14 Facts About Grand strategy

Grand strategy or high strategy is a state's strategy of how means can be used to advance and achieve national interests.

Issues of grand strategy typically include the choice of primary versus secondary theaters in war, distribution of resources among the various services, the general types of armaments manufacturing to favor, and which international alliances best suit national goals.

Concept of grand strategy has been extended to describe multi-tiered strategies in general, including strategic thinking at the level of corporations and political parties.

In business, a grand strategy is a general term for a broad statement of strategic action.

Furthermore, while the horizons of strategy is bounded by the war, grand strategy looks beyond the war to the subsequent peace.

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One of the earlier writings on grand strategy comes from Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War, an account of the war between the Peloponnesian League and the Delian League.

Grand strategy thus deprived of help the people who were harassed by the barbarians and burdened tranquil cities with the pest of the military, so that several straightway were deserted.

An example of modern grand strategy is the decision of the Allies in World War II to concentrate on the defeat of Germany first.

In more practical terms, the authors discuss how the implementation of a so-called "neo-isolationist" grand strategy would involve less focus on the issue of nuclear proliferation, withdrawal from NATO, and major cuts to the United States military presence abroad.

Additionally, selective engagement is the best Grand strategy for achieving both realist goals—preventing WMD terrorism, maintaining great power peace, and securing the supply of oil; and liberal goals—preserving free trade, spreading democracy, observing human rights, and minimizing the impact of climate change.

Authors imagine that such a grand strategy would involve stronger support for international institutions, agreements, and the frequent use of force for humanitarian purposes.

Implementation of such a Grand strategy would entail military forces at similar levels to those during the Cold War, with emphasis on military modernization and research and development.

Barry Posen, director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, believes the activist US foreign policy that continues to define US Grand strategy in the twenty-first century is an "undisciplined, expensive, and bloody Grand strategy" that has done more harm than good to US national security.

Selective engagement is a Grand strategy that sits in between primacy and isolationism and, given growing multipolarity and American fiscal precariousness, should be taken seriously.