Using an interpretivist lens, rather than a standard rationalist approach, this paper emphasizes that grand strategy is derived from both the need to address global transformations and crises as well as processes internal to actors, such as historical memory, national pathologies, and domestic politics. The purpose of grand strategy is to allow an actor to have an impact on the international system in tangible ways, whether it is through shaping diplomatic outcomes, encouraging multilateralism, or competing with other great powers. In light of this, the author argues that EU grand strategy has had far more of an impact on the liberal international order than observers typically recognize. As a classic liberal internationalist actor, the EU has actually implemented its grand strategy across a range of issue areas, with the aim of influencing the world in very targeted ways. It is pursuing a milieu strategy (i.e. striving to impact the international environment itself), much more so than a traditional positional strategy (i.e. focusing mainly on benefiting its own power in relation to other great powers). The paper argues that despite multiple crises, more than any other actor in the international system, the EU is remarkably explicit and consistent about its goal of upholding a liberal, internationalist world order, even when aspects of it cut against the grain of other actors’ grand strategies, including its closest ally, the United States.
