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Centre for Grand Strategy

In recent times, much has been written about “the return of history”, “end of dreams” and “revenge of geography” in international affairs.  The aim of Grand Strategy is to secure the long-term security, peace and prosperity of a nation in the face of such uncertainties. Grand Strategy might also be called “big picture” or “long-term” thinking, but it is unique for its emphasis on the importance of bringing history into those calculations.

The Centre for Grand Strategy at King's College London seeks to bring a greater degree of historical and strategic expertise to statecraft, diplomacy and foreign policy. Through a series of research projects, external engagement activities and a number of undergraduate and executive education teaching programmes, the Centre focuses on “knowledge transfer”: bringing top-class academic expertise to bear on the policy-making process and the public debate about foreign policy.

The Centre has four core aims:

  • To create a world-class Centre of Excellence for the study and practice of Grand Strategy
  • To build a Transatlantic Research Agenda on matters relating to national security
  • To restore a greater understanding of History, Strategy and Statecraft in an increasingly competitive and unpredictable international environment
  • To undertake a long-term Educational Mission to better equip the next generation of leaders in the fields of security, diplomacy, and business

Listen to Prof. John Bew outline the programme for Grand Strategy at King's.

What is Grand Strategy?

The core emphasis of Grand Strategy is to secure the long-term security, peace and prosperity of a nation. It is used as short-hand to denote the need for coherent thinking for long-term objectives. Increasingly, it has been used to describe multi-layered strategies at the levels of business or government, and has a broader application than simply to a nation’s foreign policy. Grand Strategy might also be called ‘big picture’ or ‘long-term’ thinking, but it is unique for its emphasis on the importance of history in informing such thinking.

According to the British military historian, Basil Liddell Hart - whose archives is housed at King's College London - ‘The 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 … the goal defined by fundamental policy.’ It is no coincidence that the notion of Grand Strategy crystallised at the time of the Second World War. However, as Liddell Hart made clear at the time, its significance is much broader than that, and includes the ‘civilian’ ‘economic’ and ‘moral’ resources of the nation.

The study of Grand Strategy has undergone a resurgence in recent times. Yet the Department of War Studies at King’s has been a hub of Grand Strategic thinking for many years. The work of this Centre goes right to the heart of the original ethos of the department, and aims to bring the study of Grand Strategy back to its spiritual home.

The Core Team

Professor John Bew, Co-Director

Dr. Maeve Ryan, Co-Director

Dr; Charlie Laderman, Lecturer in International History

Dr. Jessica Carden, Head of Operations 

PhD Students

Martina Bernardini (Leverhulme Fellow)

Hillary Briffa

Adam Day (Leverhulme Fellow)

Axel Dessein (Leverhulme Fellow)

Andrew Ehrhardt

Francesca Ghiretti (Leverhulme Fellow)

Nick Kaderbhai (Leverhulme Fellow)

Alexis Herrera Moreno

Claire Reynolds (Leverhulme Fellow)

William Reynolds (Leverhulme Fellow)

Oliver Yule-Smith (Leverhulme Fellow)

Affiliated Faculty

Professor David Betz

Dr. James Cameron

Dr. Rudra Chaudhuri

Dr. Flavia Gasbarri

Professor David Martin Jones

Professor Andrew Lambert

Dr. Nicola Leveringhaus

Dr. Shiraz Maher

Professor William Philpott

Professor Michael Rainsborough

Dr. John Stone

Dr. Barbara Zanchetta

Affiliated Researchers

Dr. Lauren Dickey

Matthew Hefler

Dr. Rob Geist Pinfold

James W.E. Smith

 

 

 

 

