Grand Strategy
A grand strategy is a nation's overarching theory of geopolitics — how it understands the world and intends to dominate it. It is both a blueprint for projecting power and a constraint on behavior: a nation can only operate within the contours of its own grand strategy. Professor Jiang identifies four nations with genuine grand strategies — the United States (Greater North America/Technate), Russia (Third Rome), Iran (Shia Exceptionalism), and Israel (Greater Israel Project) — and argues that the absence of a grand strategy is why China will not be a decisive player in World War III.
Professor Jiang uses the metaphor of a chess set to explain grand strategy. The Queen represents the grand strategy — the core logic that governs everything else. The Bishops, Knights, and Rooks are the attack vectors, the tools and mechanisms for achieving it. The Pawns are sacrificial assets thrown away in service of the strategy. The King is the political system — what the enemy must put in check to win.
A grand strategy is not merely a military plan or foreign policy doctrine. It is a complete worldview — an answer to the question: what is this nation for, and what would the ideal world look like if we won? The US grand strategy (Greater North America) answers: a self-sufficient continental fortress that creates enough global chaos so the rest of the world depends on American weapons, resources, and financing. Russia's (Third Rome) answers: the reunification of all religious traditions against the Antichrist system of Western individualism. Iran's (Shia Exceptionalism) answers: replace Saudi Arabia as the leader of the entire Muslim world. Israel's (Greater Israel Project) answers: control the territory from the Nile to the Euphrates as promised in the Bible.
The key insight is that a grand strategy is also a constraint. Nations can only act within the logic of their own worldview. America cannot simply act like Russia, even when Russian tactics would be more effective, because its political system (democracy) and cultural values (Faustian individualism) prevent it. Understanding a nation's grand strategy lets you predict its behavior with high accuracy — which is the entire project of Predictive History.
China and India, despite their size and economic power, lack grand strategies. China's cultural identity as the Middle Kingdom — the center of a self-contained universe — makes it historically isolationist. It has no vision for remaking the world in its own image. This is why Professor Jiang argues China will not be a decisive force in the coming conflict.
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Frequently asked questions
What is a grand strategy in geopolitics? ＋
A grand strategy is a nation's complete theory of geopolitics — how it understands the world and intends to dominate it. It is both a blueprint for power projection and a constraint: nations can only act within their own grand strategy's logic. Professor Jiang identifies four nations with genuine grand strategies: USA (Technate / Greater North America), Russia (Third Rome), Iran (Shia Exceptionalism), and Israel (Greater Israel Project).
Why doesn't China have a grand strategy? ＋
China's cultural identity as the Middle Kingdom (Zhongguo) is fundamentally isolationist — it sees itself as a self-contained universe and has historically not sought to remake the world in its own image. Its recent globalization is an aberration from its cultural norms, and Professor Jiang argues it will revert to isolationism. Without a vision for global dominance, China lacks a true grand strategy and will not be a decisive player in World War III.