Everyone involved in making strategy must accept that inevitably they will have to face circumstances in which there are no ‘good’ options: a situation in which every course of action, as well as inaction, risks to produce specific negative effects for one's interests. The strategist will still have to make a rational choice, and identify the lesser evil: the option that presents the best chance of safeguarding the vital interests of the state. The reticence to make stark choices even though the situation demands it is understandable, for the decision makers will be held accountable for the potential negative consequences – but it goes against the precepts of grand strategy. A state cannot retreat from international politics and fence itself off from the world: it will have to play its part. Even if a state foregoes an active role, it will for sure be the object of the strategies of its competitors and rivals.

The history of my own country, Belgium, exemplifies how it is an illusion to think that one can escape from reality. In 1830 the great powers recognised Belgium's independence from the Netherlands, but imposed neutrality on the new state. The powers did not trust one another: by forbidding the Belgians from entering into an alliance, they made sure that none of them would dominate the kingdom. Neutrality shielded Belgium from the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. Afterwards, neutrality was raised into a dogma: the Belgian strategic establishment became convinced it would protect the kingdom forever – but in 1914 Germany violated neutrality and invaded. Following the war, the Treaty of Versailles did away with compulsory neutrality, and Belgium concluded a military agreement with France. Yet in 1936, when the threat of war was clearly rising as Nazi Germany was rearming, the country opted for neutrality again, voluntarily this time, in the vain hope that the war that by then everyone expected would pass it by. The experience of the Great War ought to have taught the strategic establishment that this was not a realistic strategic option: it was clear that any German offensive against France would once again seek to pass through Belgium. The kingdom could not stand aside from the world, and so the result of retreating into its own bubble was still the same: in 1940 Belgium was invaded a second time.