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Adam Elkus had two brief but thoughtful posts on grand strategy at Rethinking Security that I woulld like to highlight and use as a foil to promote further discussion. I encourage you to read both in full:

Basil Liddell-Hart, Grand Strategy, and Modern Grand Strategy

….This, however, is not the understanding of “grand strategy” we have today. Starting with Edward Luttwak’s Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (Luttwak has written a new book about the Byzantine Empire), grand strategy has been used in books to refer to the overall method of a state for producing security for itself or making itself powerful. Paul Kennedy’s edited compilation Grand Strategies in War and Peace and Rise and Fall of the Great Powers explicitly uses this framework. The William Murray and MacGregor Knox edited compilation The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War also pioneered it. And the Clausewitzian Colin S. Gray has written a great deal on grand strategy as well.

So, what to say? First, the better works on the subject do not treat grand strategies as linear plans but a coherent or at least related set of practices over a long period of time. This is a good approach to take, as it emphasizes that rulers did not instinctively seek to craft a Seldon Foundation-esque master plan for eternity but discovered, through trial and error, a set of practices, ideas, and concepts of operations that worked for a given period of time. Perhaps a very important question (and one that has been alluded to) is what kinds of political cultures tend to produce these sets of practices, and whether they are imposed top-down, generated in a mixed fashion, or come emergently from below

and:

Strategy and “Strategy”

Diplomatic historian Walter McDougall recently wrote this:

The most a wise statesman can do is imagine his ship of state on an infinite sea, with no port behind and no destination ahead, his sole responsibility being to weather the storms certain to come, and keep the ship on an even keel so long as he has the bridge.

I write this after an interesting Twitter conversation with Gunslinger of Ink Spots, which he later excerpted in his own reflections on strategy in America. Gunslinger points out a recurring dynamic. The upper layer of policy and strategy is thin and operational art, the solid bottom foundation, is filling in the void. The problem, however, is that operational art provides a narrow viewpoint to see the world. It is good as a cognitive ordering device for some things, but poor for others. When we try to use it as a strategic device, it magnifies our confusion because the blurs outside of our finely tuned vision are all the more distressing, frightening, and alien to us

Adam is right. Operational excellence is strongly desirable but by itself, insufficient. It is a sword, not a map. Still less is it a crystal ball or moral code. 

Grand strategy is not, in my view, simply just “strategy” on a larger scale and with a longer time line. Strategy is an instrumental activity that unifies ends, ways and means. While grand strategy subsumes that aspect, it also provides ordinary strategy with a moral purpose, perhaps even in some instances, an identity.  Grand strategy explains not just “how” and “for what”, but “why we fight” and imparts to a society the supreme confidence in itself to sustain the will to prevail, even in the face of horrific sacrifice. Grand strategy brings into harmony our complex military and political objectives with the cherished, mythic narrative of a “good society” we conceive ourselves to be, reducing “friction”, “pumping up” our resolve and demoralizing our enemies. Grand strategy is constructive and energizing.

A simple but profound moral argument is a critical element of a grand strategy, to a great extent, it frames the subsequent political and military objectives for which war is waged. Here is one example:

….We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security

Or another:

….I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim?

I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal. But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, “come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.”

War is not a game of chess. Without a moral purpose – an Atlantic Charter, a Gettysburg Address, Pope Urban II’s sermon, the Funeral Oration of Pericles – to lend sanction to strategy, a war effort is hamstrung and civil society is left unengaged, perhaps indifferent or even hostile to military action. In the American Civil War, there was a world of difference between the morale and determination of Union states of 1861-1862 and that of late 1864-1865. This turnaround was not solely due to Generals Grant and Sherman, the former of whom was being castigated in the newspapers as a “butcher” up almost until the moment where he was deified in victory, the change pivoted on the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address which welded battlefield sacrifice to a higher cause.

Naturally, actions that violate the moral purpose – of the grand strategy or a society’s sense of self – are incredibly, incredibly, damaging. This is why Abu Ghraib was utterly devastating to the American war effort in Iraq. Or why accusations or evidence of high treason are bitterly divisive. They contradict the entire raison d’etre for having a strategy and paralyze a society politically, energizing competing centers of gravity while giving heart to the enemy.

Oddly, highly sophisticated American leaders seem to be blind to this but Osama bin Laden, fanatical and ignorant in his half-baked, obscurantist understanding of Salafi Islam, is keenly aware. His entire “fatwa” declaring al Qaida’s jihad on America, despite being riddled with lies, is a painstaking plea to his fellow Muslims as to the righteousness of his cause, the worthiness of his objectives and the iniquity of the American infidels. Osama may be an evil barbarian, but Bin Laden has far more clarity of purpose and moral certitude  than many USG senior leaders who cannot bring themselves to say who the enemies are that United States is fighting and why ( other than “9/11” – which is like saying we fought Nazi Germany because of Pearl Harbor). Too often they have an indecent haste to cut checks to governments who are allied to our enemies

They are halfhearted and timid in America’s cause while our foes brandish their convictions like they were AK-47’s.

