strategy and FPA perspectives: reexamining the “golden era” of American foreign policy

Fabos, Michael David (2026). Grand strategy and FPA perspectives: reexamining the “golden era” of American foreign policy. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

Grand strategy literature often treats the Truman administration’s approach to America’s post-World War II international challenges as a “golden era” for US strategy development. Other scholarship, however, emphasizing the complex and contingent quality of events at the very beginning of the Cold War, has suggested that aspects of this “wise men” portrayal require significant qualification. How are we to reconcile conventional interpretations of the Truman White House as the exemplar of strategy, with others that depict early American Cold War crisis responses as a series of impromptu reactions? This thesis pursues a synthesis of these diverging perspectives, utilizing a blend of grand strategy as a rational enterprise and Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) as an approach to understanding decisionmaking, to advance our understanding of US foreign policy at the start of the Cold War. To achieve this, the early years of the Truman grand strategy case are assessed, and FPA’s poliheuristic theory is used for the first time to analyze US decisionmaking across three critical decision points at the onset of the Cold War (1946-1947): first in Iran, then Turkey, and finally Greece. Drawing on archival research at the Truman Presidential library and a wide range of contemporary accounts and Cold War scholarship, the resulting reappraisal of key events, contextual factors, and policymaking processes serves to qualify in important ways the “grand narrative” account of Truman era strategic thinking. It also argues that the concept of “emergent” strategy provides fresh insights into early American Cold War policy, and it explores the implications for present-day strategy formulation and foreign policy decisionmaking.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):