Members

Martina Bernardini

Martina Bernardini

PhD Candidate in the Department of War Studies

David J Betz

David J Betz

Professor of War in the Modern World

John Bew

John Bew

Professor in History and Foreign Policy

Hillary Briffa

Hillary Briffa

Teaching fellow

James Cameron

James Cameron

Research Associate

Rudra Chaudhuri

Rudra Chaudhuri

Senior Lecturer

Adam Day

Associate Fellow at Conflict, Security and Development Research Group

Axel Dessein

PhD Candidate in the Department of War Studies

Lauren Dickey

Phd Student

Andrew Ehrhardt

Andrew Ehrhardt

PhD Candidate in the Department of War Studies

Flavia Gasbarri

Flavia Gasbarri

Lecturer in War Studies Education

Rob Geist Pinfold

Rob Geist Pinfold

Visiting Research Fellow

Francesca Ghiretti

Francesca Ghiretti

PhD Candidate

Matthew Hefler

PhD student

Alexis Herrera

Alexis Herrera

PhD Candidate

David Jones

Visiting Professor

Nick Kaderbhai

PhD Candidate

Charlie Laderman

Charlie Laderman

Lecturer in International History

Andrew Lambert

Andrew Lambert

Laughton Professor of Naval History

Nicola Leveringhaus

Lecturer in War Studies (East Asian Security and International Relations)

Shiraz Maher

Lecturer in Non State Actors, Director of International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation

William Philpott

Professor of the History of Warfare

Michael Rainsborough

Michael Rainsborough

Professor of Strategic Theory

William Reynolds

William Reynolds

PhD candidate in the Department of War Studies

Maeve Ryan

Maeve Ryan

Lecturer in History and Grand Strategy

Malin Severin

Malin Severin

PhD Candidate in the Department of War Studies

James W.E Smith

PhD Candidate

John Stone

Senior Lecturer in War Studies

Maximilian Terhalle

Maximilian Terhalle

Visiting Senior Research Fellow

Oliver Yule-Smith

Oliver Yule-Smith

PhD Candidate in the Department of War Studies

Barbara Zanchetta

Barbara Zanchetta

Lecturer in Diplomacy and Foreign Policy

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Engelsberg Applied History Programme

The Engelsberg Programme for Applied History, Grand Strategy and Geopolitics was launched in October 2018. It represents a unique partnership between the Centre for Grand Strategy at the War Studies Department at King’s College London and the Forum on Geopolitics at Cambridge University. The programme is funded by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation. Professor John Bew, Professor Brendan Simms and Dr Mattias Hessérus sit on the board of the programme. The academic year 2018-9 is being used to launch a bespoke version of the Applied History project in the UK: the Engelsberg Programme for Applied History, Grand Strategy and Geopolitics (in the abbreviated form of the Engelsberg Applied History Programme, or EAHP). It will see the Centre for Grand Strategy and the Cambridge Forum for Geopolitics collaborate on a shared programme of seminars, public lectures and conferences, the creation of a new research agenda and the building of connections with the policy-making world. Long-term, those involved in the EAHP hope to make a major contribution to the creation of a virtual Faculty of Applied History, collaborating with like-minded institutions in the United States and elsewhere. Visit the EAHP website at www.eahp.info

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World Order Study Group

The World Order Study Group looks at questions of international order, past and present. It takes inspiration from previous study groups on world order such as that formed at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1940 or the 1965 conference on the Conditions of World Order that took place in Bellagio, Italy, at the height of the Cold War. These looked at fundamental first order questions such as the structural, ethical and ideological foundations of the current world order, while exploring how they might change in the future. They also brought in leading intellectuals of the day to turn their minds to questions that were of profound importance to foreign policy. The Engelsberg World Order Study Group aims to broaden the discussion to bring a far wider variety of perspectives than previous world order study groups, in order to reflect the changing balance of power in world affairs. It is composed of a reading group, regular seminar and a public lecture series and is working towards a major conference in 2020. Scholars are asked to test new ideas and have them challenged and tested by their peers.

History

'The Origins and Future of World Order' (supported by the Leverhulme Trust)

This major research project on the concept of 'World Order' explores the origins of the notion of 'world order' and charts its development over the last two hundred years. As A.J.P. Taylor wrote in The Italian Problem in European Diplomacy, national foreign policies are often 'based upon a series of assumptions, with which statesmen have lived since their earliest years and which they regard as so axiomatic as hardly to be worth stating.’ The role of the scholar is to 'clarify these assumptions and to trace their influence upon the course of every-day policy.' The notion of World Order has been central to Western (and, in particular, Anglo-American conceptions) of international affairs for much of the last two centuries. Underlying this is the assumption that this is something that serves the general good. Yet interpretations of World Order are also bound up with the ideological, cultural and strategic presuppositions of nineteenth-century Britain, and twentieth- century America – as the two dominant powers of the modern era. The comparatively smooth transferal of power between Britain and the United States in the early 20th century has seen the preservation of ideas and assumptions which might otherwise have been subject to more scrutiny and challenge. Alternative visions of the global international system have emerged in this time, though it is worth noting that these (in the form of Nazism and Communism, for example) have often been set explicitly against the Anglo-American model. Through this historical lens, the project asks what, if anything, is left of Anglo-American conceptions of World Order that is pertinent to the changing international environment of the twenty-first century. Mark Mazower’s Governing the World: The History of an Idea (2012) raised important questions about the limits of western internationalism. This project also examines countervailing ‘map images’ of world politics which exist in other nations, including the rising powers of India, China and Brazil, and the changing role of America in the world. It also asks whether it is possible to have a global grand strategy at all in an era in which secularisation and changes in political identity have diluted a shared sense of national purpose.

