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Grand strategy
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For grand strategy in wargaming, see Grand strategy wargame.
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Grand strategy comprises the "purposeful employment of all instruments of power available to
a security community".[1] Military historian B. H. Liddell Hart says about grand strategy:

[T]he role of grand strategy – higher strategy – is to co-ordinate and direct all the resources of a
nation, or band of nations, towards the attainment of the political object of the war – the goal
defined by fundamental policy.

Grand strategy should both calculate and develop the economic resources and man-power of
nations in order to sustain the fighting services. Also the moral resources – for to foster the
people's willing spirit is often as important as to possess the more concrete forms of power.
Grand strategy, too, should regulate the distribution of power between the several services, and
between the services and industry. Moreover, fighting power is but one of the instruments of
grand strategy – which should take account of and apply the power of financial pressure, and, not
least of ethical pressure, to weaken the opponent's will. ...
Furthermore, while the horizons of strategy is bounded by the war, grand strategy looks beyond
the war to the subsequent peace. It should not only combine the various instruments, but so
regulate their use as to avoid damage to the future state of peace – for its security and prosperity.
[2]

Issues of grand strategy typically include the choice of primary versus secondary theaters in war,
distribution of resources among the various services, the general types of armaments
manufacturing to favor, and which international alliances best suit national goals. Grand strategy
has considerable overlap with foreign policy, but grand strategy focuses primarily on the military
implications of policy, and is typically directed by the political leadership of a country, with
input from the most senior military officials. The development of a nation's grand strategy may
extend across many years or even multiple generations.

Some have extended the concept of grand strategy to describe multi-tiered strategies in general,
including strategic thinking at the level of corporations and political parties.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Historical examples
• 2 See also
• 3 References
o 3.1 Notes

o 3.2 Further reading

[edit] Historical examples

• Anglo-Zulu War

A example of this was the decision of King Cetshwayo and the Zulu Kingdom to attack
the encamped British Army at the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879; this would ensure the
British would take a more aggressive approach to the invasion in future, leading to their
eventual triumph at the Battle of Ulundi.

• World War II

A classic example of modern grand strategy is the decision of the Allies in World War II
to concentrate on the defeat of Germany first. The decision, a joint agreement made after
the attack on Pearl Harbor had drawn the US into the war, was a sensible one in that
Germany was the most powerful member of the Axis, and directly threatened the
existence of the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. Conversely, while Japan's
conquests garnered considerable public attention, they were mostly in colonial areas
deemed less essential by planners and policymakers. The specifics of Allied military
 strategy in the Pacific War was therefore shaped by the lesser resources made available to
the theatre commanders.

• Cold War

A more recent example of grand strategy was the policy of containment used by the US
and the UK during the Cold War.