Is Grand Strategy Democratic?
….President Eisenhower commissioned Project Solarium in part to devise a strategy for coping with a lack of knowledge about the Soviets’ intentions and capabilities. Today, however, more and more strategic intelligence is publicly available. For example, the National Intelligence Council’s[xxiii] new Global Trends series is unclassified. We now arguably suffer not from too little information, but from too much. This has increasingly democratized the arena of grand strategy and enabled more and more even amateur analysts to help process the wealth of information in the public domain and formulate it into alternative visions for the future. One might argue that what these different entities focus on is simply policy or at best strategies for individual instruments of national power. However, even individual policy or strategy analyses might instead be seen as reflections of the overarching principles that they support (and that are often enumerated in the mission statements of many of these think tanks, institutes, and analysis centers), which as Sinnreich contends, are what in fact help form the basis of an enduring grand strategy
Sort of. There are two other ways to look at this picture.
First, that we have an insufficient consensus bordering on ideological schism within the elite as to what America is and is supposed to become that executing foreign policy, much less enunciating a grand strategy, cannot get beyond the lowest common denominators between left and right and bureaucratic autopilot. This in turn causes the cacophony of voices on grand strategy. I partially subscribe to this view.
Secondly, that our elite, whatever their divisions over political passions or personalities have a consensus grand strategy ( or at least, an ethos) for generational and class aggrandizement at the expense of the rest of us and American national interest in a way that the former 20th century governing class called the Eastern Establishment would have neither imagined nor tolerated. The resulting ferment of “bottom-up” grand strategy is a result of increasing divergence of interests between rulers and the ruled and an erosion of the former’s legitimacy as a result of their self-aggrandizing game-rigging , abandonment of the ethic of leadership as stewardship for “ubi est mea” and a deficit of competence that contrasts with their enormously inflated collective sense of self-importance.
I partially subscribe to this one as well.
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T. Greer:
August 9th, 2013 at 10:04 am
rms.
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Strategy may be made by the great minds above, but it is put into practice by those at the mid level. Often times decisions of great strategic import – say, should we let all these Goths in, – were and are and must be made without any direct input from the top at all. Grand strategy is what unifies the decisions of these disparate and scattered actors. It guides their individual priorities and defines their vision of victory. It cannot be imposed from above. If the spirit is missing, no number of letters will suffice.
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As such, the line between strategy and identity is blurry and very hard to draw. The political and strategic culture of the decision making class is, for all practical intents and purposes, a nation’s grand strategy. Thus a people’s ability to create, implement, and stick to a grand strategy is very much dependent on their cohesion and sense of identity – their asabiyah.. Asabiyah aligns self interest with larger group interest. It is the force that convinces individuals it is in their self interest to die for their country. It provides a powerful lens through which to view the world. When it declines the lens cracks. Individuals – or small, individual classes – put self interest over group interest and unified action becomes impossible. At best you get our current bout of strategic schizophrenia, at worst the divisions of Caesars and Athonies.
T. Greer:
August 9th, 2013 at 10:24 am
Oops, first paragraph was cut off there. Not going to rewrite it all. Ths gist: the great majority of American grand strategy theorizing are really just personal wish lists dressed up in grand terms. The dynamics of strategy creation are usually ignored.
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I have written about this with more depth over at my place. (Though I have yet to write an essay that explicitly connects strategy with asabiyah, so termed. That one is still in the works). The two most recent pieces:
“Grand Strategy Absent Grand Ends”
T. Greer. The Scholar’s Stage. 18 March 2013.
“Strategy is Who You Are”
T. Greer. The Scholar’s Stage. 27 Feb 2013.
seydlitz89:
August 9th, 2013 at 11:53 am
zen-
Interesting article by Barrett. Three comments . . .
