Proportional to the Mischief: International Law and U.S. Grand Strategy

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Please join the Center for Strategic and International Studies on October 26 at 3:30 p.m. ET for a virtual discussion with Ms. Suzanne Spaulding, a senior adviser for the Defense and Security Department at CSIS, and Mr. Nicholas Rostow, the author of Proportional to the Mischief: International Law and U.S. Grand Strategy.   

The end of the Cold War dissolved a long-standing consensus about America’s role in the world, and more than three decades later, no new one has taken its place. Debates over U.S. grand strategy often treat international law as an unwelcome constraint on American power or an afterthought to it. Yet the rule of law has been a core thread of American political culture since the Constitution, and Woodrow Wilson, by helping create the League of Nations and defining international law as part of the vital national interest, became a central figure in America’s encounter with the world. 

In Proportional to the Mischief, Mr. Nicholas Rostow, a diplomatic historian and lawyer drawing on nearly 20 years of experience in the government, bridges the gap between international law and U.S. grand strategy. To do this, the book explains how the international political and legal system operates and the principles on which it rests: what a state is, what sovereignty means, the rights and responsibilities shared by all states, and the workings of the balance of power. An incisive look at law’s essential place in American statecraft, this book considers how the United States can avoid nuclear catastrophe and asks the wider question of how the nation might forge a new consensus on its role in the world. 

This event is made possible through general support to CSIS.