"The Strange Voyage": A Short Précis on Strategy

Abstract

is father and king of --Heraclitus Try as we might, war and armed conflict remain at center of international relations and state policy. Success in war requires many things, but surely effective must top list. Why is making good so hard? It is perhaps most difficult task facing senior leaders in any government. Despite wealth of sources and millennia of useful historical examples, sound strategic thinking more often than not eludes western democracies. Why? History has way of making look simple and even inevitable. In common narrative, for example, Pearl Harbor forced America into World War II, United States adopted Europe approach, went to full mobilization, led victorious coalitions to smash opposition, and then won peace. The reality was very different, outcome at time far from certain, and costs required far higher than expected. Strategic reality is more accurately captured by Churchill's term the strange voyage. (1) Often begun with confidence and optimism, strategic ventures frequently end in frustration and indecisive outcomes. Good begins with basic questions. What are we trying to do? How much will it cost? How should we use what we have got to achieve aim? The questions are simple. But answering them--thoughtfully, comprehensively, honestly, and dispassionately--is by far exception to rule. Failing to frame problem correctly at outset may be most common, and disastrous, strategic error of all. The first minefield is one of definition. Students, theorists, and practitioners of face bewildering range of competing and confusing terms. Thus we find national security national defense national military grand coalition regional theater and campaign strategy--to name few. Where does one end and other begin? Do they overlap? Or are some just synonyms? The word strategy derives from Greek strategia generalship, and strategos my leader. Classically, was quite literally the Art of General. Webster defines as the science and art of employing political, economic, psychological, and military forces of nation or group of nations to afford maximum support to adopted policies in peace or war. (2) The military prefers a prudent idea or set of ideas for employing instruments of national power in synchronized and integrated fashion to achieve theater, national, and/or multinational objectives. (3) Clausewitz defined as the art of employment of battles as means to gain object of war: The great Moltke used the practical adaptation of means placed at general's disposal to attainment of object in view, famously observing that is most often a system of expedients. (5) Liddell-Hart favored the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill ends of while Colin Gray describes as the threat and use of force for political reasons. (6) A short definition often used at war colleges is relating ends, ways and means to achieve desired policy goal. (7) The next minefield is process. Even if we think we know what we mean by strategy, we need way to make it. Here good intentions intrude. In most western political systems, is created both top down and bottom up. In theory, political leaders come into office with few big ideas, departments and ministries are consulted, deliberative process follows, and decisions are made: Alternatively, an unforeseen crisis occurs, desks are cleared, very senior people huddle, rapid decisions are reached, and action follows. (9) Actual is more opaque than these simple, clean models. Egos disrupt rational analysis. Institutional agendas trump overarching national interests. …