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Britain in the World

In 2016, John Bew was approached by the think tank Policy Exchange to lead a commission on “Britain in the world”. This was launched in March 2016 by the Defence Secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, who praised John’s academic leadership in organising the project. The idea behind it is to bring more scholarly expertise into the heart of Westminster, to improve the standard of discussion about British defence and foreign policy against the backdrop of a changing international environment, and the stress the need for more “grand strategic” thinking at the highest levels of government. On 26 January 2017, the project released its second major report entitled "The Cost of Doing Nothing." Based on work begun by Jo Cox MP (1974-2016), the report was co-authored by Tom Tugendhat MP, Alison McGovern MP and John Bew and was endorsed by the Prime Minister. It examines the history of British intervention dating back to the Greek War of Independence (1820 - 1830) and argues that since then, intervention has been a key aspect of British foreign and national security policy. It says that while the recent lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan must be learned, the UK must "steer a middle path between the excesses of military interventionism of the 9/11 era, and an unthinking anti-interventionist reflex." The full report can be accessed here. In July 2016, the project released its first report entitled "Making Sense of British Foreign Policy After Brexit." Co-authors John Bew and Gabriel Elefteriu of Policy Exchange argued that a post-Brexit United Kingdom must ignore the narrative of decline in Britain’s influence on the world stage that has been building up in recent years. The government must work to reverse the idea that Brexit equals isolationism and swiftly and decisively reset the UK’s relations with key allies, especially the United States, Germany and a number of other EU member states, particularly those in the East. The full report can be accessed here.

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The British Empire and the Geopolitics of Human Rights in the Nineteenth Century

This project explores a crucial new perspective on the history of British humanitarianism and intervention, exploring how nineteenth-century consuls and commissioners promoted free-labour ideologies within the territories of rival powers and the informal empire, how they influenced rights discourses, contributed to a British humanitarian-imperial self-image, and impacted great-power relations. This work seeks to contextualise the 1904 British report into abuses in the Congo Free State within a wider pattern of engagement from the 1830s, and explores how middle-ranking actors began exerting ideological influence and shaping the geopolitics of anti-slavery decades before the Berlin and Brussels conferences of the 1880s.

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Ceasefires

Project lead: Rudra Chaudhuri British Academy UK International Challenges: ‘Ceasefire violations and the Line of Control’ This project set-out to create the first publicly available dataset on and around ceasefire incidents and ‘violations’ across the Line of Control and across Indian and Pakistani administered Kashmir. Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy Fund: ‘Approaching Ceasefires’ This project surveys material (both in scholarship and in government in India, Pakistan, the US and the UK) to create a methodologically tested approach to studying and mapping ceasefire incidents and even ‘violations’ across the Line of Control across Indian and Pakistani administered Kashmir.

Afghanistan

Diplomatic Stakeholder Project

Project lead: Rudra Chaudhuri This project is funded by the FCO, the War Studies department hosted seven stakeholder meetings with representatives from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the UK and the US between 2008 and 2014. The main aim was to debate and discuss matters of regional concern and specifically, the merits and pitfalls of talks with the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan.

See Projects tab for more detail of CGS publications.

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Summer school: 'Maymester' Programme

In coordination with the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin, the Centre for Grand Strategy hosts an annual international summer school for undergraduate students from the University of Texas. The subject of the course is “Grand Strategy and the Anglo-American Strategic Tradition”. Students spend over four weeks in London studying Anglo-American strategic tradition and visiting important landmarks both in British cultural history and in the Anglo-American special relationship. Over the course of 14 three-hour classes, students attend lectures by academic experts and former senior policymakers including Sir Lawrence Freedman, Sir David Omand, Andrew Roberts and Lord David Trimble, among others.

