When setting out a new path, or the next step in the current path, leaders will often make reference to history. “[insert country] has always…” is the line so often parroted. To take one example, Putin’s speech with Tucker Carlson made frequent and incessant references to Russia’s supposed history to justify his invasion of Ukraine. History can provide an educational backdrop for explaining policy decisions. Not only that, but history can regularly inform policy decisions by gaining a better appreciation of what works and what does not. Churchill famously asserted: “Study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft”.
Just last week, BIGA spoke to Professor O’Brien about his reading of history and how it has informed his views on strategy. This week, however, Professor Sjoberg made the suggestion that the notion of history is something to be critical of. But if history is simply there to inform better strategy, why does strategy occasionally warrant the title “Grand?”
Weighing the Scales
The definition of ‘grand strategy’ is heavily dependent on how one defines strategy to begin with. Luttwak sets out that grand strategy is ‘the highest level of strategy’ and is hard to differentiate between the declared or imputed grand strategy of a state (“Chinese grand strategy”); grand strategy as a form of analysis – looking at the ‘totality of what happens between states in peace and in war’ – or the ‘conclusive level of strategy as a whole’. John Lewis Gaddis defines grand strategy ‘as the alignment of potentially unlimited aspirations with necessarily limited capabilities’ with the grandness of the strategy being aligned across time, space and scale. By comparison with these aspirational definitions, O’Brien sets two criteria for grand strategy: the authority making the decision can have no one above them (they must be the decisionmaker), and their decisions must go beyond the parameters of the battlefield.
Professor O’Brien’s reasoning makes sense, but it is not as relevant to the general issue of a compulsion toward grand, sweeping narratives that determines and justifies strategic direction. Nina Silove sheds light on this point. Her argument is that the various uses of the word ‘grand strategy’ fail to agree on a clear definition and usually come under one of three definitions: 1) grand plans, 2) grand behaviours, and 3) grand principles. The first refers to a considered and concerted effort by a series of leaders to steer a country in a certain direction which the second suggests that this happens more naturally as a consequence of a country’s position while the final definition argues that states align their policies to certain principles that provide a direction, but not a recipe, for strategy.
Grand or Grandiose?
The idea of grand strategy has merits. Democratic politics is riddled with ‘short term-ism’ in which policies are generated with only the next election in mind. Strategy pushes beyond that to think in terms of the next decade or three but grand strategy offers meaningful generational interactions. ‘A society grows great when old men plant trees the shade of which they will never enjoy’ so the saying goes. Appreciating your privileges as being inherited, and understanding your position as being borrowed from future generations stimulated by the notion of a vision, strategy, and narrative shared by all three generations is a recipe for thoughtful policy. Instead of sacrificing future prosperity for immediate convenience, grand strategy can encourage the sort of inter-generational collaboration that results in a robust, resilient, inclusive society.
The challenge is that when the definition of grand strategy becomes distorted or misunderstood – when it takes on proportions that are unrelated to thoughtful policy creation – it simply becomes a method for legitimising faulty courses of action. Brexit, for example, is historically consistent with Britain’s place in Europe and the world. It does not, however, appreciate how the world has changed in recent decades and therefore the appeal to a grand British narrative results in a decision that has left the UK increasingly sensitive and vulnerable to the wider world.
Final Thoughts
A grand narrative of a country’s history can be helpful. It creates a national link to those who share our country that we do not meet, as well as to those who have lived and those yet to live in our country. This connection is required for the sort of policymaking and strategising that sees the nurturing of national prospects.
Discussions of grand strategy can often feel like grandiose gesticulating from (predominantly) men whose verbose writings seem to be an attempt at flaunting their intellect. It leads to a confusion about what the highest level of strategy is really aiming to achieve – and what it is able to achieve – so that reckless policies find justification whenever it is convenient. If a decision does not make sense now, then an appeal to history can allay certain worries. We saw such narratives with Brexit and we see such narratives surrounding Trump’s tariffs. Nonetheless, an appreciation of the consistent factors of national policy making throughout history can lead to more thoughtful solutions.
The United Kingdom will remain an island with too few resources to sustain too many people and so it will always need to contend, interact, and compete with the world. Drawing from the wealth of a country’s historical experience to inform the future? It’s a grand idea.