Strategy and Grand Strategy by Joshua Rovner

Strategy and Grand Strategy by Joshua Rovner

Wartime leaders should understand the link between violent means and political ends. They should also have a sense of how strategic decisions will affect the post-war peace. Yet they often fail to make these connections. Mistaking strategy for grand strategy, or misunderstanding the relationship between them, can frustrate soldiers and statesmen alike. Sometimes it can lead to national ruin. In this Adelphi book, Joshua Rovner offers a lucid analysis of strategy (a theory of victory) and grand strategy (a theory of security). He demonstrates vividly how these concepts interact in case studies from antiquity to the present, and he describes the implications for war and peace at a time of extraordinary technological change. Rovner’s work will prove indispensable to policymakers, scholars and anyone seeking to grasp these essential but often misunderstood concepts.

‘Joshua Rovner is one of the most creative strategic studies scholars of his generationAnyone interested in the theory and practice of strategy and grand strategy should read his new book.’

Hal Brands, Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

‘Joshua Rovner provides an extremely useful and enlightening distinction between grand strategy and strategy. It helps us understand how in wars and conflicts, past and present, the absence of an alignment between the two breeds disaster.’

Professor Beatrice Heuser, Head of Strategy Teaching, General Staff Academy of the Bundeswehr

‘This brilliant book finally clears up the widespread conceptual confusion surrounding the terms “strategy” and “grand strategy”. In a way only Joshua Rovner can deliver, the book is analytically sharp, historically illuminating, and well worth your time as we enter a new era of great power competition.’

Vipin Narang, Frank Stanton Professor of Nuclear Security, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; former Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy (US)

‘In this instructive, historically-informed analysis, Joshua Rovner probes the sometimes surprising relationship between ‘grand strategy’ – a state’s political-military theory of security – and ‘strategy’ – effectively a state’s military theory about how it might achieve victory in its wars. In a set of engagingly written cases, Rovner shows how this relationship has often proved elusive, and how ignoring it has frequently proved self-destructive.’

Barry Posen, Ford International Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

‘Joshua Rovner’s sharply observed and lucidly argued book is a plea for greater intellectual clarity and self-awareness in Western foreign policy. In today’s era, the differences between conventional military strategy and the whole of society effort that is grand strategy need to be properly understood.’

John Bew, Defence and Security Advisor to the Prime Minister (UK) and Professor of History and Foreign Policy, Kings College London

‘Grand strategy and strategy are routinely confused, if not conflated. Exploring both classical and contemporary examples, Strategy and Grand Strategy is one of the rare books that carefully untangles the two concepts and asks hard questions about the consequences when leaders mistake them for each other.’

Thierry Balzacq, Professor of International Relations and Professorial Fellow, Sciences Po

'Spanning two thousand years of history, Joshua Rovner's new work delineates the often-confused concepts of strategy and grand strategy and substantially advances our understanding of both. This is an important book.'

Michael C. Horowitz, Richard Perry Professor, University of Pennsylvania; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Development and Emerging Capabilities (US)

Joshua Rovner is an Associate Professor of International Relations in the School of International Service at American University. He previously served as the John Goodwin Tower Distinguished Chair in International Politics and National Security at SMU, and as a professor of strategy and policy at the US Naval War College. In 2018–19 he served as scholar-in-residence at the National Security Agency and US Cyber Command. Rovner is the author of Fixing the Facts: National Security and the Politics of Intelligence (Cornell University Press, 2011), and the co-editor of Chaos in the Liberal Order: The Trump Presidency and International Politics in the 21st Century (Columbia University Press, 2018) and Chaos Reconsidered: The Liberal Order and the Future of International Politics (Columbia University Press, 2023).