What is grand strategy?

A grand strategy seeks to harness a state’s power so that it achieves a state’s most pressing political goals; it also establishes a state’s fundamental relationship with other states, identifying enemies and allies, and how to interact with them. Without the linkage between means and ends, the application of military power degenerates into the mindless killing, economic sanctions will only starve innocent civilians, and spreading one’s values may mean one is spreading propaganda — it ceases to frame policy decisions, and instead becomes a cover for the pursuit of organizational or personal goals. There are limitations on grand strategies, and these are incomplete knowledge of cause and effect in understanding and lack of control over key variables in trying to manipulate the course of international events, grand strategy on paper falls short of grand strategy as put into practice due to political and organizational barriers in implementing it, and perceptual and psychological barriers to how accurately policymakers see the world and understand their own motives.

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