Volume 2, Issue 2, Spring 2012
Infinity Journal
Page 7
Disharmony among levels of behaviour:
One can identify political, strategic, (arguably) operational,
and tactical levels of performance. However, there is no
natural harmony between their levels of effort.[xii] Each level
has a distinctive nature, and the concerns at each level will
be unique. Harmony has to be imposed and enforced by
strategic command performance, though frequently it is not;
as often as not because the political authorities and highest
military command will not have decided firmly on what they
want to do. If one is undecided – guess what, strategic grasp
and grip will be weak. Operational commanders will enjoy
great freedom because there will not be much important
traffic sent their way across the strategy bridge.The command
performance required of senior generals needs to function
both upwards and downwards in the chain of command.
Military strategists have to strive to discipline the urges and
ambitions of their political masters, while simultaneously
ensuring that subordinate generalship is conducted with
suitable strategic sense.
A belligerent does not require a definite and unified strategy
in order to do strategy. As observed earlier, military practice
is strategic practice, whether or not one has a clear strategy.
In the Asia-Pacific War against Imperial Japan in 1941-45, U.S.
military effort was short on strategic grasp and grip. Which
of the American threats was the principal
Schwerpunckt
?
The truth was that the United States allowed circumstances
(contingency), personality, and the relative eventual
abundance of its mobilized military assets to determine that it
would menace Japan via the Solomon Islands, New Guinea,
the Chinese mainland (air threat), and the Central Pacific
(with the Marianas as key). Would the Americans by-pass
the Philippines, Formosa/Taiwan? Both the Japanese and
the Americans indulged in diffusion of effort in posing and
defending against threats from many points of the compass.
The Principle of War that insists on concentration of effort was
plainly mocked. But, the United States could afford multiple
threat vectors,while Japan could not. It made some strategic
sense to confuse the enemy as to one’s principal threat(s).
In this major case from World War II it was ironic that a
genuine indecision on the American part, had net beneficial
strategic consequences. One is reminded of the maxim that
quantity has a quality all its own. Also, to coin a maxim by
adapting Herman Kahn’s advice that “[u]sually the most
convincing way to look willing is to be willing”, there is some
scarcely deserved strategic merit in the thought that “the
most effective way to confuse the enemy is to be confused
oneself”.[xiii] Whether the all too genuine confusion in U.S.
strategy that probably proved to be strongly net strategically
advantageous was a rare genuine paradox, or merely an
irony, is debateable.[xiv]
Education in strategy.
It ought to be a good idea to educate the military in strategy,
but in practice few soldiers, sailors, and airmen are really
thus educable.[xv] Genius as potential can be polished
and helped along, but one cannot put in what God and
nature have left out.[xvi] One can train for the mastery of
operational skills, but the imagination needed for strategy
cannot reliably be taught. Still, one should not blame armed
services for trying to do the very difficult. A huge problem
is that politicians are likely to be even less gifted in aid of
an understanding of military strategy than are soldiers.
Clausewitz claims that that ought not to matter, because
allegedly policymakers can find the military expertise they
need, when they need it. Manifestly, this is not the case.
Strategic competence, if not necessarily excellence, should
be widespread. After all, the strategic function captured in
the ends-ways-means mantra, is a basic need for human
(inter alia) life at all levels of behaviour. Competence in the
design of national grand strategy is a challenge to which
few can aspire plausibly, but in our day-to-day activities we
all need to achieve some match between goals, designs
for reaching them, and means. Military officers perform the
strategic function at every level of command, from a platoon
on upwards. But, what is exceptionally challenging about
the strategy function that is of concern to this essay is, to
repeat, the requirement to employ force and its threat for its
transaction value in political coinage.This is one reason why
“business strategy” is not a close fit with military strategy. The
strategists that are my subject here know how best to attempt
to turn water into wine. Sound, or better, military judgment –
even excellent creative imagination – is highly valuable for
the strategist. But, as just stated these assets point only to a
person who is first-rate at solving military problems. Strategy
requires that military problems be solved,or at least effectively
bypassed, but also it demands that the military problems
and their military solution or alleviation be understood for
their political meaning. Strategy needs us to fight well, but it is
not
about
our fighting well.
Every war/conflict is different:
Although all wars have the essentials in common (e.g. war’s
“climate” is enduring), and strategy is eternal and universal,
the details are always changing. There are no thoroughly
reliable experts on the future. In a vital sense, if and when
politicians and soldiers conduct a dialogue about a possible
future war, it has to be a case of the blind talking to the
poorly sighted. Did the British military understand Iraq and
Afghanistan in the 2000s (and do they now)? And the same
can also be said of World Wars I and II. Ignorance of what
has yet to happen is the normal condition in the interactive
project that is future war.
Given that one cannot know, really know, what the costs and
benefits of the resort to war will be, is rational policy decision-
making possible? If the costs of a future war are unknown,
and its benefits similarly must be strictly speculative, how
can strategy be a rational project? Since the political ends
called policy cannot be metrically valued, not least for the
reason that they are not certain, and the price of tactical
Competence in the design of
national grand strategy is a
challenge to which few
can aspire plausibly,
Strategy: Some Notes for a User’s Guide
Colin S. Gray
A belligerent does not require a
definite and unified strategy in
order to do strategy.
