If the United States fails to adopt an offshore balancing strategy based on multipolarity and military and ideological self-restraint, it probably will, at some point, have to ªght to uphold its primacy, which is a potentially dangerous strategy. Maintaining U.S. hegemony is a game that no longer is worth the candle, especially given that U.S. primacy may already be in the early stages of erosion. Paradoxically, attempting to sustain U.S. primacy may well hasten its end by stimulating more intensive efforts to balance against the United States, thus causing the United States to become imperially overstretched and involving it in unnecessary wars that will reduce its power. Rather than risking these outcomes, the United States should begin to retrench strategically and capitalize on the advantages accruing to insular great powers in multipolar systems. Unilateral offshore balancing, indeed, is America’s next grand strategy.