Contemporary western political systems are the result of centuries of gradual evolution. At various times during the modern era, countries such as France and Germany have been able to co-ordinate all available instruments of power – military, economic and diplomatic – under the umbrella of a coherent long-term “grand strategy”. However, during the past half a century, the continued evolution of some of these political systems has made such comprehensive plans much harder to conceive and execute, making one wonder if grand strategies have transitioned from mainstay to pipe dream.
During the Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815), Great Britain composed and delivered a grand strategy to great effect. The state’s core objective was preventing the emergence of a hegemonic power dominating continental Europe. While Britain was capable and possessed many resources, it was not a superpower that could satisfy its objective by using a large terrestrial army to conquer Europe, necessitating a nuanced approach.
With this in mind, Britain focused on maintaining naval supremacy, protecting global trade routes, financing anti-French coalitions and using its economic strength to sustain a long war of attrition against Napoleon Bonaparte. At the same time, British diplomacy worked continuously to preserve and rebuild alliances with continental powers such as Austria, Prussia, Russia, Portugal and Spain. The result was a highly integrated strategy that combined military, economic and diplomatic tools over more than two decades, ultimately culminating in Napoleon’s defeat and the establishment of a durable European balance of power after the Congress of Vienna.
If the UK of 2026 were to attempt a grand strategy of this kind, it would face significant hurdles that did not exist two centuries ago. Any long-term strategic project would need to survive frequent electoral turnover, intense media scrutiny, judicial review, bureaucratic fragmentation, activist pressure groups, devolved political structures and a highly polarised public sphere shaped by real-time social media dynamics. The abundance of veto points makes sustained strategic continuity substantially harder to achieve. While these constraints reduce the risk of arbitrary rule and improve pluralistic accountability, they also make it considerably more difficult for modern western political systems to formulate and execute coherent grand strategies over periods spanning several decades, as reflected in the UK’s struggles with Brexit.
A contemporary illustration from across the Atlantic is the US approach towards China. Since the turn of the millennium, Washington has increasingly identified China as its primary long-term strategic competitor, yet major elements of American policy remain internally contradictory. The US seeks simultaneously to compete with China, economically depend on it, militarily deter it, co-operate with it on issues such as climate change and global finance, reassure allies, avoid catastrophic escalation, protect domestic consumers from inflation and preserve the liberal global trading system from which Beijing itself benefits.
Notably, different American actors often prioritise different goals: multinational corporations seek market access; security institutions emphasise containment; universities favour openness; civil society groups focus on human rights; and politicians respond to short-term electoral pressures and domestic economic anxieties. The result is often a reactive and fragmented policy mix rather than a stable long-term strategic framework comparable to the Cold War containment strategy against the Soviet Union.
Tariffs, semiconductor restrictions, alliance-building in the Indo-Pacific, military signalling over the US’s allies and selective economic decoupling all point towards strategic competition, yet the absence of a durable consensus on the ultimate end-state of US-China relations continues to complicate the formulation of a fully coherent American grand strategy.
In contrast, China possesses structural features that make sustained grand strategy easier to execute than in the contemporary US. Political centralisation, longer leadership time horizons, weaker institutional veto points and the absence of frequent electoral turnover allow Beijing to pursue multi-decade initiatives with greater continuity and discipline.
This has enabled China to sustain long-term industrial, technological, military and geopolitical programmes – including naval modernisation, strategic infrastructure investment, semiconductor development and the gradual expansion of influence in the Indo-Pacific – with a degree of consistency that would be difficult to replicate in the more fragmented and polarised American political system.
Many of the challenges that the US faces can be seen in the way it is handling the Iran dossier. Washington has struggled to maintain a consistent long-term approach, oscillating between diplomacy, sanctions, military pressure, regime-change rhetoric and calls for restraint as different administrations, domestic constituencies, media pressures and institutional actors pull policy in competing directions.
Critically, the observation that grand strategy is faltering in key western nation states does not imply the overall inferiority of these nations’ political systems compared to the alternatives. Moreover, the emergence of a clearly identifiable external aggressor or adversary – as occurred during the first and second world wars as well as the Cold War – would conceivably enable these countries to rapidly and decisively overcome the barriers to grand strategy, should such an existential threat materialise.
However, in the meantime, those who are able to influence the evolution of political systems in these western countries would do well to address the current challenges associated with conception and execution of grand strategies. Otherwise, they could end up being outflanked by an adversary clever enough to evade the built-in pressure points while seizing the spoils left on the table by those countries that are rife with vacillation and internal contradictions.
