The United States of Strategy
[by Lynn C. Rees, under the inspiration of Adam Elkus]
Strategy is not a rigorous field of study. Even given how any field of study is quickly revealed to be vomit of selective half-truths, wishful thinking, political compromises, poorly sourced anecdotes, random trivia, maternal homilies, typographical errors, outright lies, innocent omissions, and clerical tidying if picked at too closely, strategy is burning hot radioactive waste.
It’s main focus of inquiry is what undermines it. Most study strategy in search of what Aleksandr Suvorov titled his own inquiry: The Science of Victory. Most want to go one step beyond Suvorov: they want the book that has never been written (though many aspired to write it): The Checklist of Victory. This motive is understandable. As the Swun Dz stated 2,500 years ago:
Warfare is a great matter to a nation;
it is the ground of death and of life;
it is the way of survival and of destruction, and must be examined.
Unluckily, this urgency has condemned strategy to anachronism. Pre-empirical literature invariably flew straight from what is to what should be without apology or even the awareness that there was something to apologize for. Many fields of inquiry since have reached a way station where, even if perfunctorily, its adherents perform the correct liturgical motions to acknowledge what is before they leap to what should be. Strategy is not one of them. It has never developed that clear wall of separation between description and prescription that many other disciplines reached.
Behavior that ever capricious contemporary norms label as strategic is a constant of observed human experience. Yet much dissection of this behavior is a dangerously thin veneer over Potter Stewart‘s “I know it when I see it“. Adopting Stewart’s ever evolving sensibility is a fatal laziness. It dooms the study of strategy to an endless clash between proponents of an evergreen living strategy who appeal to novelty and originalists who appeal to the authority or tradition of their favorite textual hair splitter. Both sides end shoot blanks past each other since they’re often not even arguing their case before the same venue since they can’t agree on what the battlefield is. Hitting ’em where they ain’t is a time-honored tactical rule of thumb but it doesn’t make for a healthy field of study.
A rigorous field of strategy should at least be able to describe two aspects of strategy:
- traits that that uniformly classify a specific something as strategic and a specific something else as not
- the state of the traits so classified at any particular point in space and time
It could then contemplate a further leap:
- describing and classifying traits of a strategic participant’s desired strategic state at any given point in time
Perhaps then the study of strategy would have the luxury of pontificating on strategic prescriptions. However, strategy as a field is far away from accurately prescribing what strategy should be since it’s almost equally far away from accurately describing what strategy is.
seydlitz89:
December 19th, 2013 at 12:36 pm
Hi Lynn-
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Interesting as always, but at the same time for me at least a bit wearying . . . can’t for the life of me see much difference between what I’m reading today and the discussions we had on Chet Richard’s site 10 years ago. So, I don’t know if the clash is endless, so much as contextual and very much tied to our current political relations. The arguments between those favoring the current fad flavor of “strategic ice-cream” on one side and the academic Clausewitzians versus “non-trinitarians” on the other. The former engaged in what Svechin would describe as “tactics grown to monstrous proportions” and the latter either unable to formulate the next step of the general theory (nothing of influence has been produced since Handel’s Appendix D of 1992) or mired in their own unresolvable contradictions (van Creveld and his followers). Why this sad state of affairs, which I would date from the mid 1990s . . . ? Political context. I would note that our seeming lack of ability in strategic intelligence collection and analysis also dates from this point. Strategic theory and strategic intelligence collection/analysis thus are linked in various ways imo . . . so, both worth careful consideration . . .
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How clear writers such as JFC Fuller were on political context and contingency when writing on strategy/strategic theory back in the 1920s! We have a long way to go to reach the level of inquiry that they achieved imo.
Madhu:
December 19th, 2013 at 2:34 pm
Off=topic but kinda not. If interested, can someone help me with this point that I left at SWJ?:
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Robert, here’s the question I have and I am genuinely confused.
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Somehow, studying the issue of Zimbabwe/Rhodesian COIN helped me to finally see some points about the emotional wells of “sanctuary.”
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But the mechanics of some of our original Taliban removal still confuse me.
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From my reading, there was a huge argument in the Bush administration (I don’t know if this is correct) about whether the Taliban should be completely destroyed and pushed out of Kabul and the Northern Alliance was held back while someone to lead a Pashtun camp for our side too could be found? This was the advice from Musharraf and others in the Bush administration, apparently.
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Okay, to have a stable order, you can’t have a northern alliance monopoly and I understand your point about a larger and inclusive constitution.
But do you decide that while you are in the middle of a battle? You don’t half destroy something do you?
Wouldn’t it have been better (I know, the retrospectoscope makes us all smarter) to let the battle take place, capture the Taliban leaders, and then hold the constitutional conference that you suggested?
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But we were afraid of reprisal killings and excessive violence?
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Yes, the world is all shades of gray. My question really is more of a military question because I don’t have that expertise. When and how to you stop to assess the flow of a campaign?
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I know, huge question. But do you get why I am confused?
Madhu:
December 19th, 2013 at 2:35 pm
What, it’s sorta strategy related, isn’t it? Focus and discipline are not my strong suits….
zen:
December 19th, 2013 at 6:03 pm
Strategy in practice (when it is even being practiced), outside of the work of a few theorists, functionally is a craft. Mostly though we see tacticians doing tactics on larger scales in response to crisis management demands of political leaders with one or both eyes on creating a short term political effect for a domestic audience. The strategic effect on the enemy or our position is often a tertiary concern.
