Foundations of Grand Strategy
Assess grand strategic theory and practice in Thucydides and Plutarch.
The purpose of this seminar is to introduce students to the concept of grand strategy—the components of such strategies and the processes to develop them. The seminar will specifically examine American grand strategy. In looking at examples of US strategy—from the Founding to the present day—we will seek to understand why the leaders took the decisions they did, what the benefits and costs of these decisions were, what alternatives they may have had, and how they harnessed the tools at their disposal to achieve the objectives they set.
Jakub Grygiel interviews Kiron Skinner on the Trump Doctrine
Faculty
Jakub J. Grygiel
Jakub Grygiel is an Associate Professor at the Catholic University of America. From 2017–18, he was a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State. His most recent book is Return of the Barbarians: Confronting Non-State Actors from Ancient Rome to the Present.
Jakub J. Grygiel
Jakub Grygiel is an Associate Professor at the Catholic University of America. From 2017–2018, he was a senior advisor to the Secretary of State in the Office of Policy Planning working on European affairs.
Previously, he was a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and on the faculty of SAIS-Johns Hopkins University. He has previously worked as a consultant for the OECD in Paris and the World Bank in Washington.
His most recent book is Return of the Barbarians: Confronting Non-State Actors from Ancient Rome to the Present. He is coauthor of The Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies, and the Crisis of American Power (with A. Wess Mitchell) and also the author of Great Powers and Geopolitical Change. His writings on international relations and security studies have appeared in The American Interest, Journal of Strategic Studies, Orbis, Commentary, Joint Forces Quarterly, Political Science Quarterly, as well as U.S., Swiss, Polish and Italian newspapers. He earned a Ph.D., M.A. and an MPA from Princeton University, and a BSFS Summa Cum Laude from Georgetown University.
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The American Approach
Readings:
- H. Liddell Hart, “Fundamentals of Strategy and Grand Strategy,” Strategy, pp. 319–44, 353–60
- Publius, Federalist 8
- Peter Maslowski, “To the Edge of Greatness: The United States, 1783–1865,” Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox, and Alvin Bernstein, eds., The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 205–41
Discussion Questions:
- What is grand strategy? Is it important to policymakers?
- What are the foundations of a great power? Does it need a vision for itself? Or is material power sufficient?
- What is that vision, if any, in Federalist 8?
Theodore Roosevelt v. Woodrow Wilson
Readings:
- Colin Dueck, Ch. 3, Reluctant Crusaders (Princeton, 2006), pp. 44–81
- Colin Dueck, “Theodore Roosevelt and American Realism,” Orbis, Vol. 61, Issue 4 (2017), pp. 541–60
- Henry Kissinger, Ch. 9, Diplomacy, pp. 218–45
Discussion Questions:
- What was Wilson’s grand strategy? What was the purpose of force for him?
- What was Theodore Roosevelt’s vision?
- If they were different, how did they stem out of the same “foundation”? Or are they fundamentally different and even opposed to each other?
Cold War: Contain or Disengage?
Readings:
- Colin Dueck, Ch. 4, Reluctant Crusaders (Princeton, 2006), pp. 82–113
- X (George Kennan), “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs 25, No. 4 (1947), pp. 566–82
- NSC-68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security (14 April 1950)
Discussion Questions:
- What were the choices for the U.S. after World War II? Does the U.S. have the luxury of choice? Why?
- What were the similarities and the differences between Mr. X and NSC-68?
- What are the goals, the means, and the ways of U.S. grand strategy advocated in NSC-68?
Post-Cold War
Readings:
- Draft Defense Planning Guidance for the Fiscal Years 1994–1999
- Bush National Security Strategy 2002
- Bush Address to Congress, September 20, 2001 (“Bush Doctrine I”)
- Bush Graduation Speech at West Point, June 1, 2002 (“Bush Doctrine II”)
Discussion Questions:
- What is the threat assessment of the post-Cold War era?
- What are the strategic choices? What are the costs for getting them wrong?
- What are the goals, means, and ways of the post-Cold War grand strategy
Obama v. Trump
Readings:
- Obama National Security Strategy 2010
- Trump Speech in Warsaw, July 2017
- Trump National Security Strategy 2017
Discussion Questions:
- What are the differences between the two grand strategies?
- Can the U.S. change the behavior of other states (including rivals)? If so, how? What are the limits of such change?
- Are there alternatives to these two visions?
