When Alexander the Great of Macedon came to the throne in 336BC, he was 20 and many considered him unready. The empire of his assassinated father, King Philip II, was unravelling and the Macedonian generals and political leaders advised him to reform the Hellenic league gradually through force and guile. But Alexander had another plan. Without giving his enemies time to organise against him, he led the Macedonian army south and reconquered Thebes in a series of lightning manoeuvres. Next he marched on the Athenians who, fearing his retribution, begged forgiveness for breaking away from the league and pleaded to be readmitted. Alexander granted their wish.

The young prince had shown himself to be a bold and unpredictable king. His next move was still more audacious; instead of working to consolidate his gains and strengthen the fragile league, he proposed launching a crusade against the Persian Empire, the Greeks’ great enemy. In 334BC Alexander led a united army of 35,000 Greeks across the Dardanelles and into Asia Minor. In their first encounter with the enemy the Greeks routed the Persians. Soldiers and generals alike now expected him to head straight east into Persia to finish off the enemy army. But once again Alexander confounded expectations, suddenly deciding to take his time.

That would have seemed wise when he first came to power, but now it seemed likely to give the Persians the one thing they needed: time to recover and replenish. Yet Alexander led his army not east but south, down the coast of Asia Minor, freeing local towns from Persian rule.

Next he zigzagged through Phoenicia and into Egypt, quickly defeating the weak Persian garrison there. The Egyptians hated their Persian rulers and welcomed Alexander as their liberator. Now Alexander could use Egypt’s vast stores of grain to feed the Greek army and help to keep the Greek economy stable, while depriving Persia of valuable resources.

As the Greeks advanced farther from home, the Persian navy was a worrying threat. Many had advised Alexander to build up the Greek navy and take the battle to the Persians by sea as well as land. Alexander had ignored them. Instead, as he passed through Asia Minor and along the coast of Phoenicia: he simply captured Persia’s principal ports, rendering their navy useless. These small victories, then, had a greater strategic purpose. Even so, they would have meant little had the Greeks been unable to defeat the Persians in battle — and Alexander seemed to be making that victory more difficult. The Persian king, Darius, was concentrating his forces east of the Tigris River; he had numbers and his choice of location, and could wait in ease for Alexander to cross the river. Had Alexander lost his taste for battle? Had Persian and Egyptian culture softened him? It seemed so: he had begun to wear Persian clothes and to adopt Persian customs. He was even seen worshipping Persian gods.

As the Persian army retreated east of the Tigris, large areas of the Persian empire had come under Greek control. Now Alexander spent much of his time not on warfare but on politics, trying to see how best to govern these regions. He decided to build on the Persian system already in place. He changed only the harsh, unpopular aspects of Persian rule.

Word quickly spread of his generosity and gentleness toward his new subjects. Town after town surrendered to the Greeks without a fight.

Finally, in 331BC, Alexander marched on the main Persian force at Arbela. What his generals had not understood was that, deprived of the use of its navy, its rich lands in Egypt and the support of almost all of its subjects, the Persian Empire had already crumbled. Alexander’s victory at Arbela merely confirmed militarily what he had already achieved months earlier: he was now ruler of the once mighty Persian Empire. He controlled almost all of the known world.

Interpretation

Alexander the Great’s manoeuvres bewildered his staff: they seemed to have no logic, no consistency. Only later could the Greeks look back and see his magnificent achievement. Alexander had invented a whole new way of thinking and acting in the world: the art of grand strategy.

In grand strategy you look beyond the moment. You concentrate instead on what you want to achieve down the line. Controlling the temptation to react to events as they happen, you determine each of your actions according to your ultimate goals. You think in terms not of individual battles but of a campaign. Trace the zigzags of Alexander’s manoeuvres and you will see their grand-strategic consistency. None of his actions was wasted.

To become a grand strategist in life, you must first determine what it is you are destined to achieve. Visualise yourself fulfilling this destiny in glorious detail. As Aristotle advised, work to master your emotions and train yourself to think ahead: “This action will advance me towards my goal, this one will lead me nowhere.” Guided by these standards, you will be able to stay on course.

Ignore the conventional wisdom about what you should or should not be doing. You need to be patient enough to plot several steps ahead — to wage a campaign instead of fighting battles. The path to your goal may be indirect, your actions may be strange to other people, but so much the better: the less they understand you, the easier they are to deceive, manipulate and seduce.