Thucydides and Polybius in Grand Strategy courses

To classicists:

I've been looking at international relations courses covering "grand
strategy" (for a so-far minority opinion on these see this good essay
<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com%2Farticle%2Fgrand-flattery-yale-grand-strategy-seminar%2F&amp;data=02%7C01%7CCLASSICS-L%40lsv.uky.edu%7C865e2c1171ea46d5fdf708d6ed94f3b5%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C0%7C636957621333557517&amp;sdata=1zUu9qu6iZCQxXIdI6xOhDVHt32UtxT51EgdIk4tFUo%3D&amp;reserved=0>
by Meaney and Wertheim).  I've also taught in a good organized by Richard
Immerman and Vlad Zubok.

What has struck me is that Thucydides appears in many of these
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(the Yale example on this list uses not Thucydides but that Thucydides's
Trap book).  He is often the only Greek writer, though the very impressive
Friedberg-Ikenberry course at Princeton uses not only Polybius as well, but
Art Eckstein's book.

That, however, is only one peculiarity of assigning this author. For the
moment, I'm interested less in the use of him as a Greek, but in the fact
that his is the only _narrative_ text in most syllabi.  That brings
methodological / analytic consequences: how often do Grand Strategists
consider the _peculiarities of narrative form_ in their teaching?

Since the linguistic turn in International Relations a few decades ago,
there has been much good writing that pays attention to such things. But I
do think the uniqueness of narrative in a sea of analytic prose needs to be
emphasized.

Dan