Foundations of Grand Strategy
Assess grand strategic theory and practice in Thucydides and Plutarch.
Are allies costly or beneficial to a great power? Do they enhance its security or drag it into peripheral and unnecessary wars? What are the advantages and risks of a maritime power? Does a sea power need allies more than a land power? How should it compete with a continental rival? What is the impact of a prolonged conflict on an already fragile social order of a polity? These questions characterize our current debates on U.S. strategy, but they are not new. More than two thousand years ago, Thucydides described with great lucidity the strategic challenges facing a maritime great power, Athens – and they are remarkably relevant to today’s U.S. security dilemmas and strategic choices.
The course will focus on Thucydides’s masterpiece, The Peloponnesian War, and examine a series of strategic challenges, and responses to them. During the weeklong seminar, students will read extended excerpts from Thucydides, focusing on key speeches and moments in the conflict. The course requires careful reading of the text but is not a history class. Rather, by placing themselves in the position of the Thucydidean characters, students will discuss recurrent principles of strategy and the dilemmas facing leaders.
Image: “Slab of the Amazonomachy frieze” by Carole Radato | Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0
Jakub Grygiel on the geopolitics of Europe
Faculty
Jakub Grygiel
Jakub Grygiel is an Associate Professor at the Catholic University of America. From 2017–18, he was a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State. His most recent book is Return of the Barbarians: Confronting Non-State Actors from Ancient Rome to the Present.
Jakub J. Grygiel
Jakub Grygiel is an Associate Professor at the Catholic University of America. From 2017–2018, he was a senior advisor to the Secretary of State in the Office of Policy Planning working on European affairs.
Previously, he was a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and on the faculty of SAIS-Johns Hopkins University. He has previously worked as a consultant for the OECD in Paris and the World Bank in Washington.
His most recent book is Return of the Barbarians: Confronting Non-State Actors from Ancient Rome to the Present. He is coauthor of The Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies, and the Crisis of American Power (with A. Wess Mitchell) and also the author of Great Powers and Geopolitical Change. His writings on international relations and security studies have appeared in The American Interest, Journal of Strategic Studies, Orbis, Commentary, Joint Forces Quarterly, Political Science Quarterly, as well as U.S., Swiss, Polish and Italian newspapers. He earned a Ph.D., M.A. and an MPA from Princeton University, and a BSFS Summa Cum Laude from Georgetown University.
Download the Full Syllabus
Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session
Session 1: How to Assess the Enemy
Readings:
Discussion Questions:
- Geopolitical rivalries begin and continue with an assessment of the enemy: how to know the rival?
- What are the consequences of a poor assessment?
Session 2: The Role of Alliances
Readings:
Discussion Questions:
- Great powers fear “entrapment” (being dragged into small and peripheral wars by their allies) while their allies fear “abandonment” (being left alone by their distant security patron). How can these fears be mitigated? Do they reflect the reality of international politics?
- What is the importance of allies for the U.S.?
Session 3: Land Power vs. Sea Power
Readings:
Discussion Questions:
- The Peloponnesian War was a conflict between a sea power (Athens) and a land power (Sparta). What are the features of such a conflict? What are the differences in how they conduct war?
- How did the strategy of Archidamus differ from that of Pericles?
- What strategy should the U.S. pursue against its continental rivals (China, Iran, Russia)?
Session 4: The Role of Domestic Cohesion and the Rise of Demagogues
Readings:
Discussion Questions:
- States are fragile. Factions are powerful while social cohesion can collapse unexpectedly. What are the sources of weakness and strength?
- How does internal cohesion (or lack thereof) affect foreign policy?
- What is the appeal of demagogues?
Session 5: Are Distant Expeditions Always Doomed?
Readings:
Discussion Questions:
- Pericles warned against ambitious power projections. The Athenians went to Sicily and failed miserably. Are distant expeditions doomed? Was it a strategic blunder – or a strategic bold move but executed poorly?
