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Do Japanese leaders today have a grand strategy, designed to use the various tools of state power to try to shape the external environment to achieve its goals? If so, what are their goals? What are the factors that might determine Japan’s success or failure in achieving these goals? How do they compare with previous episodes of Japanese grand strategy? This course tackles these questions by examining the various periods in modern Japan’s history where Japanese leaders appear to have forged such strategies. The course begins with the Meiji period in the 19th Century and ends with Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific period today, focusing on the external and internal factors that shaped the processes by which Japanese leaders arrived at their choices.