The year is 1918. The Great War has just ended, leaving behind the ruins of a once-mighty empire. 

Most of its territory is gone, millions of its people are lost, and even the imperial capital is under occupation. 

Soon after, Greek forces advance through Western Anatolia, while what remains of the empire is the vast steppes, naked hills, and barren heartland of Anatolia. 

The state is fragmented, exhausted, and without unified command—divided between the occupied Istanbul and rising Ankara. 

Can such a war-torn and traumatised country have anything resembling a grand strategy? I argue that it can and it did.

Many assume that grand strategy belongs only to great powers, the privileged few that can shape world politics. 

Others disagree, claiming that all states have grand strategies, whether they admit it or not. 

Governments never act with perfect information or flawless timing. Their ambitions may exceed their means, or their reactions may come too late or too soon. 

Yet even without a formal document or a coherent plan, every state exhibits a pattern of foreign policy that reveals how it perceives threats and how it intends to handle them.

In this sense, all states, regardless of size, possess a grand strategy—some more ambitious than others. 

My take on grand strategy joins the camp that sees it as a state’s highest-level security strategy: broad in both time and space, and decided at the political apex. 

What is grand strategy? 

The core concern of 'grand strategy' for every country is survival. Wealth, peace and prestige only matter if the state continues to exist.

As Swiss-American historian Arnold Wolfers wrote........

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