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Grand strategy in a post-bipolar world: interpreting the final Soviet response*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2010

Raymond Taras  and
Marshal Zeringue
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Extract

All great powers have a grand strategy—including great powers on the verge of collapse. Each power develops its code of national security ends and means differently. Among the myriad factors which explain particular grand strategies, the most important consideration is the distribution of power capabilities in the international system. Regardless of each state's desire to operate independently—to be master of its own grand strategy—the structure of world politics offers little latitude to do so. As in the case of decision-making processes in organizations and bureaucracies, the international system imposes its own constraints and incentives on the security goals of individual states. Primarily addressing the international environment, however, systems theory ‘provides criteria for differentiating between stable and unstable political configurations.’ The first objective of this essay is to explore the role of structure as an indirect influence on the behaviour of its constituent actors, in this case, states. ‘The effects [of structure] are produced in two ways: through socialization of the actors and through competition among them.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 1992 , pp. 355 - 375
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1992

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