| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
It seems almost paradoxical that the study of 'grand strategy', broadly understood as the international vision pursued by the foreign policy of a state, has been to a large extent neglected by international-relations scholars. This lack of attention to a concept that is nearly intuitive to diplomatic practice says much about how International Relations (the field of study) became divorced from international relations (the real world of 'politics among nations', to borrow Hans Morgenthau's formulation). As the field moved away from its classical roots, international-relations theorists became obsessed with modelling politics after the natural sciences. The application of an economics paradigm to international politics saw states rendered as rational actors that maximise goals and respond to structural stimuli just as companies do in the market. Positional analysis became more important than strategic conception.
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