U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

GUIDE TO STRATEGY

Edited by

 Joseph R. Cerami

 James F. Holcomb, Jr.

February 2001
*****

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect

the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or

the U.S. Government. This report is cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Many thanks are extended to Ms. Christine Hockensmith for the difficult and tedious task

of copy-editing the work of the numerous authors herein. Her dedication is recognized and

appreciated.

ISBN 1-58487-033-8

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction

 Joseph R. Cerami ............................... . 1

2. A Primer in Strategy Development

 Robert H. Dorff ................................ . 11

3. Ethical Issues in War: An Overview

 Martin L. Cook ................................ . 19

4. Some Basic Concepts and Approaches to the

 Study of International Politics

 Robert H. Dorff ................................ . 31

5. The Persistence of Credibility: Interests,

 Threats and Planning for the Use of American Military Power

 David Jablonsky ............................... . 43

6. National Interest: From Abstraction to Strategy

 Michael G. Roskin .............................. . 55

7. Regional Studies and Global Strategy

 R. Craig Nation ................................ . 69

8. National Power

 David Jablonsky ............................... . 87

9. National Security and the Interagency Process: Forward into the

 21st Century

 Gabriel Marcella ............................... . 107

10. The National Security Strategy: Documenting Strategic Vision

 Don M. Snider and John A. Nagl ...................... . 127

11. Why is Strategy Difficult?

 David Jablonsky ............................... . 143

12. Force Planning and U.S. Defense Policy

 John F. Troxell ................................ . 157

13. Toward An Understanding of Military Strategy

 Arthur F. Lykke, Jr. ............................. . 179

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14. Strategic Risk

 James F. Holcomb, Jr. ........................... . 187

15. Strategic Art: The New Discipline for 21st Century Leaders

 Richard A. Chilcoat.............................. . 203

Appendix I. Guidelines for Strategy ......................... . 221

Appendix II. U.S. National Security and Strategy:

 A Bibliography

 Jane Gibish ................................ . 229

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FIG URES

Chap ter 1

 Figure 1. Strategy Formulation .......................... . 14

Chapter 6

 Figure 1. The Realists’ Taxonomy of National Interests ............. . 59

Chapter 9

 Figure 1. National Security Council System ................... . 110

 Figure 2. National Security Council Staff .................... . 111

 Figure 3. The Ideal Foreign Policy Process .................... . 113

 Figure 4. Policy in Practice ............................ . 114

 Figure 5. Comparing Military Officers and Foreign Service Officers ...... . 121

Chapter 11

 Figure 1. The Policy Continuum ......................... . 144

 Figure 2. The Remarkable Trinity ........................ . 146

 Figure 3. The Impact of Technology ....................... . 146

 Figure 4. The Continuum of War ......................... . 150

 Figure 5. National Strategy: The Horizontal Plane ............... . 151

 Figure 6. National Strategy and the Vertical Continuum of War ........ . 152

Chapter 12

 Figure 1. Force Planning Methodologies ..................... . 159

 Figure 2. Cold War Force Planning ........................ . 161

 Figure 3. Base Force ................................ . 163

 Figure 4. Force Planning ............................. . 172

Chapter 13

 Figure 1. A Model for Military Strategy ..................... . 182

 Figure 2. Unbalanced Military Objectives, Concepts and Resources

 May Jeopardize National Security ................... . 183

Chapter 15

 Figure 1. National Interests............................ . 204

 Figure 2. Strategic and Operational Art ..................... . 206

 Figure 3. Strategic Leadership .......................... . 208

 Figure 4. Roles and Skills of the Master of the Strategic Art. .......... . 208
CHAP TER 1

INTRODUCTION

Jo seph R. Cerami

The dom i nant trend within uni ver si ties and think tanks is to ward ever-narrowing spe cial iza -

tion: a higher pre mium is placed on func tion ing deeply within a sin gle field than broadly across

sev eral. And yet with out some aware ness of the whole—with out some sense of how means converge to ac com plish or to frus trate ends—there can be no strat egy. And with out strat egy there is

only drift.

