Grand Strategy and Morality

August 21st, 2010 by zen

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.

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Posted in 4GW, A.E., America, analytic, ideas, intellectuals, leadership, legitimacy, meme, military, myth, national security, primary loyalties, psychology, society, strategy, Strategy and War, theory, war | 10 comments

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  1. YNSN:

    August 21st, 2010 at 8:34 am

    This reminds me of what Harold Macmillan said when asked what the greatest challenge to his term as Prime Minister would be:  "Events, my dear boy.  Events." 

    I agree with you, as Grand Strategy seems most often as something you can’t ‘do’.  It is something intangible.

    In looking at public opinion and our government itself.  I can’t help but wonder if systemically, we are not unable to have leaders to provide the moral context for this war. The last 10 years has seen an effort to compartmentalize the wars from the American people.  The results of which are becoming clear.   This is a war of moral attrition, not Oversea’s Contingency Operations.

  2. slapout9:

    August 21st, 2010 at 1:46 pm

    Well let’s see….what is the mission of America? A long time ago we created the greatest Grand Strategy Document that has ever existed and then  we ignore it. The USA has 6 Mission areas that if we ever fulfill them would keep us safe and prosperous. It has nothing to do with Capitalism or Communism or Socialism……it is about Americanism and creating the proper Systems to achieve our mission, when we learn that(or remember it) we may just start to get somewhere.

    From the preamble of the Constitution:
    1-Form a more perfect union.
    2-Establish justice.
    3-Insure domestic tranquilty.
    4-Provide for the common defense.
    5-Promote the general welfare.
    6-Secure the blessings of liberty for now and fututre generations.
    We don’t need to read anybody else’s theory or book, we need to practice the one we wrote!

  3. morgan:

    August 21st, 2010 at 2:23 pm

    Bullseye, Slapout–Semper Fi

  4. Duncan Kinder:

    August 21st, 2010 at 3:00 pm

    The Soviet Union had a Grand Strategy.

    Despite which, it collapsed.

    And yet the Communists survived in China.  Even though any Grand Strategy China may have is, at best, obscure.

  5. onparkstreet:

    August 21st, 2010 at 4:15 pm

    @ slapout – Unfortunately, there’s been a lot of "mission creep" since then….
    .
    – Madhu

  6. zen:

    August 21st, 2010 at 4:18 pm

    Hi Duncan,
    .

    The Soviet Union had a Grand Strategy.Despite which, it collapsed."
    .
    Very true. A poor grand strategy may be worse than not having one at all. OTOH, the Communists went from a obscure faction of Russian intellectual malcontents in 1917 to expand rapidly to briefly dominate something over a third of the planet by 1970 right before the Soviet economy began to contract and ultimately implode.
    .
    Kinda like Attila and the Huns

  7. T. Greer:

    August 21st, 2010 at 4:24 pm

    If I may, I point to a distinction I made in an earlier post over at my place, "Dreaming Grand Strategy." To quote the relevant material:

     In  Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History Frederick Merk states that the defining feature of the American polity has been its "sense of mission." Americans, says he, have always been invested in the idea that their Republic served a great purpose. They could never delegate their destiny to the realpoliticking of the upper echelons of power. In times of crisis it is this sense of of purpose that has sustained the Republic, and in achieving national goals it is this sense of purpose that has acted as the unconscious guide of American statesmen and citizens alike. Strip away America’s mission, and you have stripped away America. And in doing so you have stripped away our grand strategy as well.
    .

    You will be hard pressed to find a strategy articulated and pursued by American statesmen that was not embedded in a larger sense of American purpose. The isolationism of the early 1800s was rooted in the conviction that America was creating “an Empire of Liberty”, untouched by the despotism of the old world. 50 years later the nation fulfilled its “Manifest Destiny” to “Extend the Area of Freedom” by expanding to the Pacific coast. Before Roosevelt could put “Germany First”, he needed to declare that his country was “The Arsenal of Democracy”.  Kennan’s policy of containment was reliant on the assurance that America was the true and only “Leader of the Free World.”
    Phrases like "Manifest Destiny" and "Arsenal of Democracy" were not merely the rhetorical flourish used by canny politicians to justify the exercise of power. They were the reason power was exercised in the first place. These phrases were, in essence, bit-sized distillations of the mission and purpose Americans claimed for their nation. Containment only worked because the American populace believed that it was America’s mission to act as the Leader of the Free World. Cold War grand strategy was an outgrowth of this mission – a means to maintaining the mission’s end.

    .

    Purpose provides America with a vision. It prioritizes our interests, informs us of our enemies, and tells us what position we seek to hold on the international scene. A nation without a purpose is a nation without a grand strategy to achieve it.

    .

    Grand Strategy, I submit, does not provide us with a moral purpose. Rather, grand strategy is the means we use to satisfy the demands of this purpose. You cannot have grand strategy without the purpose – but they are not one and the same. Purpose transcends individual statesmen. It is the work of peoples, not politicians. As I state later in the piece:

    Our purpose is just as much a feeling as it is a nuanced thought process; it is decided not by the brilliance of an essay or a memo, but by the collective hopes, fears, and experiences of the entire nation. It is something we all take part in, and it is something we will all help create.

    (In the post I go on to further suggest that America’s lack of a national ethos is the root cause of our inability to formulate a lasting purpose, and thus, grand strategy. But that, I think, is only tangential to the discussion here.)

  8. J. Scott:

    August 22nd, 2010 at 12:10 am

    YNSN, I hope sincerely that you are wrong. If this is "a moral war of attrition" we will no survive. One of our major problems as a nation has been our rejection of morality in the name of fairness to the immoral. We have effectively litigated common sense from our political discourse. How do we credibly claim the moral high ground when Hollywood exports products and visuals that are offensive to many Americans, but truly offensive to a people less accustomed to the base nature our our "entertainment"? So bin Laden is credible when he complains that one of our major exports is immorality—which resonates with his followers; rightly or wrongly, the images reinforce the notion that their cause is just—and illustrates precisely what Zen mentioned in "sacrifice to a higher cause."

  9. slapout9:

    August 22nd, 2010 at 4:02 pm

    The Inaugural address of John Quincy Adams. Pay attention to how he was elected… after an election in which there was no clear winner, and how the Consitution provides for such and event.

    Link to how he intended to pursue the Grand Strategy of the Constitution.

    http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres22.html

  10. zen:

    August 22nd, 2010 at 4:30 pm

    Hi T. Greer,
    .
    Just caught your comment this a.m. 
    .
    Decided it is worth a post in it’s own right, a Part II. to this one, which may take a day or two….