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Logistics is sometimes touted in conjunction with strategy because it is by nature quantifiable, measurable and more predictable. but all it does is set boundary conditions for a prospective strategy. But it is something we do very well – like tactics.
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Doc Madhu, seek out Colonel Tom Odom (ret.) of the Small Wars Council, he is an Africa area expert
larrydunbar:
December 19th, 2013 at 11:53 pm
“about whether the Taliban should be completely destroyed and pushed out of Kabul and the Northern Alliance was held back while someone to lead a Pashtun camp for our side too could be found?”
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I also don’t know if this is true, but the Bush administration had to rely on Iran to help the Northern Alliance, administrative wise, get into a position of leadership. While this position favored both Iran and the Bush administration, I am sure even a doctor could see some problems with Iran and the Bush administration being allies? So I am not sure what you don’t understand about the complexity of the situation, other than you understand the Bush administration loved the Taliban, at least from where they were positioned opposite of Iran.
larrydunbar:
December 20th, 2013 at 9:57 pm
“So I am not sure what you don’t understand about the complexity of the situation…”
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But then that could be the point. Strategy really only works on a complex situation, and the Bush administration only went into Afghanistan in a complicated way.
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In other words, Afghanistan was not a part of the Bush administration’s strategy. It was only a process that needed fixing.
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The complexity was in Iraq, and it was “fixed” mainly by paying the Sunni not to kill Americans, and isolating the people involved in the civil war from killing each other.
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Which the second part was simply fixed by erecting barricades and such, and the first by having faith in General Petraeus.
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When asked how the POTUS reacted when he told him of the deal, Petraeus said that he didn’t, Ha!
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Simple!
seydlitz89:
December 21st, 2013 at 12:00 am
larrydunbar-
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What you describe doesn’t come across as “strategy” at all in any traditional meaning of the word, but rather as strategic confusion . . . which is my point . . .
larrydunbar:
December 21st, 2013 at 1:44 am
I was perhaps suggesting that strategy was never common to either Afghanistan nor Iraq.
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Strategy also needs leaders who are able to stay in the “game”, which I don’t think neither Bush nor Cheney was able to accomplish. Maybe if Cheney hadn’t had heart problems he could have been more effective, but I am just guessing. A pretzel nearly took Bush out, but I think that is what happens when you mess with coke and alcohol in your “formative” years.
Aelkus:
December 23rd, 2013 at 11:38 pm
Seydlitz,
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This paragraph jumps out at me:
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“The arguments between those favoring the current fad flavor of “strategic ice-cream” on one side and the academic Clausewitzians versus “non-trinitarians” on the other. The former engaged in what Svechin would describe as “tactics grown to monstrous proportions” and the latter either unable to formulate the next step of the general theory (nothing of influence has been produced since Handel’s Appendix D of 1992) or mired in their own unresolvable contradictions (van Creveld and his followers). ”
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I agree this is frankly pointless. I have little love for the “strategic ice-cream-eaters,” but when you talk about being unable to formulate the next step of the general theory you also have to recognize in part where some of them come from. They are like, as Eminem noted about his young fans in “Without Me,” — “little hellions, kids feeling rebellious/embarrassed because their parents still listen to Elvis.”
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I am not sure strategic intelligence has much to do with it. Rather, you probably should be looking at the incentives for people researching strategy within academic institutions. They are not really very great.
seydlitz89:
December 24th, 2013 at 3:22 pm
Adam-
I think you misunderstood my comment although I would agree with you regarding lack of incentives. I came to strategic theory by way of overt US strategic Humint collection, that is I am not an academic. I found that strategic theory required more or less the same mindset as what I had earlier done regarding strategic Humint collection, thus the connection. This experience and view is also highly contingent with the point in time I’m referring to, immediately after the end of the Cold War, when overt collection activities were able to influence our own priorities based on what we saw. It didn’t last for long, but it was great while it lasted. I would add that having worked for a soft power institution for about 15 years only reinforces this view . . .
larrydunbar:
December 24th, 2013 at 8:44 pm
“Strategy in practice (when it is even being practiced), outside of the work of a few theorists, functionally is a craft.”
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I am not sure in what context you are using “functionally”, but strategy is not a craft.
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Speaking from a past experience in a workspace as a craftsman (millwright), I have to tell you strategy is not a craft, but it is what every craftsman has to use to maintain his/her craft.
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A craftsman has to use strategy to “jump” over the process, otherwise there would be no need of a craftsman. The job of a craftsman is to make a living, and to take advantage of his/her position. But to do that, there has to be a need for the craft.
Take the craft millwrighting as an example. Old craft, not much needed in the U.S. anymore. Like car mechanics, they have almostly all have been replaced by technicians. There is little need for technicians to think strategically.
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Their “strategy” is to go from one step to the next. They only get into trouble when they “jump” over the process.
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Craft is about control, and a technician doesn’t need control because he/she (to quote an past POTUS) “is”.
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In other words, there is a need in the conceivable future for technicians, so there is no need to control the market. The only interest a technician should have is to command the wage needed to maintain a living. Technicians are not interested, as technicians, in what people want, because they are already, in todays world, needed.
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Perhaps you meant strategy is an art instead of science, which is where the “art” in the “arts & crafts” comes from.