Cover image of "On Grand Strategy," a book that suggests grand strategy IS statecraft

The concept of grand strategy is unfamiliar outside military and diplomatic circles. But it’s impossible to understand how wars are won and lost without an appreciation of the concept. John Lewis Gaddis, the author of this book, offers the approach taken by most scholars in the field. To them, grand strategy is above all about statecraft. It encompasses the actions a state takes to ensure internal stability and balance in its relations with other states. Its purpose is to ensure its security at home and abroad and ultimately its survival. In other words, grand strategy, in the establishment view, is not about waging war. War results from a failure of statecraft. To most scholars, grand strategy IS statecraft.

As scholars Williamson Murray and Mark Grimsley explain it, “In contrast to strategy, grand strategy encompasses more than military means (such as diplomatic and economic means); does not equate success with purely military victory but also the pursuit of peacetime goals and prosperity; and considers goals and interests in the long-term rather than short-term.”

Grand strategy from a military perspective

By contrast with this approach, I view grand strategy from a military perspective. And judging from the perspective of that perch, Gaddis ignores the fundamentals: the resource base on which all fighting forces depend—the population that is the source of the soldiers, sailors, and aircrew and their officers; the manufacturing base that can produce the arms and ammunition they need; and the railways, aircraft, and vehicles that will enable them to get where they need to go without delay. And to these fundamental elements we today must add technological capacity, including the ability to wage and win war in cyberspace and the capacity to detect and understand an adversary’s actions and intentions through intelligence-gathering and analysis.

All of which are considerations that lie far outside the bounds of basic military strategy, which involves the deployment of large forces on and off the battlefield, the command-and-control systems that hold them together, and the logistics and supply on which they depend. But Gaddis and other scholars dismiss the distinction between military strategy and grand strategy from a military perspective. He pays scant attention to military matters in this book.

On Grand Strategy by John Lewis Gaddis (2018) 383 pages ★★★☆☆

Artist's conception of Spartan hoplites massed for battle, a scene that launches this book suggesting that grand strategy IS statecraft
Spartan hoplites in formation in the Peloponnesian War between the Athenian Empire and the Peloponnesian League, which was led by Sparta. Professor Gaddis draws many of his examples of the use and misuse of grand strategy from ancient Greece. Image: History Skills

Grand strategy in the context of warfare

In other words, I’ve come to understand grand strategy in the context of warfare, and the author pays little attention to war. It’s true that in the early chapters of this book Gaddis employs examples from the incessant warfare among the ancient Greeks. But even here there is little about the actual fighting. He concentrates on the plans and intentions of the leaders in Athens and Sparta. This ignores an abundance of lessons he might draw from an examination of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE), for example, using the framework of grand strategy as I’ve described it.

Grand strategy in World War II

Consider the following facts as you look at Japan and Germany’s prospects for war with the United States in November 1941:

Facts in 1941USAGermanyJapan
Population133 million 71 million73 million
Steel production83 million tons21 million tons9 million tons
Oil output4.7 million barrels/day3.6 million barrels/year0

Now, if you had been General Hideki Tojo or Adolf Hitler in November 1941, as you contemplated the prospect of war with the United States, what might you have thought had you taken a cold, hard look at the facts in the table above? Had you really taken these numbers to heart, would you have given a green light to the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor or rushed to declare war on the USA five days later, as Adolf Hitler did?

Not if you could have cast off the blinders of ideology. Then you would have understood that, in the long run, you hadn’t a chance of prevailing. Neither nation could possible win a war of attrition against the world’s largest manufacturer. And, in the case of Nazi Germany, which was already five months into an equally ill-considered war against the Soviet Union, you would have realized in an instant that taking on the USA made the whole effort hopeless at the outset. (The USSR bore the brunt of the fighting against Nazi Germany, but its forces depended to a great degree on the US Lend-Lease program. Through that funnel, the Americans supplied them with a continuous stream of tanks, airplanes, trucks, food, and raw materials.)

Could the Axis have pulled it off, anyway?

Well, to be fair, had the three Axis powers coordinated their military efforts, they might well have inflicted considerable damage on the US and thus prolonged the agony. But Japan, Germany, and Italy never did plan or work together. They were allies in name only. And the results from their viewpoint were, of course, dismal. Even working closely together, however, it seems doubtful that they could have prevailed in a war of attrition

Now, THAT is World War II from the perspective of grand strategy as I have come to understand it. I’m unsure how John Lewis Gaddis might view the same question. He might concede the point without acknowledging why it was valid. But I can’t be certain that in doing so he would conclude, as I have, that the entry of the United States into World War II made it impossible for the Axis powers to prevail. Because, to judge from this book, he might have dug deeply into the psyches of the German and Japanese leaders and found . . . what? An abiding belief that their soldiers and sailors were far superior to those of the Allies, and a conviction that Japanese and German generals and admirals possessed a far better grasp of strategy? Well, I have no idea.

About the author

Photo of John Lewis Gaddis, an author who insists grand strategy IS statecraft
John Lewis Gaddis. Image: The Yale Politic

John Lewis Gaddis is 83 years old as I write. In a long and distinguished academic career, he had held teaching posts at the Naval War College, the University of Oxford, and Princeton University, among other educational institutions. But since 1997 his principal academic home has been Yale University. There, he holds an endowed chair in Military and Naval History. Gaddis received his BA, MA, and PhD degrees from the University of Texas at Austin.

Gaddis has written more than a dozen books on history and strategy, receiving the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of George F. Kennan (a master strategist himself) as well as a great many other awards. He is best known as an historian of the Cold War.

I have read little about ancient history other than this excellent novel: The Persian Boy: A Novel of Alexander the Great by Mary Renault (Up close and personal with Alexander the Great). It’s one of the Great war novels.

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