SSS main Changing Face of the United Nations

British Foreign Office Officials and the Development of the United Nations, 1942-1945

Project lead: Andrew Ehrhardt This PhD thesis examines the ideas and work of key officials behind the development and implementation of the Foreign Office plans for a postwar international organization in the period 1942-1945. The study focuses on three men in particular— Alexander Cadogan, Gladwyn Jebb and Charles Webster. It will argue that they were the most influential figures working on the United Nations planning and development in the Foreign Office during the Second World War. First, the work will examine how their intellectual backgrounds and professional experiences influenced their conceptions and advocacy of a postwar international organization. The second half of the thesis will examine their wartime work, specifically how they went about designing and then implementing these plans with their British colleagues and American and Soviet counterparts. In analyzing these officials’ influence during the planning stages, the thesis will serve as a comprehensive scholarship on the Foreign Office’s planning operations, and in doing so, it will underscore the indispensable role that the United Kingdom played in establishing the United Nations.

International strategy

Can small states have a grand strategy?

Project lead: Hillary Briffa Traditionally, Grand Strategy has persistently been attributed to hegemonic power struggles between core ‘major’ power players. Moving beyond traditional, reductive superpower restrictions, one queries: how do small states expand and secure their own long-term national interest? Is it possible for small states to have a grand strategy and if so, does it merit concern? The conventional wisdom in international relations theory is that small states scarcely have autonomy in their choice of action, and that accommodation and compliance with great powers is the persistent pattern of their strategy in return for survival. Taking issue with this understanding, this PhD thesis will look at various historical and contemporary case studies to develop understanding of small state viability, leadership, grand strategies in times of war and peace, strategic foresight as the ‘new’ grand strategy, case studies of neutrality and economic grand strategies, and the necessity for nations of any size to become system stewards in a world of decentralization and increased complexity. Combined, the role that these elements play in generating and shaping understanding of the challenges and potential of formulating and implementing a grand strategy will be determined.

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British Grand Strategy and National Identity in the Early 20th Century

This PhD thesis will investigate the intellectual origins of British grand strategy, with a particular emphasis on the effect of national identity on how Britain understood its place and role in the world. The research will focus on the twenty-year period from 1931, where Labour were decimated in the general election, to 1951, the final year of Clement Attlee’s premiership. While being wary of drawing direct historical comparisons, establishing the intellectual architecture of British grand strategy during this period could allow for a better understanding of the current flux in British politics today.

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The road not taken, the road ahead: Mexico’s strategic challenges in the 21st century

Project lead: Alexis Herrera The purpose of Alexis’ research project is to assess in both historical, strategic and conceptual terms the evolution of Mexico's security environment at the beginning of the 21st century, having as point of departure the scenario of internal armed violence that emerged during the last decade (2006-2016) in the context of the fight against organised crime. Considering the case of Mexico as that of a middle power in need of a new strategic culture, his proposal emphasizes the need to question the conventions on which Mexico's foreign policy, defence and security initiatives have rested so far, thus opening the door to an approximation favourable to the promotion of its national interest in grand-strategic terms.

China EU

The role of perceptions in the uncoordinated response of EU member states to Chinese foreign direct investments as potential security threat

Project lead: Francesca Ghiretti This PhD thesis examines the role played by perceptions in informing the response member states of the European Union have given to foreign direct investments (FDI) coming from China. First, the research examines whether EU member states perceive Chinese FDI as aimed at obtaining strategic know-how which could be subsequently transferred from the EU to China. Secondly, the project seeks to understand whether this perception is linked to a deeper preoccupation that a widespread technological transfer might facilitate a power shift from the West to the East. Finally, it attempts to map how this perception has informed the responses of member states from 2009 to 2019. Preliminary findings suggest member states’ responses were uncoordinated and at times, a gap between perception and response is visible. In such case, the reasons for the existence of the gap will be analysed.

