WANG Hao, YE Chengcheng, “The Two Paths of the Transformation of American Grand Strategy in the Era of Post-Liberal Internationalism”, Pacific Journal, Vol.33, No.3, 2025, pp.26-38.

Abstract:In recent years, the acceleration of the world’s century-old changes, especially the deepening ofgeopolitical competition among major powers, has pushed the U.S. grand strategy to gradually break away fromthe tradition of liberal internationalism after World War II and continue to transform in the direction of real⁃ism. Under this trend, the Trump administration and the Biden administration have given the United Statestwo different transformation paths of grand strategy with principled realism and pragmatic realism respectively.The two transformation paths have different understandings of having the United States to cope with the globalgeopolitical, economic and ideological changes under the background of great power competition, and thenlead to different choices in the main areas of American grand strategy, including the strategy of competition a⁃mong major powers, international economic strategy, alliance strategy, value strategy as well as internationalsystem and global governance strategy. The two paths represent the understandings of the populist politicalforces and the establishment political forces toward the changing situations of the time in the United States.The path of ultimately reshaping the grand strategy of the United States remains to be seen.

Key words:great power competition; the transformation of American grand strategy; Trump; principled re⁃alism; pragmatic realism