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His comment on Reagan’s speech at the Berlin Wall brings back memories. RR’s invitation to the Soviet leadership to “tear down this wall” required action on the Soviet’s part, with the US providing incentives to this massive turn in Soviet policy, essentially giving up their Eastern European empire . . . but this required more RR the diplomat than RR the sword rattler. The fall of the Berlin Wall was actually accomplished by the East Germans, but was in line with US interests as they had been defined since, what the Mr X Article? The point here is that in grand strategy, or any strategy that the US will expect to follow today, we will have to lean more on the none coercive elements of power.
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Barrett’s Colin Gray quote (Note xvi) regards Clausewitz’s general theory of war. But among the doctrinal speculators who dominate the strategic discussions today there is precious little understanding of even the existence of the general theory, let alone it’s seeming necessity in strategy formulation. The construction of the tower of babel comes to mind . . . but at this point in time the “builders” are unable to decide on what a plan would even look like . . . All of course pursuing their own individual interests while blathering about common goals. I think specifically of those feeding at the public spending trough of the war on terror industry . . .
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Finally, and we have spoken about this before . . . what is the political context? Is the goal simply sustaining the status quo, that is precluding the raise of any competing power, that is maintaining our supposed state of dominance? If so, then what we are talking about is not strategy at all, but simply a desire and far too broad to approach in terms of strategic theory.
Nathaniel T. Lauterbach:
August 9th, 2013 at 5:28 pm
I vehemently disagree that grand strategy is more “democratic” under today’s interconnected policy wonk-think-tank-military-industrial-academic-media complex.
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One only has to look at the ways R2P or the spate of “doctrines” (Bush Doctrine, Obama Doctrine, etc.) have come about to realize that such doctrines are just as non-democratic as the doctrines built at Yalta or Bretton Woods. It just so happens that, in the past, there was a more rigid path to power than now, and consequently, there was more quality control of the individuals involved.
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Today, that’s not the case. Rather, the instruments of national power come under the sway of undemocratically elected or selected personalities, who come to power by ingratiating themselves to the political establishment. They make decisions and policy, and then reap the spoils of power. One only needs to remember the group of people that Rumsfeld brought in from the various conservative think tanks, and then compare the outright selection of much of the leadership of CNAS by the Obama administration.
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Paul Wolfowitz and Michele Flournoy have a great deal in common. As do Doug Feith and Samanth Power.
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Once these people are discredited, they do not pay the price of failure. At least elites in the past did. The costs of failure are now transferred to the public at large, while damage is done to the instruments of power.
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The solution? Disconnect highly-undemocratic academia and the think tanks from the process of creating policy. (I know it will never happen, but that doesn’t make me wrong.) Utilize the talent resident within the instruments of power, where risks materialize as something more than a handsome book deal and a round on the sunday morning talking head circuit.
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S/F,
NTL
J. Scott Shipman:
August 9th, 2013 at 6:53 pm
Hi NTL,
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If there were a “like” button…most of these think-tank bubbas come into “power” with policy agendas disconnected from anything approaching “grand strategy.” These advisors are more like power courtiers who are given just enough power to make a mess, but not enough accountability for their performance.
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DoD/DoS (the national government, for that matter) are closed systems for the most part—and regardless party, all tend towards policies/______ doctrines, so called, that have cost us blood and treasure and have little or nothing to do with our national interests…too much theory, as you suggest…
Grurray:
August 9th, 2013 at 8:25 pm
I agree with T. Greer. The mid level is where the disruptive innovation originates which really wags the dog.
Much the same way colonels always lead the coups.
Ike looks better with each passing presidency, but he was no stranger to acting with uncertain information such as Omaha Beach or getting blind sided from intel failures like the Ardennes counteroffensive.
What probably helped push the containment strategy thru was the fact that we had a nearly 10:1 casualty advantage in Korea and were still held to a stalemate.
Ralph H.:
August 9th, 2013 at 8:26 pm
Does anyone (not in the depths of the blogosphere) pay much attention to the QDR these days? Is there a grand strategic rival anywhere on the horizon? (The PRC, for example, doesn’t really pose a national security challenge.) Our front-burner security issue is really an international police/intelligence/low-intensity conflict challenge about which we know all too much. In my opinion.
