International Security Studies (ISS) first launched the Grand Strategy (GS) Program in 2000, founded by professors John Lewis Gaddis and Paul Kennedy, along with the late Diplomat-in-Residence Charles Hill. Professor Arne Westad is the current director; lecturer Michael Brenes serves as co-director.
Westad and Brenes are supported by an advisory board of faculty from across Yale. The current GS student cohort consists of 23 Yale students, mostly undergraduates with majors ranging from history and economics to philosophy and biology. They study a varied curriculum, emphasizing classic texts in strategy, as well as large-scale, long-term strategic challenges of statecraft, politics, and social change.
ISS, now part of Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs, brings together faculty from across the University who work on issues of international history, grand strategy, and global security.