Paul Kennedy and

John Lewis Gaddis

Yale University

Advice to strategists comes in many forms. Kennedy and Gaddis’s thoughts expressed

above are representative of most scholars, statesmen, and generals—strategy is a critical

subject for senior leaders. George Marshall expressed concerns, late in his distinguished

career, that as a statesman he had to learn a “whole new set of skills.” Theater strategists, like

Field Marshall Slim, have written that senior leaders must learn how to “think big.”

Important books on the subject stress an in depth knowledge of history, economics, politics,

geography, culture, and so on. For a concept that remains hard to define, the study of strategy

remains a complex subject of lifelong learning for scholars, statesmen, and soldiers alike.

For more than three decades the Army War College (AWC) Department of National

Security and Strategy has faced the challenge of educating future strategic leaders on the

subject of National Security, or Grand Strategy. Fitting at the top of an officer’s or

government official's career-long, professional development program, the challenge has been

to design a course on strategy that incorporates its many facets, in a short period of time, all

within the one-year, senior service college curriculum. To do this, a conceptual approach has

provided the framework to think about strategy formulation. The purpose of this volume is to

present the Army War College’s strategy formulation model to students and practitioners.

This book serves as a guide to one method for the formulation, analysis and study of

strategy—an approach which we have found to be useful in providing generations of

strategists with the conceptual tools to think systematically, strategically, critically,

creatively and big. Balancing what is described in the following chapters as ends, ways, and

means—remains at the core of the Army War College’s approach to national security and

military strategy and strategy formulation.

Each of the following chapters highlights a major concept used in our strategy formulation

model. All of the authors have been on the faculty at one of the nation’s armed forces, senior

service colleges. They have structured their essays to focus on concepts that have been

developed, debated, and tested for use in small group seminars, in an adult learning

environment. The majority of these chapters have been used effectively as required readings

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for the core strategy course. Several have been written especially for this book, to fill in some

of the gaps for explaining the strategy making process. The authors are drawn from several

academic fields, including international relations, government, public policy and, of course,

history. Several have also had high-level experience working as strategists at the White

House, in the Pentagon, and in joint and multinational, theater headquarters. The combined

effect is a book that is academic in its focus on concepts and theoretical approaches, yet

practical in the sense of being intended as a working guide for strategists. Each chapter also

serves as material to guide seminar discussion, to focus debate, and to define what we believe

are the key concepts in the study and formulation of strategy. While the strategic

environment is dynamic and complex, our experience has been that these concepts are a most

useful foundation for practitioners and scholars of national security strategy and defense

policy.

CHAP TER 2: A PRIMER IN STRAT EGY DE VEL OP MENT—

ROB ERT H. DORFF.

In this chapter, Robert Dorff presents the core of the strategy formulation model, what we

call the “ends, ways, and means” of strategy. Grand strategy and national security strategy

are defined. Key concepts for the study of strategy are introduced, including brief discussions

of foundation concepts, such as, values, interests, threats, challenges, national security

strategy and risk assessments. The chapter ends with a comparison of current, alternative

approaches for U.S. national security strategy. The concepts and themes introduced in

Chapter 2 are developed in greater depth in the remainder of the book.

CHAP TER 3: ETH I CAL IS SUES IN WAR: AN OVER VIEW—

MAR TIN L. COOK.

Martin Cook’s essay provides background on the limits, constraints, and criteria that have

evolved regarding the use of violence by states and societies. Chapter 3 includes a review of

just war thinking and the general history of Western legal and ethical thought. Cook notes the

open questions regarding cultural diversity, especially in what many call the age of

globalization. How Western thought converges and diverges from other cultural and ethical

traditions, customs and laws should be an important area for seminar discussions and future

research. This Chapter includes the just war framework and criteria, and highlights the

importance of developing a strategist’s understanding of the moral structure of just decisions

in going to war, as well as just conduct in war.

CHAP TER 4: SOME BA SIC CON CEPTS AND AP PROACHES TO THE

STUDY OF IN TER NA TIONAL POL I TICS—ROB ERT H. DORFF.