Lynn C. Rees:
August 9th, 2013 at 8:54 pm
U.S. grand strategy politics is only suboptimal if you assume its agenda is Benthamite equilibrium i.e. “seeking the greatest good for the greatest number”. If, as is more likely, you assume its agenda is to actively bring about a “Creepy State” rentier apparatus controlled by the sort of apparatchiks who make up the narrow target demographic of The Mouth of Sauron Charlie Rose Show, then its performance is only mediocre. If, from the textbook persepective, the U.S. is not only doing the wrong thing but doing the wrong thing wrongly, it’s doing so in such a way that continues to generate an sufficient supply of periwig-esque gaming opportunities for the military-financial complex. As with DoD, the core mission of the official and unofficial grand strategic political apparat is procurement: anything that interrupts delivery of public violence-backed securities into elite private hands is verboten.
J. Scott Shipman:
August 9th, 2013 at 10:12 pm
Lynn,
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Great point…engineers, civil servant, and military went from planning for war as a focus, to acquisition is the end-all. On the navy side, the decision was conscious in the late 80’s to move from a government engineering focus to a acquisition focus—using engineers. Imagine attracting good ones when they spend 90% of their time mired down in process…Now many navy commands are staffed by generalists at the mercy of their prime contractor—who are increasingly untalented in the martial arts and sciences as well. As an old navy Chief once told me, “any thing is possible when you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Hence we get JSF and LCS and other madness in the technicolor of PowerPoint…all this before strateegery is ever considered…
prbeckman:
August 10th, 2013 at 2:56 am
Grand strategy is supposed to be about all the elements of national power not just the military. But this is what always happens, someone complains about our inadequacies at grand strategy, then the conversations inevitably default back to discussions about the military. Which is understandable, after all it’s much more exciting to be an armchair general than an armchair trade negotiator.
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From what I’ve seen most people who have an interest in grand strategy begin with an interest in military history and as time passes and they read more they eventually become interested in grand strategy at which point they begin complaining that other people don’t know enough about grand strategy. It’s not really fair for those of us who have an interest in this area to complain that those who don’t share that interest don’t know anything about it. After all there was a time before we knew what it was too. Chances are if you don’t have a personal interest in military issues or foreign policy that you’ve never even heard of “grand strategy”.
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The underlying challenge we face is how do we spread some knowledge of strategic thinking as broadly as possible, out beyond the circle of those who have an innate interest in the subject.
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My suggestion is that we focus on domestic disaster response rather than war & military strategy as a means if disseminating strategic thinking and here’s why. Strategy is about connecting ends-ways-means. It’s about setting priorities; about allocating limited resources to achieve policy goals. Most people have no interest in studying war & military affairs but everybody is impacted by natural disasters. Every year the US faces hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, floods, wildfires, earthquakes and other natural disasters. As we all know these pose great challenges to us and preparing and responding to them requires the same kind of strategic thinking that is required in waging war. It involves at the federal level DOD, Coast Guard and other assets; at the state level, national guard & state police; and local fire and police (and much more). If these kinds of resources were being used to fight a war we’d be demanding a strategy, but use the same resources for disaster response and we shrug our shoulders. But this is an area that is as yet unexplored by the kinds of strategic scholars who usually end up writing about the well-worn subjects of war & military strategy (and thus offers a great opportunity for ambitious strategic thinkers.)
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If we frame strategic thinking primarily in terms of national security we’re only going to reach a narrow slice of the population, but if we frame it in terms of disaster or emergency response then we can potentially reach everybody in some way. 100% of the American people & private sector institutions from businesses, charities, religious institutions etc. are impacted in some way by disasters; all governments, local, state & federal have to plan for and respond to natural disasters. Disaster response demands the connection of ends-ways-means, but where are the great disaster response strategists? If we adapt strategic thinking to disaster response we have a far greater chance of dissemination than if we continue to expect that everyone will wake up one day and decide to study national security issues. Since federal officials have usually served in some prior local and state position they will be more likely to encounter strategic thinking via disaster response than through national security experience. And it will be easier for them to transfer that experience to national security issues than for them to start from scratch.
zen:
August 10th, 2013 at 3:17 am
Great comments gents!
