The Oxford Handbook of Grand Strategy

A clearly articulated, well-defined, and relatively stable grand strategy is supposed to allow the ship of state to steer a steady course through the roiling seas of global politics. However, the obstacles to formulating and implementing grand strategy are, by all accounts, imposing. The Oxford Handbook of Grand Strategy addresses the conceptual and historical foundations, production, evolution, and future of grand strategy from a wide range of standpoints. The seven constituent sections present and critically examine the history of grand strategy, including beyond the West; six distinct theoretical approaches to the subject; the sources of grand strategy, ranging from geography and technology to domestic politics to individual psychology and culture; the instruments of grand strategy's implementation, from military to economic to covert action; political actors', including non-state actors', grand strategic choices; the debatable merits of grand strategy, relative to alternatives; and the future of grand strategy, in light of challenges ranging from political polarization to technological change to aging populations. The result is a field-defining, interdisciplinary, and comparative text that will be a key resource for years to come.

1 - The Enduring Appeal of Grand Strategy
2 - Grand Strategy: The History of a Concept
3 - Thucydides' Legacy in Grand Strategy
4 - The Clausewitzian Traditions: Die Politik and the Political Purpose of Strategy
5 - Liddell Hart's Impact on the Study of Grand Strategy
6 - Grand Strategy Beyond the West
7 - Rational Analysis of Grand Strategy
8 - Network Theory and Grand Strategy
9 - Making Grand Strategy in Practice
10 - Ideas and Ideology in Grand Strategy
11 - Discourse, Language, and Grand Strategy
12 - Governmentality and Grand Strategy
13 - Material Sources of Grand Strategy
14 - Technological Change and Grand Strategy
15 - The Domestic Sources of Grand Strategy
16 - Economic Interests and Grand Strategy
17 - Civil-Military Relations and Grand Strategy
18 - Individual Psychology and Grand Strategy: Romancing the State
19 - Culture, Identity, and Grand Strategy
20 - Rhetoric, Legitimation, and Grand Strategy
21 - Grand Strategy and Military Power
22 - Diplomacy and Grand Strategy
23 - Grand Strategy and the Tools of Economic Statecraft
24 - Covert Action and Grand Strategy
25 - Intelligence and Grand Strategy
26 - Financing the Grand Strategies of Great and Rising Powers
27 - American Grand Strategies: Untangling the Debates
28 - Strategy on the Upward Slope: The Grand Strategies of Rising States
29 - Grand Strategies of Declining Powers
30 - The Grand Strategies of Small States
31 - The Grand Strategies of Violent Rebel Groups
32 - Grand Strategy and the Challenge of Change
33 - Rethinking Grand Strategic Change: Overhauls versus Adjustments in Grand Strategy
34 - Getting Grand Strategy Right
35 - The Challenge of Evaluating Grand Strategy
36 - Is Grand Strategy an Illusion? Or, the Grandiosity of Grand Strategy
37 - The Limits of Grand Strategy
38 - Alternatives to Grand Strategy
39 - Grand Strategic Thinking in History
40 - Grand Strategy in a Fractured Marketplace of Ideas
41 - Pluralism, Populism, and the Impossibility of Grand Strategy
42 - Grand Strategy Under Nonpolarity
43 - Grand Strategy and Technological Futures
44 - Population Aging and Grand Strategy

Thierry Balzacq is Professor of International Relations at Sciences Po and Professorial Fellow at CERI-Sciences Po where he also serves as the director of graduate studies in International Relations. Balzacq held a Honorary Professorial Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh (2012-2015), where he was also Fellow for “outstanding research” at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. In 2015, Balzacq was awarded a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Diplomacy and International Security. He held a Marie Curie Visiting Chair in the Department of International Politics at the University of Aberystwyth (2017-2019). He has published over a hundred scientific works in English and French, on Security, IR Theory, and Diplomatic Studies. Balzacq also co-edits the “Oxford Studies in Grand Strategy” book series. Ronald R. Krebs is Beverly and Richard Fink Professor in the Liberal Arts and Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. Ron Krebs has been named a Fulbright Senior Scholar to Israel (2012), as well as Scholar of the College of Liberal Arts (2017-2020), and a McKnight Land-Grant Professor (2006-2008) at the University of Minnesota. He has published numerous articles in both scholarly and general-interest journals, magazines, and websites. Prof. Krebs is currently editor-in-chief of the leading scholarly journal Security Studies. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Oxford University Press' Oxford Studies in Grand Strategy and of the Journal of Global Security Studies.