“Genius is above all rules” – Carl von Clausewitz

“Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.” – Eric Hoffer

An intriguing, thought-provoking and frequently on-target paper by Dr. Anna Simons of SSI  (hat tip to SWJ Blog). First the summary excerpt and then some comments:

Got Vision? Unity of Vision in Policy and Strategy: What It Is and Why We Need It (PDF)

….Moving beyond “unity of effort” and “unity of command,” this monograph identifies an overarching need for “unity of vision.” Without someone at the helm who has a certain kind–not turn, not frame, but kind–of mind, asymmetric confrontations will be hard (if not impossible) to win. If visionary generals can be said to possess “coup d’oeil,” then unity of vision is cross-cultural coup d’oeil. As with strategic insight, either individuals have the ability to take what they know of another society and turn this to strategic–and war-winning–effect, or they do not. While having prior knowledge of the enemy is essential, strategy will also only succeed if it fits “them” and fits “us.” This means that to convey unity of vision a leader must also have an intuitive feel for “us.”

[ For the readers for whom military strategic terminology is unfamiliar, “coup d’ oeil” is an instant, intuitive, situational understanding of the military dynamics in their geographic setting. The great commanders of history, Alexander, Caesar, Belisarius, Napoleon – had it]

The key concept  here is “visionary generals” creating a mutually shared “general vision” of policy and its strategic execution. While military figures who hold high command – Eisenhower, MacArthur, Petreaus – are obvious examples, technically, it doesn’t have to be a “general” in immediate combat command, so much as the final “decider”. A figure whose authority is part autocrat and part charsmatic auctoritas. Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill epitomized this role, as did George Marshall, the orgainizer and architect of the Allied victory in WWII. On a less exalted scale, we see Edward Lansdale (cited by Simons) or Thomas Mann, LBJ’s behind the scenes, Latin America “policy czar” during the Dominican Crisis of 1965. 

Simons is arguing for finding “great men” of strategy rather than explaining how to contruct a strategic vision per se. There is a very strong emphasis here of successful strategy as an act of great creativity, with the strategist as a master artist of force and coercion, imposing their will on allies and the enemy to shape the outcome of events. Colonel John Collins, wrote of this article by Dr. Simons at his Warlord Loop:

Be aware that the following article is NOT about unity of vision. It is about visionaries who convinced a majority that their vision was the best available policy at a given time and place in a certain set of circumstances. Implementing plans, programs, and operations follow. Most successful visionaries indeed must be supersalespersons, because priceless theories and concepts otherwise gather dust.  

I agree. There’s a combination of actions here – strategic thought, proselytizing the vision, competent execution, empirical assessment and strategic adjustment – that feeds back continuously (or at least, it should). While Simons argues her point well and draws on several case studies from India from which I learned new things, there is a flaw in one of her premises:

Take Andrew Krepinevich’s and Barry Watts’s recent assertion that it is “past time to recognize that not everyone has the cognitive abilities and insight to be a competent strategist.”4 As they note, “strategy is about insight, creativity, and synthesis.”5 According to Krepinevich and Watts, “it appears that by the time most individuals reach their early twenties, they either have developed the cognitive skills for strategy or they have not.”6 As they go on to write:

If this is correct, then professional education or training are unlikely to inculcate a capacity for genuine strategic insight into most individuals, regardless of their raw intelligence or prior experience. Instead, the best anyone can do is to try to identify those who appear to have developed this talent and then make sure that they are utilized in positions calling for the skills of a strategist.7

Mark Moyar concurs. The point he makes again and again in his new book, A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq, is that “counter-insurgency is ‘leader-centric’ warfare, a contest between elites in which the elite with superiority in certain leadership attributes usually wins.”8

Watts and Krepinevich are statistically correct regarding the rarity of strategic thinking and are probably largely correct regarding the effects of professional military education and the career path of most military officers. They are most likely wrong on the causation of the lack of strategic thinking ability. It is not exclusively a matter of winning the genetic lottery or losing it at age thirty, cognitively we are what we frequently do. Discourage a large number of people by regulation or culture from taking the initiative and making consequential choices and you will ultimately have a group bereft of strategic thought. Or possibly, thought.

As with most professionals, military officers tend to be vertical thinkers, or what Howard Gardner in Extraordinary Minds calls “Masters” – as they rise in rank, they acquire ever greater expertise over a narrower and more refined and esoteric body of professional knowledge. This tendency toward insularity and specialization, analysis and reductionism is the norm in a 20th century, modern, hierarchical institutional culture of which the US military is but one example.

However, if you educate differently, force officers out of their field (presumably into something different from military science but still useful in an adjunctive sense), the conceptual novelty will promote horizontal thinking, synthesis and insight – cognitive building blocks for strategic thinking. While we should value and promote those with demonstrated talent for strategic thinking we can also do a great deal more to educate our people to be good strategists.