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T. Greer – “When it declines the lens cracks. Individuals – or small, individual classes – put self interest over group interest and unified action becomes impossible.
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Nate – ” It just so happens that, in the past, there was a more rigid path to power than now, and consequently, there was more quality control of the individuals involved.”
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Seydlitz89 – “But among the doctrinal speculators who dominate the strategic discussions today there is precious little understanding of even the existence of the general theory, let alone it’s seeming necessity in strategy formulation. The construction of the tower of babel comes to mind . . . but at this point in time the “builders” are unable to decide on what a plan would even look like “
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Nothing to disagree with there. What would be useful – though this is only a temporary band-aid – is a massive infusion of outsiders with a new administration that consciously avoids picking rotten fruit from the same barrels to disrupt the cozy, incestuous relationships that interweave k street, the MSM, Wall St., Harvard-Yale-Princeton law, the defense industry, the billionaire meddlers of Aspen/Davos and capitol hill. Of course, the political spats will be furious as they were in the early Reagan years. Reagan did not just bring in conservative appointees to liberal DC bureaucracies – he brought in large numbers of them from *outside* the Beltway-Manhattan axis who had no ties to the locals and filled up all those new slots made available by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 with non-career people. This was intentional and a strategy to “nit the ground running” and get real control of policy from Washington insiders ( who naturally resented it bitterly). While the Reagan folks either were eventually replaced or captured in time, for a few years this influx threw Washington into disarray as information that used to flow to Congress and the media to give Congress the upper hand over Nixon, Ford and Carter stopped until new relationships could be built
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Of course this unlikely event would only create a short breathing space in which to try to ram through 1-3 systemic reforms.
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Hi Ralph
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I agree China is not a threat in the sense that we used to measure them. OTOH it is definitely adversarial in many policies and is trying to rewrite large portions of international law in terms of territorial claims in ways we can’t really accept even if we don’t wish to fight about them either. The Chinese do not seem to have one voice in foreign policy but rivalrous factions below the steering committee of the politburo
Madhu:
August 10th, 2013 at 3:59 pm
The solution? Disconnect highly-undemocratic academia and the think tanks from the process of creating policy. (I know it will never happen, but that doesn’t make me wrong.) Utilize the talent resident within the instruments of power, where risks materialize as something more than a handsome book deal and a round on the sunday morning talking head circuit.
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@NTL: I sometimes fantasize that if I win the lottery or something, I will start my own think tank but it will be a think tank that does nothing but debunk all the bad ideas running around the national security and military intellectual world. Forget CNAS, AEI, all the other acronym rich this-and-that in academia too. The tank will be called WDYTTSS?: why do you think that stupid &$%^ ?
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Ideology, greed, foreign interest lobbying and shaping, pride, servility, jealousy, you name it. Every kink known to man probably explains American foreign policy better than the endless PhD papers churned out year after year, unread and unloved, even if very good.
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You can trace my bad online behavior (remember when I was so sweet and nice to everyone?) to the exact moment I realized I was a fool to read all those academic papers and take them seriously.
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Nine times out of ten, there is no “there” there if you really try and track back the ideas.
Madhu:
August 10th, 2013 at 4:05 pm
Zen, I wonder if anyone has looked at left over Reagan appointees versus Nixon appointees (current players inside the beltway) when looking at “stupid *^%$” that people think regarding my favorite kink, American, or Anglo-American nonsense toward “South Asia”? The old Nixon wallah’s in the early 2000’s were almost unthinking in their approaches, but I might be making this up.
