ABSTRACT
Unless otherwise indicated, the abundant references to strategy in this book refer to military strategy. There are two reasons for this. First, the master narrative, the plot line, is about the role and consequences of force. Second, if military strategy is allowed to merge into grand strategy, the logic and perspective of strategic history can be lost, or at least weakened. The unique perspective that a (military) strategic historical narrative and analysis can provide would all but disappear. Grand-strategic history is unquestionably indistinguishable from history. Similarly, grand strategy is synonymous with the oldfashioned but still useful term ‘statecraft’.
