From the Peloponnesian Wars to the present day, alliance considerations have guided the formulation of grand strategy for powers great and small. Though it is often tempting to assess the history of grand strategy using narrowly-defined national categories of analysis (i.e., American grand strategy, British grand strategy, Chinese grand strategy), grand strategies are never formed in isolation; teasing out the entangled, messy multilateralism inherent in the history of grand strategy requires an international perspective—something this session aims to cultivate.