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One of these days, I am going to bust out my “Madeleine Albright” story, all rubber chicken lunches and interviews with an audience filled with young Boston area female professionals, eager to intellectually kiss the hem of the insider….
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But it’s too nice out today and I have other things to do, so maybe later.
Madhu:
August 10th, 2013 at 4:18 pm
@ Seydlitz:
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Seydlitz89 – “But among the doctrinal speculators who dominate the strategic discussions today there is precious little understanding of even the existence of the general theory, let alone it’s seeming necessity in strategy formulation.
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Interesting take. I tend to think the opposite happens at times. There is more time spent thinking about how many angels-of-Clausewitz fit on the head of a pin than understanding anything else about the world.
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I somehow never thought military intellectuals–or a subset–would be so dreamy eyed and divorced from reality. Maybe Tom Ricks is right about military education, on a certain level.
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I wrote the following on SWJ:
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It’s like you all need a Journal of Theoretical Military Science to handle all the attempts to find a complete theory of war and Journal of Applied Military Science to study ways in which American military power may be reasonably used to achieve a strategic end, and even if that end is diffuse and ill-considered, are there minimalist strategies or operational frameworks that might mitigate some of the strategic disaster?
I’m not joking, for reasons that are unclear to me people confuse grand theoretical philosophical concepts for the hard work that must be done in trying understand a particular campaign and come up with reasonable frameworks within with to operate–that also keep in mind the American system.
Outsiders see this which is probably why you are seeing British publications like Infinity Journal, The Journal of Operations or War on the Rocks.
And there was an article in Infinity Journal by a West Point professor on just this topic, how few students take a course in strategy, or how to line up all your ducks in a row, so to speak….
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But, hahaha, are those British publications really, I just made that up. I never read bios.
Madhu:
August 10th, 2013 at 4:21 pm
Also, I’ve always been kind of a know-it-all &^%* but know one seemed to mind before, there is something about some of the more serious foreign policy and military sites that is a bit, I dunno, priggish, at times? No wonder people have to READ about creativity….
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I’m so tired, I’ve been having too much fun lately, ignore my ten-kind-of-crazy, I’m barely awake.
seydlitz89:
August 10th, 2013 at 5:46 pm
Madhu-
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There is more time spent thinking about how many angels-of-Clausewitz fit on the head of a pin than understanding anything else about the world.
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This is usually how an article bashing Clausewitz starts out, the usual “Clausewitz as catechism” canard, as in William Olson’s recent attack. Funny how I’ve never read a Clausewitzian actually referring to Clausewitz in this way, but hey if you’ve got an example . . . I’d like to see it . . .
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Strategic theory is simply a tool to deal with strategy or in military historical analysis. You don’t need strategic theory to “do” strategy, but many people who think a lot about strategy think it’s a good thing. Clausewitz’s general theory (which forms the basis of strategic theory) has been around for some time and some Clausewitzian thinkers since Clausewitz (Weber, Goltz, Svechin, Fuller, Mao, Niebuhr, Galula, Schelling, Münkler, Rupert Smith, Emile Simpson) have added insights to the general theory expanding it in important ways. I would argue that JC Wylie was a Clausewitzian as well, although he didn’t realize it and had been confused by the writings of BHL Hart. Also Venkat Rao’s concepts are very compatible with the general theory imo . . .
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So on one side you’ve got the general theory and on the other you have the various doctrinal speculators selling their version of “how war has changed” or “how to deal with this existential threat” . . . which of course involves not a small amount of “faith” for lack of better word. So who exactly is dealing with as Olson says, “liturgical mysteries revealed by an inner light known only to true initiates”? If you think it’s the Clausewitzians, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree . . .
Madhu:
August 25th, 2013 at 5:01 pm
You misunderstood my point.
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I am not an anti-Clausewitzian and I was not bashing Clausewitz. I was making the point that Pat Lang often makes on his blog, you need to know a little something about the world too, the greatest theoretician in the world still needs to know a little something about the peoples and places of the world.
