Competing Roles, Diverging Strategies : Grand Strategy of Great Powers through the Lens of Role Theory

Focusing on the United States, China, and Russia, this book shows how the alignment and contestation of national role conceptions among leaders, factions, and opposition actors shape long-term strategic orientations. By measuring patterns of agreement and disagreement, it demonstrates when change is likely to be incremental.

Grand strategy is back at the center of global politics; this book offers a clear framework for understanding how and why the grand strategies of states change over time by placing role theory at the center of analysis. Focusing on the United States, China, and Russia, it shows how the alignment and contestation of national role conceptions among leaders, factions, and opposition actors shape long-term strategic orientations. Drawing on a systematic analysis of foreign policy discourse, the book traces how these roles evolve across leadership periods and regime types. By measuring patterns of agreement and disagreement, it demonstrates when change is likely to be incremental and when it takes the form of sharper, critical shifts. The analysis also unfolds across three temporal layers, capturing short-term variation, medium-term adjustment, and longer-term continuity. In doing so, it moves beyond accounts that focus solely on implementation, offering instead a way to identify the underlying structure of grand strategy itself. Written for scholars and graduate students of International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis, and Role Theory, this book provides a rigorous yet accessible approach to studying strategic change, and will also appeal to analysts seeking to better understand how great powers define and adapt their place in world politics.