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What madman would propose adding diesel submarines to the U.S. Navy’s all-nuclear silent service?

There are a few. The topic came up at an early March hearing before the U.S. House Seapower and Force Projection Subcommittee. Representatives from three teams that have compiled competing “Future Fleet Architecture” studies convened to debate their visions with the committee. Published by the Navy Staff itself, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, and the MITRE Corporation, the studies explore everything from overall ship numbers to the types of hulls comprising the future fleet to the mix between manned and unmanned platforms.

Prediction is a perilous endeavour in international politics; world events often make fools of those who claim to foresee them.1 It seems certain, though, that historians will someday view Donald Trump’s presidency as an inflection point in the trajectory of American grand strategy and the US-led international system. To be sure, ‘grand strategic’ may not be the first phrase that comes to mind regarding Trump, whose indiscipline and outbursts, unfamiliarity with key issues and unexpected changes of course have led many observers to conclude that his foreign policy lacks any structure whatsoever.2 Just under a year after Trump’s inauguration, however, it has already become clear that Trump’s presidency is freighted with grand-strategic significance.

Trump is right when he points out that he was dealt a terrible hand in Syria. The Obama administration policy of halfhearted support for the Syrian rebels and wishful diplomacy backed by no leverage led to the situation on the ground today. But Trump must not repeat Barack Obama’s mistakes.

“We have all sorts of cards to play here if we have the wit and wisdom to play them,” said former ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman, the other co-chair

A2/AD is most commonly discussed in relation to China’s efforts to deny America the ability to intervene in any regional conflict or make it so costly that Washington is deterred from doing so. Some observers, including James Holmes, Toshi Yoshihara and Andrew Krepinevich, have argued that the United States and its Asian allies should this strategy around on China. Instead of seeking to maintain command of the sea and air as America has traditionally done, these scholars suggest Washington and its allies could simply seek to deny China the ability to achieve its goals. As Beckley puts it, “Under this strategy, the United States would abandon efforts to command maritime East Asia and, instead, focus on helping China’s neighbors deny China sea and air control in the region.

Buying smaller, relatively cheap new frigates and extending the life of current ships offers the best path to a larger fleet, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and former special assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations.

“If Russia or China or North Korea want to start a fight, putting a defenseless ship like an old Perry-class in there certainly won’t deter them,” Clark said. Having the latest vessels on the front lines with global rivals isn’t just a matter of defense, Clark added, it also deters them.

Liberal advocates of a multilateralist, rules-based, post-sovereign foreign policy have recently been having their noses ground in the grim fact of great power rivalry. Robert Kagan first called attention to renascent great-power politics a decade ago in "End of Dreams, Return of History," with its blunt opening line, "The world has become normal again." In the last few years, the realists - including Henry Kissinger in his 2014 book, "World Order," Hal Brands, and Foreign Policy's own Stephen M. Walt - have had a field day at the expense of idealists who, they said, had persuaded themselves that the end of history had arrived.