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I was lampooning this ignorance so I was not making the same point as the anti-Clausewitzians. The problem most certainly isn’t studying Clausewitz, a deeply important writer worth studying indeed, but ignorance, but in thinking that all you need to study is Clausewitz and nothing else. I know I exaggerate for effect, but it is that attitude that I was making fun of….
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You’ve clearly never read my comments making fun of Lind or the “states are not important” crowd. I wager we agree more than disagree but as an educator I’ve noted that if you spend too much time on one subject, you may be woefully underprepared in other areas. That’s all I meant.
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How you got anti-Clausewitz from my comment I don’t understand?
Madhu:
August 25th, 2013 at 5:03 pm
I am not a fan of the doctrinal speculators either, and find Clausewitz far more interesting. Again, I was making fun of the type of person that thinks all he or she needs to do is study a favorite text or conflict and ignore everything else. A third point different from the anti-Clausewitzians who I think misunderstand this and blame Clausewitz.
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Sigh, is that more clear this time around? Again, you and I likely agree a great deal.
seydlitz89:
August 25th, 2013 at 7:39 pm
Madhu-
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I take strategic theory very seriously . . .
Lynn C. Rees:
August 26th, 2013 at 2:44 am
Many Clausewitzians get doctrinaire because the Clausewitz many of his enemies attack is not only a straw man but a poorly made designed by GOSPLAN committee straw man. If you are going to calumny a dead Prussian, at least do it with even just a minimum touch of style and verve.
The super CvC created by his self-appointed groupies to slay the straw CvC is just as fictional. Is Vom Krieg the last word on war for all time? No. Is it an unfinished book with massive holes in it? Yes. Are parts of it impenetrable? Yes. Are some passages so vague that they can be reinterpreted to cover any imaginable future contingency. You betcha.
But there are parts of CvC that have yet to be surpassed in the philosophy of war. Many of those bits are those cherry-picked by his detractors in drawing their CvC cartoon. So the lines harden along that front.
seydlitz89:
August 26th, 2013 at 11:45 am
Lynn-
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Greetings.
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I don’t see it that way.
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It’s simple in terms of strategic theory. One either admits that a Clausewitzian general theory of war exists and that it forms the basis of strategic theory, or not. That is one accepts strategic theory as a retrospectively orientated complex of interlocking concepts useful for strategic analysis of military history or as a starting point for strategic planning, or not. You can spot a Clausewitzian strategic theorist very quickly, which doesn’t mean you’re going to agree with him/her, politics and all that . . . That’s what I mean by “Clausewitzian”, but then I’m a strategic theorist so I would see it that way . . .
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Now if I were a military historian, or a naval historian, I might see it differently, arguing against the possibility of a general theory at all, as van Creveld has done in his second incarnation . . . How effective do you rate his argument?
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Some military historians don’t see any “timeless element” at all. Clausewitz, Thucydides, Marx, Weber, Morgenthau are all products/creatures of their respective times, period. My point here is that if you approach Clausewitz in this way, we’re talking about a lot of different flavors, whereas with strategic theory only two.
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As to the doctrinal speculators, they have an agenda, to sell their version of “how war has changed” or “how to deal with this existential threat”. For them “Clausewitz” stands for what was being done wrong before the path was lightened by their own brilliance. So they chop a few quotes, kick around their little strawman and then quickly go on selling their soap. So they’re not really “enemies of Clausewitz”, they’re charlatans selling doctrinal snake oil, but at the same time degrading any possibility of a coherent strategic discussion . . . which is pretty much where we as a political community are now and have been since 9/11 and even before . . . it is much more this self-interested degradation of the strategic discussion that I think Clausewitzians struggle against.
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Finally, a “Doctrinaire Clausewitzian” for me would be something quite different, a person using Clausewitz’s early 19th Century art of war as a basis for military doctrine I would assume, which has very limited applicability, perhaps more for Napoleonic battle reenactments . . .