China and modernity

China’s rise and the development of an alternative modernity

Project lead: Axel Dessein The character of rising powers is often displayed as moving ever-upward, with little understanding of the manner in which such a rise happens, the policies pursued under this rise and the eventual end-goal of that phenomenon. This conceptual study is an inquiry into the nature of China’s rise and the goal of becoming a great power under socialist modernisation that lies at its heart. This paper argues that instead of its traditional past, it is the enduring importance of the country’s fairly recent socialist ideology which provides the primary lens through which one ought to view China’s contemporary rise. As China’s model of rapid economic growth is starting to slow down, a development that is most prominently explained by Xi Jinping (2017) as the ‘new normal’ and by Western commentators as the ‘middle-income trap’ (Lewin, Arie Y.; Kenney, Martin; Murmann, 2013), it is important to understand how the country’s rise can be taken to a new stage. This research does so by invoking the Marxist theory of historical materialism (Bukharin, 1925). However, by employing a constructivist theoretical framework (Wendt, 1992), instead of one based on Marx’s political philosophy, this thesis wants to understand how China relates to its domestic situation and the outside world through its observation of socialism, which stands decidedly in opposition to liberalisation. The law of constant motion, or of the development through contradiction, that is an inextricable part of historical materialism is laid out to analyse the policies pursued by the PR China since 1949. This paper reserves a particular focus on the Xi Jinping era (2012-present) which showcases a growing urgency to fulfil China’s rise, while arguably its main driver, rapid economic growth, is falling away. Should China under Xi be able to attain this next phase in China’s rise, it could present the world with a viable alternative model of development.

Bush and China

The U.S. and China in George H. W. Bush's New World Order

Project lead: Martina Bernardini This research aims at assessing how the Bush administration perceived the role of China in world affairs at the end of the Cold War. At that time, the bilateral confrontation with the Soviet Union was coming to an end, and the United States had to redefine its foreign policy by considering the rise of other actors in international affairs. U.S. President George H. W. Bush viewed China as an important partner for post-Cold War U.S. foreign policy, and he had a strong interest in promoting U.S.-China relations. Through the analysis of the intersection between U.S. security, economic, and foreign policy concerns face to the decline of the Soviet Union, this PhD thesis will investigate: firstly, the precise way in which China was seen as a partner in the American grand strategy to build a new world order; and, secondly, the extent to which this perception reshaped the international system until present days.

Anglo-Japanese alliance

The Indo-Pacific in Anglo-Japanese Relations since World War Two: Imperial Twilight, or Partnership Renewal?

Project lead: William Reynolds Post-2016; media, politicians and think tanks have increasingly referenced Japan, and the wider Indo-Pacific, as a future goal of British Grand Strategy in a post-Brexit world. Consequently, from 2017 to 2019, a flurry of diplomatic and defence engagements between the two states occurred, culminating in Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to London in January 2019. This visit was capped by a statement from 10 Downing Street titled "UK and Japan forge a new alliance to shape 21st century." With this in mind one queries, is this a continuation of trends witnessed prior or a sudden resurgence in a post-Brexit and Trumpian world? Thus, this thesis will assess the Anglo-Japanese relationship through a grand strategic lens. It shall analyse where, and how, the relationship functioned between the two states following the Second World War and, more importantly, how Japan effected, if at all, Britain's grand strategising through the Cold War to the present day. Be it through influence or official relationships.

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Winter Time of Western Foreign Policy: Accounting for Divergence in British and American China Policy

Project Lead: Oliver Yule-Smith Much has been made of the rise of China, and states’ responses to the changing international dynamic. Shifting financial flows, territorial disputes, military modernisation, the return to Great Power competition that characterised the 19th Century, and whether China’s rise threatens the so-called Liberal World Order have been popular topics. Less studied, however, is a longer-term exploration of Western states’ China policies. This thesis seeks to interrogate how China’s ascent has been received by the United States and Britain, over the long dureé. From the Boxer rebellion to the Financial Crisis of 2008, this thesis will isolate key inflection points and attempt to sketch the policies, forces, and individuals who have most deeply affected the approaches of these two states towards China. By contextualising how actors have managed China’s modern evolution, it aims to highlight three themes. Firstly, it will flesh out the interconnection between events, rather than viewing them solely in isolation. Secondly, it will draw some tentative conclusions about the constraints and opportunities influencing the policies of Western states towards China. Thirdly, and most importantly, it will elaborate how China policies have elicited such significant divergence between two states with traditionally complimentary foreign policies.

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