The purpose of this book is to provide a framework that helps guide scholars and policy makers as they articulate and implement a grand strategy. A coherent grand strategy that plays a fundamental role in guiding the state’s foreign and domestic policies is key in both times of peace and war because only it provides the broad sense of direction, clarity, and vision that policy makers operating at the highest levels of government need as they make difficult and consequential decisions. Fundamentally, grand strategy describes a broad consensus on the state’s goals and the means by which to put them into practice.

This book has explored analytically the evolution of grand strategy and used a number of historical case studies to understand the practice of grand strategy. In so doing, it has examined grand strategies pursued by various states and empires, some of which have been highly successful, and others less so. Whereas many studies of grand strategy have a discrete historical focus, this book also examines grand strategy in analytic terms by using a breadth of case studies. By covering the evolving nature of grand strategy from ancient Greece and China and throughout American history to the present administration, this study deliberately seeks to examine the crucial patterns and themes that have shaped the historical evolution and implementation of grand strategy.