Colin S. Gray and Jeannie L. Johnson, "The Practice of Strategy," in Strategy in the Contemporary World: An Introduction to Strategic Studies, ed. John Baylis, James J. Wirtz, and Colin S. Gray, 6th ed. (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019), 385-401.
Strategic Expertise: strategists are born, not made due to poor educational foundation and lack of standardized theory. Also bias towards American perspective.
Combination of theorist, planner, leader, and commander… but pretty ill defined
Improving a strategic education p. 386-91
myat know and understand the classics, 9 authors over the course of 2,500 years, in three divisions
First division
- Sun Tzu (The Art of War): brief, axiomatic, direct advice to be victorious at war; also discussed relationships between war, strategy, and statecraft
- Thucydides (The Poleponnesian War): general strategic education through superb description and analysis in historical context
- Clausewitz (On War): Most profound book on the theory of war and richest mine of strategic wisdom; philosophical, wordy, and poorly organized
Second division
- Jomini (The Art of War): read with care as its advice is dated, but insight into war as a whole, warfare, strategy, operational art, tactics, technology, and logistics.
- Liddell Hart (Strategy: The Indirect Approach): focuses exclusively on the indirect approach (ie, whatever your enemy doesn’t expect). Work of depth and breadth.
- Luttwak (Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace): there is no natural harmony among policy, strategy, operations and tactics
- Wylie (Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control): the priority task of the strategist is to control the enemy
- Machiavelli (The Prince): answers the questions, what is war and why do states wage it?
Third division
- Brodie (Strategy in the Missile Age and War and Politics): focused on American defense problems in the nuclear age, but profound judgements
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The general theory of strategy p. 391
Must be able to link the decision of policy with the decision of what actions to take to support that policy
General theory of strategy: must be pertain to all periods, types of warfare, technology, and belligerents.
best strategy = application of general theory of strategy and the contemporary mix of military and political context
- Understanding the nature and character of strategy
Strategy is a political instrument: political institutions declare war and even the best military strategy requires strong domestic political support; war is viewed through moral, cultural, and legal public lenses nowadays
Strategy is adverserial: constrict an enemy’s choice and exploit them for political purposes; must remember that adversary may respond in paradoxical and ironic ways; what works today will not work tomorrow (nimble adversary)
Strategy is subject to the human condition:: not facing a rational choice robot; knowing your adversaries idiosyncrasies will help you make better strategic choices
Strategy may produce ironic effects: unintended consequences of not frank opposite outcome to what was desired (ex. US invasion of Iraq to prevent terrorism probably caused more terrorism)
- Making strategy: 7 contexts p. 393
- Political: must understand impact of domestic and allied politics, now political leaders, and be able to bridge between political and military realms; without a well thought out political icontext, then subject to short term goals.
- Sociocultural: very important but understudied component of strategy. Strategists must understand their cultures code of ethics to know acceptable behaviors/actions; while not guaranteed, understanding the adversaries culture may help predict behavior. Important to understand the locus of social power and how to undermine it if necessary.
Ex. Only when the violation of cultural norms is so blatant (i.e. Abu Ghraib), will it come to prominance in discussion.C
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- Economic: Woe to the strategist who does not understand and plan for economic and logistical impacts of war
"The strategy adopeded is always more likely to be dictated more by the availability of means than by the nature of the ends." p. 395
- Technological: Technological advances and having superior technology are important fctors in all warfare; however, do not underestimate the technologically inferior adversary who employs "cunning tactics". They'll get you almost every time...
- Military: There are both service-specific culture and strengths that will influence which fighting strategy military advisors support... wise strategist understands this bias and does not fall pray to it.
- Geographical: We are expanding into more domains (land, air, sea, space, cyber), and knowledge of the impacts (constraints/limitations/advantages) of each is important; but there will always be situations in which the warfare/weapons suited to that domain are not ethically or tactically permissive. Understand geography, do not be a slave to it.
- Historical: A strategist cannot escape the realities and exigencies of his/her time; however, they must guard against artificial limitations by being student of broader history, multiple perspectives.
- Executing strategies p. 396
- Difficulties and friction: when executing strategy, must understand that friction, chance, and undertainty (Clausewitz) will always play a role. The good strategist counteracts this with multivariate planning and acknowledgment that, once engaged, the future is unknowable.
- Time: time is not even-handed and favors different polities based on cultural perception (results-oriented societies vs. not), military professionalism (impact of budget cycles); drawn out conflict cannot always be tolerated domestically.
- Logistics: The army that cannot be resupplied cannot win.
- Information and intelligence: Usually used to achieve surprise over an adversary; Western militaries are not great at this.
- Military doctrine: doctrine does not always really reflect how we fight; may reflect how we want to fight, which has its pluses and minuses. Must understand that current military doctrine is probably written to cater to service strengths and preferred methods fighting,than to true joint warfare
- Strategists and the strategy bridge: the job of the professional strategist is incredibly hard; must be able to negotiate and influence in thep p0litical and military realms; strategic advice must be immediately accessible and relevant to be useful. p . 400
Defining terms
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Grand strategy: the orchestration and employment of any or all the assets of a security community (comprehensive) including its military for political forces
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A call for consummate re(assessing) p. 400; strategist must constantly reassess their choices of strategy, processes, communication, in order to win.
- What is it all at hand (what are the stakes)?
- What strategic effects are we having?
- Is our selected strategy tailored to meet political objectives?
- What are the limits of our power?
- How might the enemy strive to thwart us?
- What are alternative COA's or eve inaction? What are the prospective costs and benefits?
- How robust is our home front?
- Does the strategy we prefer today draw prudently and honestly on the strategic education that history provides?
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