A distinguished U.S. diplomat and scholar of world order, Prof. Charles Hill defines “Grand Strategy” not as a particular strategy, but a means of strategizing: the central means, he argues, to addressing today\’s global issues. While the social sciences aim for scientific certainty, the humanities operate in the realm of informed uncertainty. The world\’s problems may be categorized into specific areas, as reflected in the many branches, such as economics, of the social sciences, but cannot be solved when strategies are confined to addressing these components in isolation. Grand strategic thinking aims to put the pieces together; it embraces the humanities, cultivating an informed imagination that can cope with the uncertainty entailed in today\’s multidimensional global issues. “The key”, he writes, is “how to be a specialist and a generalist.”

A distinguished U.S. diplomat and scholar of world order, Prof. Charles Hill defines “Grand Strategy” not as a particular strategy, but a means of strategizing: the central means, he argues, to addressing today’s global issues. While the social sciences aim for scientific certainty, the humanities operate in the realm of informed uncertainty. The world’s problems may be categorized into specific areas, as reflected in the many branches, such as economics, of the social sciences, but cannot be solved when strategies are confined to addressing these components in isolation. Grand strategic thinking aims to put the pieces together; it embraces the humanities, cultivating an informed imagination that can cope with the uncertainty entailed in today’s multidimensional global issues. “The key”, he writes, is “how to be a specialist and a generalist.”

Prof. Charles Hill is a decorated career diplomat, having served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Middle East in the U.S. Department of State, as executive aide to former U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz, and as a special consultant on policy to the Secretary-General of the U.N. He has held fellowships at the Harvard University East Asia Research Center and at Cornell University, and is currently a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. He is the author of Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft and World Order, and Trial of a Thousand Years: Islamism and World Order.

Wang Yiwei’s research interests include Chinese Foreign Strategy, China-Europe relations, Public Diplomacy, and International Relations Theory. Prof. Wang was a Fox Fellow of Yale University, and he has served as director of the China-Europe Academic Network and formerly as a diplomat at the Chinese Mission to the European Union. He has published more than 170 academic articles and over 15 books on international relations. His books One Belt and One Road: Opportunities and Challenges and The World Is Connected: The Logic of The Belt and Road Initiative have pushed him to the center stage both at home and overseas.

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Via Legation Quarter