Politicization, Leadership, and Communication

Analyzing Terror Organizations Through a Grand Strategic Framework

Abstract

The scholarly conversation around grand strategy is largely limited to how nation-states formulate and employ this framework, with an outsized focus on superpowers. Grand strategic analysis has therefore become virtually interchangeable with great power competition, gauging how the U.S., China, and Russia seek to counter threats and influence global outcomes. Amidst the so-called “end of the nation-state” and a rising role for non-state actors in international politics, it is vital that our understanding of grand strategy keeps pace with global reality. This paper draws on grand strategy as a framework for understanding the long-term political aims of terror organizations.