In Chapter 4, Robert Dorff introduces the essential concepts used by international

relations scholars to help understand, analyze and explain state behavior. His primary focus
is on the nation-state and how perceptions of values and interests influence their behavior in

the international environment. The chapter’s main focus is on describing and expanding

Waltz’s three levels of analysis—the system, the state, and the individual. The reader also is

introduced to realist and idealist worldviews, and related concepts involving neorealism,

anarchy, the security dilemma, balance of power, Wilsonianism, and international

institutionalism. Other key foundation concepts the chapter addresses include, sovereignty,

nationalism, and inter and nongovernmental organizations. Dorff stresses the importance of

integrating the levels of analysis in strategic thinking. He also emphasizes the importance of

understanding the competing views and assumptions used when explaining nation state

behavior. The notion of how the concept of national interest serves to shape international

relations and security is introduced in Chapter 4, and expanded in much greater depth in

Chapters 5 and 6.

CHAP TER 5: THE PER SIS TENCE OF CRED I BIL ITY: IN TER ESTS,

THREATS AND PLANNING FOR THE USE OF AMER ICAN MIL I TARY

POWER—DA VID JABLONSKY.

David Jablonsky presents the first of two chapters on the concept of national interest.

Jablonsky’s realist perspective emphasizes the link between interests and credibility, which

he defines as a combination of both influence and will. This chapter introduces a framework

for analyzing national interests in terms of two dimensions—categories and intensity.

Categories of national interests include physical security, economic prosperity, values, and

world order. He subdivides the concept of intensity of national interests into vital, important

and peripheral. Jablonsky illustrates how using these two dimensions assists strategists in

analyzing the national interest and developing national priorities. Chapter 5 also reviews the

connections between national interest and the use of force. The Weinberger Doctrine is

presented and compared with the succeeding debates about gray area challenges, as well as

humanitarian values and interests. Jablonsky views the national interest as the key concept

for prioritizing national security policy and maintaining long term consistency and clarity.

Chapter 6 presents a different view.

CHAP TER 6: NA TIONAL IN TER EST: FROM AB STRAC TION TO

STRATEGY—MI CHAEL G. ROSKIN.

In Chapter 6, Michael Roskin stresses the difficulty of turning national interest into a

working strategy. He writes of the strategist’s problems for using national interest to achieve

an undistorted clarity, or provide the ability to anticipate the 2d and 3d order effects of policy

options and decisions. Instead, Roskin sees national interest as a conceptual device most

useful for defining arguments limiting the number of crusades a nation should engage in.

Roskin reviews the concept in terms of the philosophies of Machiavelli and Clausewitz. He

then briefly traces the American interpretations, starting with George Washington and the

founding fathers, through Woodrow Wilson’s legal-idealistic approach. He then writes of the

shift in thinking among international relations experts in the 1930s, with the introduction of

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the Realist School, spearheaded by Hans Morgenthau. Roskin provides a taxonomy for

categorizing national interests in terms of importance, duration, specificity and

compatibility. For Roskin, the primary challenge for strategists is in finding where different

nations’ interests are in competition and where they are complementary. Roskin also points

out what he calls the warping effects on using national interest for strategy formulation. He

includes ideology, global systemic effects, public and elite convictions, mass media, and

bureaucratic policy inertia. These barriers, or constraints, are significant when attempting

innovative and radical approaches. Finally, Roskin concludes that the concept of national

interest is most useful for training analysts in asking good questions. Questions that are

necessary for strategists to focus on the use and limits of power, the true intensity of interests,

the will to use power, as well as the flexibility for maneuver and compromise. The comparison

of the Jablonsky and Roskin essays should provide ample room for seminar discussions about

the utility and problems of using the concept of national interest in strategy formulation.

CHAP TER 7: RE GIONAL STUDIES AND GLOBAL STRAT EGY—

R. CRAIG NA TION.

Craig Nation writes of the importance of the New Regionalism in strategic studies. In

Chapter 7, Nation argues that the emergence of regional issues have redefined the security

environment of the 21st Century. This new configuration of global power requires strategists

who have a more sophisticated understanding of regional and national political, social, and

cultural processes. The challenge for strategists is to integrate regional perspectives, with a

sensitivity to regional and national dynamics; including geographic, social, cultural and

religious, as well as military dimensions. Nation describes the ways that regional affairs

condition the global security agenda and channel and constrain U.S. priorities that affect the

contours of world order. Four reasons he cites include regional sources of instability and

conflict; geopolitics; cultural dimensions of warfare; and regional alliances and associations.

