Strategic studies

Strategic studies examines how states and other actors use, threaten, and control military power, especially in war, deterrence, and security policy.

Strategy: A plan for using available means to achieve long-term objectives amid opposition and uncertainty. Strategic studies focuses on strategy when its means include military power.
Civil–military relations: The relationship between civilian political authorities and the armed forces. It concerns who directs military power and how civilian control is maintained.
Carl von Clausewitz: A Prussian general and military theorist whose unfinished work On War analyzes war’s political character. His account of war as an instrument of policy remains a foundational starting point.
Nuclear strategy: The planning and policies governing nuclear weapons, including deterrence, targeting, and escalation. It applies strategic reasoning to weapons capable of catastrophic destruction.
International relations: The study of political interactions among states and other actors across borders. It is the broader discipline in which strategic studies is commonly situated.
War: Organized armed conflict between political communities or other organized groups. War is the central phenomenon strategic studies seeks to explain and shape.
Escalation: An increase in the intensity, scope, or stakes of a conflict. Strategic choices can raise conflict levels, sometimes beyond either side’s control.
Alfred Thayer Mahan: A United States naval officer and historian known for arguing that sea power shapes national influence. His theories helped establish naval power as a major subject of strategic thought.
Arms control: Agreements and policies that constrain, regulate, or reduce military capabilities and their use. It shows how security competition can be managed through negotiated limits.
Peace and conflict studies: An interdisciplinary field examining the causes of conflict and the conditions for peace. It gives greater emphasis to preventing violence and building peace than to military power.

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War studiesBroader topic: It concentrates war studies' broad inquiry on military power and statecraft.