A nation must think before it acts.
Can the United States Do Grand Strategy?
Editor’s Note: Walter A. McDougall’s provocative article on grand strategy, first
published in Spring 2010, is well worth rereading. He is Chair of the Board of Advisors at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a former editor of Orbis
Abstract
Two big issues that scholars and strategists need to address are simply: does grand strategy have to be articulated for it to be said to exist at all; and if not, can grand strategy be said to move a nation even when that nation’s fluctuating roster of mostly incompetent leaders are unsure as to why they do anything? My task here is that of a rapporteur and provocateur raising issues on which we may need to reach some consensus.