USMA Library Homepage: Social Sciences: Grand Strategy Minor

Department of Social Sciences

Grand Strategy Minor

"Grand strategy is a purposeful and coherent set of ideas about what a nation seeks to accomplish in the world, and how it should go about doing so." - Hal Brands

Grand Strategy Minor PDF

Political Science Databases (Grand Strategy)

CIAO: Columbia International Affairs Online This link opens in a new window
View a comprehensive source for theory and research in international affairs with scholarship ranging from university research institutes, NGOs, foundation-funded research projects, conferences proceedings, books, journals and policy briefs. This contains a wide range of scholarship from 1991 onward.
Congressional Research Service Reports This link opens in a new window
Publicly accessible government reports present a legislative perspective on topics such as agriculture policy, counterterrorism operations, banking regulation, and veteran's issues.
Europa World Plus This link opens in a new window
Browse the economic, political, historical, and geographic profiles of 250+ countries and global regions. Users can also find the contact information for political, business, media, and cultural agencies and officials, including 1,900 international organizations.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports This link opens in a new window
Discover translated transcripts of foreign radio and television broadcasts, news agency transmissions, newspapers, periodicals, and government statements. The reports are from 1974-1996 and contain political, military, economic, environmental, and sociological news and information.
Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) This link opens in a new window
ICPSR maintains a data archive of more than 250,000 files of research in the social and behavioral sciences. It hosts 21 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields. Its archive contains over 3,000 in a wide range of topics in political and social sciences.
An international consortium of more than 750 academic institutions and research organizations, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for the social science research community.
Issues & Controversies This link opens in a new window
Updated weekly, this resource presents key facts, arguments, history, and current context of current events and important issues.
Jane's This link opens in a new window
Source for information on defense, geopolitics, weapons systems, and security. Login with your westpoint.edu email address.
OECD iLibrary This link opens in a new window
The online library of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) featuring its books, papers and statistics and is the gateway to OECD’s analysis and data. Content published by related agencies is also included.
Our subscription does NOT include the datasets or CSV files for the IEA, however statistical annuals provide that data, in PDF format. Access to all the content up to the end of November 2018, new content will not be available (except to read) past that date.
Official Documents of the United Nations This link opens in a new window
Collection of official United Nations documentation, beginning in 1993. Provides access to the resolutions of the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council and the Trusteeship Council from 1946 onwards.
Policy File Index This link opens in a new window
Citations and abstracts, most with links to full text, for U.S. public policy research from over 350 think tanks, non-governmental organizations, research institutes, university centers, advocacy groups, and other entities.

Provided by the Class of 1946.
Polling the Nations This link opens in a new window
A database of polls taken on a variety of subjects all over the world from 1986 to the present.
United Nations Treaty Collection This link opens in a new window
Discover full-text of the United Nations Treaty Series, the United Nations Treaty Series Cumulative Index, and the League of Nations Treaty Series, the current status of the Multilateral Treaties deposited with the Secretary-General, and texts of recently deposited multilateral treaties.
World Bank Open Data This link opens in a new window
Find access to a wide range of datasets covering worldwide economics, finance, development, health, education, and environmental topics.

Books

US Grand Strategy and Corporate Elite Networks by Bastiaan Van Apeldoorn and Naná de Graaff
Call Number: E744 .A695 2016
ISBN: 9780415844987
Publication Date: 2015
This book presents a novel analysis of how US grand strategy has evolved from the end of the Cold War to the present, offering an integrated analysis of both continuity and change. The post-Cold War American grand strategy has continued to be oriented to securing an ‘open door’ to US capital around the globe. This book will show that the three different administrations that have been in office in the post-Cold War era have pursued this goal with varying means: from Clinton’s promotion of neoliberal globalization to Bush’s ‘war on terror’ and Obama’s search to maintain US primacy in the face of a declining economy and a rising Asia.
The Shaping of Grand Strategy by Edited by Williamson Murray, Richard Hart Sinnreich and James Lacey
Call Number: D217 .S44 2011
ISBN: 9780521761260
Publication Date: 2011
This volume explores the successes as well as failures of great states attempting to create grand strategies that work. It discusses of some of the extraordinary difficulties involved, as illustrated by historical case studies from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.

eBooks

Strategy and Grand Strategy by Tami Davis Biddle
Call Number: Electronic Resource
ISBN: 9781584877141
Publication Date: 2015
In this monograph, Dr. Tami Davis Biddle examines why it is so difficult to devise, implement, and sustain sound strategies and grand strategies. Her analysis begins with an examination of the meaning of the term “strategy” and a history of the ways that political actors have sought to employ strategies and grand strategies to achieve their desired political aims.

Articles

Why Washington Doesn't Debate Grand Strategy
In this article, the authors explain the absence of debate on grand strategy and how primacy achieved dominance instead. They discuss the politics that encourage think tank analysts, more than academics, to conform to the prevailing
consensus, and explain what their conclusions suggest for
analysts in both academia and Washington.

Thinking Historically About Grand Strategy
This article by David M. Kennedy, a member of the Foreign Policy Working Group of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, provides a historic survey of "US grand strategy in the context of dramatic, palpable fluidity in both the domestic and international environments."

Council on Foreign Relations RSS Feed

Websites

Centre for Grand Strategy
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 programs, 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.
International Institute for Stragegic Studies
The IISS was founded in the UK in 1958 with a focus on nuclear deterrence and arms control. Today, it is also renowned for The Military Balance, its annual assessment of countries' armed forces. The institute's research programs are divided by global region and according to policy themes (from non-proliferation, transnational threats and geo-economics to climate change and security).
Political Handbook of the World
The Political Handbook of the World contains entries on countries and territories around the world. It covers each country's political parties and includes names of key ambassadors, international memberships, and profiles intergovernmental organizations.
WWW Virtual Library: International Affairs Resources
International Affairs Resources is a frequently updated Internet directory of over 2000 annotated links to high-quality English-language sources of information and analysis in a wide range of international affairs, international relations, international studies, global studies, and global education topics.

Federal Government Websites

govinfo
govinfo provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government. Very useful for acquiring primary sources by researching federal government documents.
Congress.gov
Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information, providing timely information for Members of Congress and the public. Additionally, roll call votes are provided for both the House and Senate from 1989 to the present (101st to the 116th Congress).
U.S. Senate
Provides detailed information about Senators, committees, legislation and records, including recent roll call votes.
U.S. House of Representatives
Provides detailed information about individual Representatives, leadership, committees, and legislative activities.
whitehouse.gov
Provides information on President Trump's administration and public policies from the perspective of the President.