Chapter 7 discusses Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilizations thesis, and the writings on

geopolitics by Mackinder, Mahan, and Spykman. Regarding the military dimension of

strategy, Nation writes about the issues surrounding rogue and failed states, civil wars, and

complex and small-scale contingencies. Chapter 7 emphasizes the significance of the Army

War College’s core course on Regional Strategic Appraisals, and the importance of a New

Regionalism in balancing a global approach to international strategic studies.

CHAP TER 8: NA TIONAL POWER—DA VID JABLONSKY.

Strategist’s understanding of the elements and instruments of national power are key to

strategy formulation. David Jablonsky’s chapter takes the reader back to Thomas Hobbes

and the Realist’s School of international relations—the primacy of self-help in an anarchic

international system. Key to Jablonsky’s treatment is an appreciation for the

multidimensional nature of the elements of power. In this chapter the author emphasizes the

dynamic, situational and relational aspects of power with respect to the interactions of state

and nonstate actors. Jablonsky discusses both the natural and social determinants of power.

Natural determinants include geography, resources and population. The social determinants
include the states’ economic, political, military, psychosocial, and information systems. He

discusses emerging trends and their potential impact for U.S. defense and foreign policy

regarding the growing complexity of power relations among nation-states and international

actors. The author is careful to point out that strategy formulation remains more art than

science and he highlights the importance of qualitative factors in strategy formulation. These

include the importance of subjective perceptions of national power, purpose, and will.

Jablonsky also provides a framework for gain and risk assessments. Focusing on the elements

and instruments of national power provides a conceptual tool for linking means, ways and

ends—an essential link in the strategy formulation process. In sum, national power is the

concept that helps define the instruments used by a variety of government organizations to

achieve the national interest, as derived from national values. Jablonsky concludes by noting

how a deep understanding of the complexity of national power helps teach flexible thinking,

which he calls the sine qua non for strategists.

CHAP TER 9: NA TIONAL SE CU RITY AND THE IN TER AGENCY

PRO CESS: FOR WARD INTO THE 21ST CEN TURY—

GA BRIEL MAR CELLA.

Gabriel Marcella describes the complexity of governmental policymaking in Chapter 9.

Marcella defines the interagency process as the use of all of the nation’s instruments of power,

as coordinated by the national security staffs of a variety of government agencies, into a

coherent and effective national security policy. The challenge for strategists is to insure the

intellectual integration of the nation’s power to achieve a unity of effort within the U.S.

government. Marcella discusses the history of the U.S. government’s efforts at achieving

what is called purposeful adaptation, in the Post World War II era. He reviews the foundation

of the National Security Council (NSC), as legislated by the National Security Act of 1947.

The chapter describes the NSC policymaking structure of principals and deputies

committees, and interagency working groups. The chapter also examines the presidential

policy and decision directive processes. Included is a section comparing the various cultures

that stereotype the perceived differences in organizational and individual behaviors. Key for

strategists is developing an appreciation for the fact that no one agency resolves any issue in

today’s complex security environment. Marcella also examines the interagency process at the

operational level, including the roles and functions of the ambassadors, the embassy country

team, and the regional military commanders. For students of national security policymaking,

Marcella stresses the importance of the interagency process, as well as the growing

significance of multinational coalitions. The strategist’s skill sets for facing the challenges of

the 21st Century should include an appreciation of working effectively in international

diplomacy and negotiations, as well as within the domestic, interagency process of

governmental networks and bureaucracy.

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CHAP TER 10: THE NA TIONAL SE CU RITY STRAT EGY: DOC U MENTING

STRA TE GIC VISION—DON SNIDER AND JOHN A. NAGL.

