On August 4, 2011, CNA convened a conference of leading international security, foreign policy, and maritime strategy experts at the Army and Navy Club in Washington, D.C. Its purpose was to examine U.S. grand and naval strategy in light of new domestic and international dynamics, and to discuss the strategic principles that should inform the Nation and its naval services in the coming decades.
A “grand strategy” is an overarching plan to employ all elements of national power to advance and fulfill a state’s security-related objectives in the foreign sphere. At its core, a grand strategy outlines the objectives a state seeks, and provides guidance on how the state will achieve them. In early 2011, the Chief of Naval Operations’ Strategic and Planning Division (OPNAV N51) requested that CNA review the ongoing academic debate pertaining to possible evolutions in US grand strategy.