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The Empire of Habsburg Austria faced more enemies than any other European great power. Flanked on four sides by rivals, it possessed few of the advantages that explain successful empires. Its army was not renowned for offensive prowess, its finances were often shaky, and its populace was fragmented into more than a dozen ethnicities. Yet somehow Austria endured, outlasting Ottoman sieges, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire tells the story of how this cash-strapped, polyglot empire survived for centuries in Europe´s most dangerous neighborhood without succumbing to the pressures of multisided warfare. A study in adaptive statecraft, The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire offers lessons on how to navigate a messy geopolitical map, stand firm without the advantage of military predominance, and prevail against multiple rivals.

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"Outstanding. Mitchell shows how the wily strategic efforts of the Austrian Habsburgs across a range of threatened frontiers offer sound lessons for any power."--Geoffrey Wawro, author of A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire

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A. Wess Mitchell Mitchell is former President of the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, DC. His books include The Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies, and the Crisis of American Power (Princeton). He currently serves at the US Department of State in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.

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