Former NSC staffer, Don Snider, and co-author, John Nagl, provide an in-depth analysis

of the product that, since 1987, has been the official, presidential document for defining U.S.

national security strategy. The authors describe the Goldwater-Nichols Department of

Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, and the congressional requirement for a written national

security, or grand strategy. Snider and Nagl agree with previous authors on the utility of

grand strategy—to coherently integrate all the resources of national power for mid and long

term strategy to define and further U.S. national interests. In addition, they address the

political context of defense reform and the problems of executive and legislative branch

cooperation, especially in periods of gridlock and adversarial politics. Nevertheless, National

Security Strategies have been written and published and viewed as authoritative statements

of the nation’s grand strategy. The authors point out the documents five key purposes to

communicate the President’s strategic vision to Congress; to key constituents; to foreign and

domestic audiences; to solidify an intergovernmental consensus on foreign and defense policy;

and to contribute substance in the administration’s overall agenda. Chapter 10 briefly

reviews the major attributes and shifts in the NSS documents from 1987 to the current

version, spanning the Reagan, Bush and Clinton presidencies. Snider and Nagl note the

simple elegance of the three overriding goals for national security strategy during the Clinton

era—enhancing security, promoting prosperity and promoting democracy. Chapter 10 ends

with a brief discussion of the remaining debates regarding the utility of the NSS documents.

Remaining issues include the difficulties of developing grand strategy in light of divided

government, and the lack of an executive branch organization for conducting long range

planning in a substantive, systematic manner. They also note the tendency for national level

strategists to focus on crisis management and near term policy development and

implementation. Given the complexity of the interagency process as described in the previous

chapter, Snider and Nagl have presented strategists with significant challenges. These

include developing and maintaining an overarching strategy and strategic vision to provide

an azimuth and prevent the drift that concerns Kennedy and Gaddis. This is of course more

difficult when engaged in day to day operations that in effect serve to shape the current and

future security environments. The additional problem of developing an organizational

capacity for grand strategy and long-range planning remains to be solved.

CHAP TER 11: WHY IS STRAT EGY DIF FI CULT? —DA VID JABLONSKY.

In Chapter 11, Jablonsky explores the important question of why strategy remains the

most difficult of all. Here he develops the idea of strategy as an art, a creative activity. Several

key concepts are introduced. One is the policy continuum, as the relationship of policy,

strategy and tactics. Another is the modern era’s notion of grand strategy as a nation’s

balancing of ends-ways-means in the complex construct represented as including vertical

(strategic, operational and tactical) and horizontal (economic, psychological, political and

military) dimensions. In this section, Jablonsky further discusses Clausewitz’s prescription,

that war is a continuation of politics with the addition of other means. Clausewitz’s

remarkable trinity, which has evolved into an American Trinitarian approach (including the
army, the government and the people), is also introduced. Jablonsky’s historical review

includes the impact of the Industrial and French Revolutions, and how the transformations of

technology and politics forever changed the modern conception of national security and

military strategy. Chapter 11 provides essential background reading for current discussions

regarding the Revolution in Military Affairs, the influence of Information Age technology,

and ongoing efforts at military transformation and innovation.

CHAP TER 12: FORCE PLANNING AND U.S. DE FENSE PO LICY—

JOHN F. TROXELL.

The examination of military strategy continues in Chapter 12. John F. Troxell focuses

more directly on the subjects of defense policy and strategy, and military force planning.

Force planning is defined as determining the force structure of the right size and composition

to achieve a nation’s security goals. Troxell prescribes key tasks for force planners in

recommending how much force structure, how much risk to accept, how to posture the force,

and how to defend their recommendations to the Congress and public. Chapter 12 includes an

in depth discussion of the two dominant force planning methods—threat-based and

capability-based concepts. Troxell reviews defense policy from the Truman through the

Clinton Administrations and recounts the complexities of reconciling force structure with the

defense policies and national security strategies of each period. Readers will find useful

summaries of defense policy in the Cold War era. Troxell also examines post-Cold War

defense policy and program reviews as well as the debates about the two major theater of war

force planning requirements. The chapter ends with an important model for dynamic force

planning that integrates both the threat and capability based approaches.

CHAP TER 13: TO WARD AN UN DER STAND ING OF MIL I TARY

STRAT EGY—AR THUR F. LYKKE, JR.

Arthur F. Lykke, Jr., the father of the Army War College’s ends, ways, and means strategy

models, served on the AWC faculty for more than 20 years. It is no exaggeration to say that the

simple elegance of his model, as expressed in this brief essay, influenced generations of

strategic thinkers. The importance of the Lykke model became legendary among graduates in

senior positions in the U.S. armed forces, as well as with the AWC’s distinguished

International Fellows, many of whom went on to lead their nation’s military establishments.

