17.484 | Fall 2004 | Graduate

Comparative Grand Strategy and Military Doctrine

Exams

Final Take-Home Examination

Please answer three questions. Do not take more than seven pages for each answer; fewer is better. Do cite the literature, where appropriate. Please do not repeat work that you have done on previous papers. Read all three questions before you begin.

  1. Devise an analytic framework for the study and assessment of grand strategy. Employ theories, concepts, and categories with which we have worked this semester. Because you have a limited amount of time and space, you must choose from this menu, but not replicate it. Explain the reasons for your choices.
  2. Employ the analytic framework that you developed in the preceding answer to compare and contrast the grand strategies of any two of the states we have studied in this class within a given period. You must defend the choice of cases, so do not just pick any two. (Example: Britain and France prior to WWI.)
  3. Use the same analytic framework to compare and contrast the grand strategies of a single state in different periods (Example Germany under Wilhelm, Germany under Hitler.) (You may use one of the states that you used in the preceding question.)

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Fall 2004
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