Grand strategy is an amorphous concept, more often employed casually than rigorously defined. Its many definitions are frequently at odds with one another, sometimes being actually mutually exclusive. Grand strategy as a collection of contradictory concepts thereby, when used in learned debate, produces greater heat than light. Further, understanding within the academic disciplines of strategic I studies and international relations of the history of grand strategic thought is largely incomplete and actually mythologized. This mythology is premised upon one, or sometimes two, iconic theorists of grand strategy, ignoring the rest of the historical development of grand strategic thought. This historical work aims to illuminate the full evolution of grand strategic thought in the English language. It mixes semiological/semantic and onomasiological/thematic modes of inquiry to underscore not only how the term itself evolved in a myriad of different ways as geopolitical and geostrategic contexts changed, but also the effects of other ideas within strategic studies upon the shaping of grand strategic thought. Semantically, it traces the evolution and creation of ideas of grand strategy from the term's introduction into the English language in 1805 to the present day. Thematically, it examines how other concerns impacted the development of new concepts of grand strategy by invading grand strategy's conceptual space or by changing the strategic theoretic landscape within which those new concepts of grand strategy were conceived. Thus maritime strategy propelled grand strategy to embrace non-military instruments, and nuclear strategy elevated it into the realms of statecraft or policy. Grand strategy has always been sensitive to its context. Grand strategy as a concept has continually expanded. The thesis concludes by reflecting theoretically upon what the history of grand strategic thought may tell scholars, including ruminations concerning whether grand strategy is even a term worth retaining in the strategic lexicon.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:654728 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Milevski, Lukas |
| Publisher | University of Reading |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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