In Chapter 13 we have reproduced the Lykke article that simply lays out the ends, ways,

means model of strategy. Lykke applies it to the subject of military strategy, while pointing

out the model’s utility for any and all kinds of strategies. The analysis of ends (or the

objectives), ways (or courses of action), and means (or resources) is a concept useful at the

strategic, operational and tactical levels of war. Important for strategists is Lykke’s emphasis

on the objective in strategy, and the distinction between political and military objectives.

Central to the U.S. tradition of civil-military relations is Lykke’s repetition of a familiar

Clausewitzian concept—that policy drives strategy and that the political objectives must

come first. The critical task then for military strategists is to understand the political

objective and derive the military objectives, courses of action, and resources that provide the

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military instrument, in conjunction with the other instruments of national power, as the

means to achieve political ends. This simple construct is most complex when put into practice.

We believe that mastering ends, ways, and means remains at the heart of strategy. Lykke

encourages strategists to think long and hard about balancing ends, ways, and means as the

core concept for strategy formulation.

CHAP TER 14: STRA TE GIC RISK—JAMES F. HOLCOMB, JR.

In Chapter 14, James Holcomb discusses a variety of aspects of the subject of strategic

risk. Holcomb provides a review of risk as covered by several important modern strategists,

including Liddell-Hart, Beaufre, Eccles, Wylie and Allison, as well as in chapters in this book

by Lykke and Jablonsky. He also links the topic to foundational concepts on uncertainty,

chance and genius, as found in Clausewitz’s writing. Chapter 14 reviews several frameworks

for risk assessment and management and includes a section from Neuchterlein’s approach to

assessing values and cost-risk factors in determining national interests. Included are

sections on the CIA’s suggested framework, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff readiness reporting

system. Holcomb concludes with a brief case study on risk assessment, as applied to an

analysis of the Kosovo bombing campaign. In the final analysis, risk assessment returns the

reader to the beginning of this book, and to the fundamental strategic calculations regarding

values, national interests, political and military objectives and, of course, ends, ways, and

means.

CHAP TER 15: STRA TE GIC ART: THE NEW DIS CI PLINE FOR 21st

CEN TURY LEADERS—RICH ARD A. CHILCOAT.

The final chapter provides a capstone for this guide and addresses the importance of

educating individual strategists. Chilcoat’s chapter is a call for strategic thinkers to develop

an approach to strategic art rivaling the mid-1980s development of operational art. By this

point the reader will be familiar with the framework used to define the strategic art—as the

skillful formulation, coordination, and application of ends, ways, and means to promote and

defend the national interests. The chapter addresses individual professional development

and the importance of educating senior leaders for three interrelated roles—as strategic

leaders, practitioners and theorists. The complex challenges facing post Cold War strategists

are evaluated in light of the required skills, knowledge and abilities, as described in case

studies contrasting the conventional Persian Gulf War with unconventional peace operations

in Bosnia. Chilcoat concludes by pointing out three trends that face strategists in the new

global era. These are first, an understanding of adult learning; second, appreciating the

utilization of technology; and third, expanding conceptual horizons. Chilcoat also addresses

the importance of civil-military relations, as well as the difficulty of wargaming and

simulating the political-military environment of today’s shifting strategic landscape.

Chapter 15 provides important ideas and poses significant questions for those engaged in

security studies, and especially those engaged in the professional development of strategic

leaders at all levels of the armed forces.
AP PEN DIX I: GUIDE LINES FOR STRAT EGY.

Appendix I is copied from the AWC’s core strategy course directive. In the appendix the

reader will find an outline of the strategy formulation model and working definitions.

Definitions are presented for ease of reference on the key concepts of national values, national

interests, strategic appraisals, national policy, national strategy, military strategy, and risk

assessment. Naturally, for an in-depth discussion of the concepts the reader is referred to the

appropriate chapters.

AP PEN DIX II: U.S. NA TIONAL SE CU RITY AND MIL I TARY STRAT EGY:

A BIB LI OG RA PHY—JANE GIBISH.