From Lexington Green:

Defeat in Afghanistan? The View from 2050

As previously announced, ChicagoBoyz will be hosting a roundtable discussion of the American campaign in Afghanistan, looking back from a forty year distance, from 2050.

In the few weeks since the initial post went up, we have had several dramatic events occur: The end of Gen. McChrystal’s command, the rise of Gen. Petraeus for a historic second command of a very troubled war, the apparent abandonment of President Obama’s timetable, the appearance of the Wikileaks document trove … . These are major developments.

Yet, looking back at any historical events from a long enough distance, all the details get ironed flat, the granularity milled to smooth powder, the larger patterns emerge, while the roles of key individuals sometimes come into clearer focus.

But for now, we don’t know how this war is going to play out. We are doomed to live history marching backward, facing only the past, and not knowing what we will trip over next.

Imagining possible outcomes, and possible explanations for those outcomes, can help us understand what is happening now, and help to clarify what we should be doing.

Our Roundtable contributors will publish their posts and responses during the third and fourth weeks of August, 2010.

To the ominously increasing antilibrary and the waning summer reading bookpiles:

Counterinsurgency by David Kilcullen

The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire by Edward Luttwak

Spook Country by William Gibson

Hope to start  a couple of these by the end of the month. A number of other books to be finished first.

I have a new decentralized reading strategy that seems to be helping me wad through books faster. Books that I am reading are distributed to be read in different places – one in my gym bag for the treadmill; one in my car in case there’s time to kill at an appointment or at a restaurant; one or two books downstairs to read on the couch or outside on the deck; one to take to the pool with the kids and four of five on my bedstand. There are also a store of books on my iPad, “just in case”.

The strategy allows me to concentrate on finishing several books – my “primary” reads – even as I steadily chip away at the rest and there are enough choices available to suit my mood on any given day so it doesn’t feel like I am doing a literary marathon. Books that I am focusing on, usually histories, strategic studies and social science works, I will mark up with marginalia and the others are just read without recourse to notation.

How do you handle your reading time?

The only question is who will be damaged more when their political system implodes after a coup by the ISI’s carefully cultivated  Islamist lunatic fringe, Pakistan or every other country connected to it including the United States?

Will we wake up and disentangle ourselves in time? Our strategic relationship with Islamabad is deemed necessary because of the logistical pipeline that flows through Pakistan (hint: smaller footprint makes Pakistan less valuable) but it is analogous to the guy who remains married to his wife who is a habitually violent, bipolar, crack addict because she stays home and watches the kids.

A superb post by Pundita on America’s whistling past the graveyard policy ofnPakistan:

He ain’t heavy, he’s my genocidal, hallucinatory, two-faced ‘ally’

Earlier this month the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, twisted his mouth into the shape of a pretzel to explain why it was okay for the U.S. to support Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal but not okay to support North Korea’s arsenal and Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He also saw no problem with the United States as much declaring war on India when he sympathized with Pakistan’s need to use nuclear weapons against India in order to feel safe.Then Americans wonder why Pyongyang and Tehran laugh at Washington’s lectures on nuclear proliferation. The leaders of both regimes have been doing clandestine nuke business with Pakistan for decades. They know Pakistan is the biggest nuclear weapons proliferator on the planet — and so does Mullen, who is the highest ranking military officer in the USA and as such is the principal military advisor to the President of the United States, the National Security Council, and the Secretary of Defense.

That’s not the half of the double standard America has practiced with regard to Pakistan. Barely a day goes by that the American news media doesn’t warn of the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran because of the regime’s end-of-time religious views, which American news analyst John Batchelor has termed “hallucinatory.”

It doesn’t get more hallucinatory than the views of Pakistani media mogul, Majeed Nizami, the owner of the Nawa-i-Waqt, The Nation, and Waqt TV channel. During a recent speech at a function given in his honor he declared that Pakistan’s missiles and nuclear bombs were superior to “India’s ghosts,” and that unleashing nuclear war against India was imperative. “Don’t worry if a couple of our cities are also destroyed in the process.”That would be the same Nation newspaper that cites the United States government as being behind every terrorist incident in the world, including the Times Square attack.If you think Nizami is an isolated nut case, you don’t know much about him, or Pakistan. He is the true face of the most powerful factions in Pakistan including its military leaders.

But in the view of the U.S. government and news media it’s okay for Pakistan’s military to hold hallucinatory views whereas it’s not okay for Iran’s leaders because, well, because.

It’s the same for anti-Semitic views that abound in Pakistan. In the same article that discussed Nizami’s view that nuclear Armageddon was the ticket to peace in South Asia, Pakistani journalist Shakil Chaudhary reported on a June 18 column in Nizami’s Nawa-i-Waqt paper in which Lt. Gen. Abdul Qayyum (ret), former chairman of Pakistan Steel Mills, approvingly quoted Adolph Hitler as saying: “I could have annihilated all the Jews in the world, but I left some of them so that you can know why I was killing them.”

Read the rest here.