With the rise in interstate violence and the return of great power competition, grand strategy is understandably back in fashion. However, the popular usage of the concept—both in policy circles and academia—unfortunately attributes wildly different meanings, creating a conceptual muddle. A similar fate awaits the cousin concept of strategy, which is frequently invoked without precision.
Joshua Rovner’s Adelphi Series book does an admirable job of bringing clarity to both concepts and their interlinkage. Grand strategy is defined as a state’s peacetime theory of security and strategy as its theory of victory in a war. Strategy concerns the use of force to attain political objectives in a war. Grand strategy involves the coordinated use of multiple instruments of national power to ensure security. Rovner draws on a series of historical case studies, rooted in the Western context, to empirically flesh out their distinction and counterintuitive connections. In this framework, battlefield victory may prove disastrous for a state’s grand strategic pursuit. Military defeat, on the other hand, could prompt a course correction, allowing for long-term security gains.
The wartime and peacetime distinction must be treated cautiously, though. In cases of total war, for example, battlefield success often requires a reconfiguration of the industrial base and societal mobilisation—thereby bringing non-military elements into the strategy’s domain. It is also inconceivable that foreign policy executives would not shape military campaigns according to grand strategic considerations. Conversely, peacetime military planning—such as weapons acquisition, military exercises, doctrine development, and alliance interoperability—feeds into theories of victory for future conflicts. Hence, the distinction is best viewed as an analytical device rather than an accurate description of reality.
Rovner’s historically grounded assessment of new technologies and their impact on warfare and security is particularly revealing. He identifies a recurring pattern: the onset of new technology generates hope for decisive advantage, followed by fear of being outpaced, and eventually, a resigned acceptance as political and practical realities moderate its impact.
While this hope-fear-resignation cycle appears to caution against techno-optimism, military decisions motivated by hope or fear are actually critical for eventually reaching the equilibrium of modest but realistic advantages. The final equilibrium of modest impact is realised, in part, due to states indulging in arms races in the hope of gaining a decisive advantage or devising effective countermeasures out of the fear of losing.
The current context of high-stakes geopolitical competition makes Rovner’s pedagogical task using historical cases even more valuable. Consequently, Strategy and Grand Strategy is a timely and much-needed contribution to both security and strategic studies literature.