A bibliography for strategists is provided in Appendix II. Jane Gibish, of the Army War

College Library, compiled this bibliography. The list includes both classic and current works.

The editors of this volume want to express their sincere thanks to the AWC Library staff,

under the leadership of Mr. Bohdan Kohutiak. The AWC Library remains a cornerstone for

the research into the study of national security strategy at Carlisle Barracks.

The editors and authors acknowledge that this book is not a complete coverage of all of the

subject matter related to the study of strategy. In fact, the treatment of strategy formulation

found here is only one aspect of the AWC’s intensive, two-month, core strategy course. For

those involved in designing courses on grand strategy, the importance of including history

and case studies cannot be overstated. It is also not possible to develop an in-depth

appreciation for strategy without studying the material found in the other two AWC core

courses. These courses cover the equally complex subjects of Strategic Leadership and

Management, and Military Planning and Operations. Of course, our parochial view is that

strategy is most important and must come first. So, consider this volume a starting point, as

well as a reference book. The U.S. Army War College’s Guide to Strategy asks that the reader,

as student, engage in the strategic thought process. The simple intent of this book is to

contribute to your understanding of our approach to strategy formulation. If it helps you

think conceptually, analytically, critically and creatively about the important issues

surrounding national security, or grand strategy, then so much the better for the theory and

practice of strategy. The ultimate measure of success of this book is in its utility for civilian

and military strategists—those engaged in the challenge of working day-to-day policy issues,

while keeping one eye on the evolving strategic landscape, and the other on defending and

promoting the nation’s security values and interests for the mid and long term.

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CHAP TER 2

A PRIMER IN STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT

Rob ert H. Dorff

THE STRAT EGY FRAME WORK.

One of the key elements in teaching strategy at the United States Army War College is the

strategy framework. Conceptually, we define strategy as the relationship among ends, ways,

and means. Ends are the objectives or goals sought. Means are the resources available to

pursue the objectives. And Ways or methods are how one organizes and applies the resources.

Each of these components suggests a related question. What do we want to pursue (ends)?

With what (means)? How (ways)? This very simple framework is useful in a variety of

applications. Consider a common example drawn from the world of sports. In a basketball

game, most teams begin a game with a straightforward objective of winning. We assume for

the sake of simplifying the argument that both teams are relatively evenly matched and that

both enter the game with the objective of winning.

1

 Obviously, both teams have resources that

consist first and foremost of the players on their respective rosters. Characteristics of those

players provide additional dimensions of the resources available in the play of the game (e.g.,

speed, height, quickness, etc.). Rules of the game provide not only the context within which

the game is played but also additional resources that the coaches can use. For example, the

shot clock is not just a rule governing how long a team can hold the ball before taking a shot; it

is also something a coach can use to increase one team’s advantage over the other.

2

 Most rules

affect the choices coaches have as to how they use their resources. Essentially, a team

achieves its objective of winning the game by outscoring the opponent. They can accomplish

this with a strategy that employs both offensive (how your team will score) and defensive (how

you prevent the other team from scoring) “ways” or “methods.” Successful “strategic” coaches

figure out ways to employ their means more effectively than their opposing coaches, thereby

achieving their objective more frequently. (Of course, successful coaches also recruit better

“means” than their opponents.) We can see that the choices a coach makes all relate back to

decisions about how to employ the means in pursuit of the objective. The coach who is a

strategic thinker is planning and the team is executing a strategy.

GRAND STRAT EGY.

Countries employ strategies much as basketball teams do. However, the nature of the

game and the elements of strategy are considerably more complex than in the game of

basketball. And of course, the stakes of the game are considerably higher, thereby making the

risk of failure much greater (a country losing its sovereignty as opposed to a team losing a

game). Nonetheless, the basic framework remains the same. We want to consider what

objectives a country decides to pursue, with what resources, and how.
When we talk about the strategy a country employs in pursuit of its interests, we usually

use terms such as National Strategy, National Security Strategy, or Grand Strategy. We use

the latter term in this chapter to denote a country’s broadest approach to the pursuit of its

national objectives in the international system. At times it appears that all three terms are

essentially synonymous, and it is not really necessary to spend time trying to define them

here.

