Volume 7, Issue 4, Winter 2022 43 structures. It would have to be a ‘slow-burn’, with a gradual build-up to crisis over many years. Largely devoid of action, the true drama would be between the personalities of the characters and the forces between the institutions they represent. Less Tom Clancy think rather of a cross between West Wing and Yes, Minister. NATOmight not be the easiest study, nor may it seem at first glance immediately exciting or dramatic. Yet the history of the Cold War in Europe was largely written and negotiated behind the closed doors of the Alliance’s political and military establishments. In the margins and footnotes of bland policy documents lies the major 20th century debates on deterring nuclear war, East-West relations, and civilmilitary relations. Beyond a potential screenplay and manuscript on NATO history, there is a hint for scholars of civil-military relations to the question posed by Ripper’s quote of Clemenceau to Mandrake. For whom is war more important? The simple answer is both. The more complex answer, it depends on the specific circumstances, the actors involved, the nature of the war, and its costs (e.g., cost to society at large or cost to the military force). “Existential” or “total” wars naturally entail a higher degree of involvement for both, while discretionary wars of choice, such as Afghanistan or Iraq, will probably be of greater interest to the political side. To arbitrarily divide between the military and political at the strategic level is to wilfully separate two spheres that desperately need each other’s views and advice. Recent debates underline the challenges of these tendencies highlighted here in the case of NATO.[xxxvi] There is a clear role for a ‘fusionist’ or a ‘political-military manager’ who is willing to blur the lines in practice to achieve more effective strategy. What is historically evident, is that rigid adherence to an “ideal form” or the strict division of military and political categories at the highest levels is to court disaster. Re-Thinking the Strategic Approach to Asymmetrical Warfare Daniel Riggs References [i] Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, directed by Stanley Kubrick (1964; Culver City, CA: Columbia Pictures Home Video, 2005), DVD. [ii] Red Dawn, directed by John Milius (1984; Los Angeles, CA: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2000), Streaming. [iii] Thunderball, directed by Terence Young (1965; Los Angeles, CA: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2008), Streaming. [iv] Deutschland 83, directed by Samira Radsi (2015; London, UK: Universal Pictures (UK), 2015), DVD. [v] Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising (New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1986). [vi] Mara Karlin, “Civilian Oversight in the Pentagon,” in Reconsidering American Civil-Military Relations, ed. Lionel Beehner, Risa Brooks, and Daniel Maurer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), pg. 90. [vii] Peter D. Feaver, Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil Military Relations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), pg. 281. [viii] Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), pg. 356-357. [ix] Diego A. Ruiz Palmer, “The NATO-Warsaw Pact Competition in the 1970s and 1980s: a revolution in military affairs in the making or the end of a strategic age?” Cold War History 14, no. 4 (2014): 533-573. [x] Lawrence S. Kaplan, “General Lyman L. Lemnitzer and NATO, 1948-1969: a deferential leader,” Cold War History 19, no. 3 (2019): 323-341.
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