The Responsibilities of Politics in its Relations with Strategy

Abstract

Contemporary Russian strategists consider Lieutenant General Evgeny Ivanovich Martynov (1864–1937) as a distinguished Russian Imperial and Soviet military theoretician. His military career included active participation in the 1904–5 Russo-Japanese War, World War I and the Russian Civil War, as well as educational and research positions on the General Staff of the Red Army until his retirement in 1928. During his career (before and after the 1917 Revolution), he authored numerous works on military history and strategy. This chapter is based on the translation of selected chapters from one of his most fundamental works - Obyazannosti politiki po otnosheniyu k strategii [The Responsibilities of Politics in Its Relations with Strategy]. In this text, Martynov outlines his views on the relation between politics and strategy in general, and on the nature of civil-military relations in particular. Despite been written more than hundred and twenty years ago, his views offer an important insight into the foundations of Russia’s contemporary civil-military relations.