3

 The essential point is that a country adopts objectives based on its interests and values

and how they are affected, threatened, or challenged in the international system. The means

it possesses to pursue those objectives fall into three or four (depending on how one

conceptualizes them) broad categories of national power, which we call “instruments of

national power.” They are political/diplomatic, economic, military, and informational.

4

 How a

country marshals and applies those instruments of national power constitute the “ways” of its

grand strategy.

5

 One of our goals in this book is to provide a framework that the reader can

use in analyzing and assessing the ways in which the United States is protecting and

promoting its interests in the post-Cold War world. Such an analysis must begin with an

assessment of U.S. grand strategy.

The Cold War provides an excellent example of how the strategy framework can be used to

describe and subsequently analyze a country’s grand strategy. We examine it from the

perspective of the United States. The grand strategy of the United States during the Cold War

was containment, a name that derived from the core objective of that strategy which was to

contain communism, or prevent the further spread of Soviet communism and its influence.

The early stages of the Cold War saw the strategy develop along the lines suggested by George

Kennan in his now famous “long telegram” from Moscow. Kennan wrote: “The main element

of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but

firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies . . .”

6

 According to his

assessment, there was both an offensive and defensive component to the strategy. The

defensive objective was to hold back the political, economic and military influence and

physical presence of the USSR. The offensive objective, somewhat overlooked in conventional

analyses of United States Cold War policy, was the promotion of stable democracies and

market economies; healthy market democracies would deprive the Soviets of fertile ground in

which to sow the seeds of their revolutionary ideology.

Although a detailed analysis of containment is beyond the scope of what we want to

accomplish here, it is useful to illustrate how the United States implemented its strategy of

containment. The overall objective, of course, was to contain communism. The means

consisted of the economic, military, and political/diplomatic instruments of power. On the

economic side, the Marshall Plan provides the best example of how the United States used its

considerable economic power in support of the strategy. The Marshall Plan, by infusing large

amounts of United States capital into the devastated West European economies, would help

restore their economic vitality. This would then remove one of the potential sources of appeal

for communist ideology (the physical dislocations and psychological pressures people feel

when they have no apparent economic sources of survival). The Marshall Plan is therefore one

example of a “way” in which the United States applied the economic “means” in pursuit of its

overall strategic objective.

12
13

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) provides an excellent illustration of how

the United States employed the military instrument of national power as part of its overall

grand strategy. This military alliance was primarily a collective defense organization in

which the United States provided the vast muscle of its military might to insure the West

Europeans that the Soviet military could not threaten their physical security.

7

 Unable to

marshal much in the way of their own military power, most of which had been either

destroyed or exhausted in the war, the West Europeans were encouraged to rely on the

capabilities of the United States. This was especially true of the United States nuclear

umbrella, which was to take shape particularly in the 1950s as the Cold War unfolded. So

NATO serves as an example of a “way” in which the United States applied the military

“means” in pursuit of its overall strategic objective.

Finally, the United States used its considerable political/diplomatic power by initially

declaring and then implementing the Truman Doctrine. This doctrine stated that the United

States would support those countries seeking to resist communist movements. Obviously

economic and military resources backed up this doctrine. But the fact that the United States

was willing to make an open political declaration of its intentions to provide such assistance is

an example of the use of political/diplomatic “means” in support of the grand strategy of

containment. One can also argue that even then, long before the “Information Age” made the

use of information technology part of our national security lexicon, the United States

employed the informational dimension of power through Radio Free Europe, Voice of

America, and the like. So the Truman Doctrine serves as an example of a “way” in which the

United States applied the political/diplomatic and the informational “means” in pursuit of its

overall strategic objective.

U.S. GRAND STRAT EGY TO DAY.

With the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States

has had to reassess its grand strategy. Whether a result of the success of the United States

grand strategy of containment or other factors,

8

 this profound transformation of the

international security environment has rendered much of the common strategic frame of

reference, so familiar for the past 50 years, less relevant today. The challenge lies in

identifying a new grand strategy that captures the critical characteristics of the new

international security environment and identifies appropriate ends, ways and means for

organizing and executing the search for security in the post-Cold War world.

Such periods of significant transformation and change in the strategic environment are

not new but they do occur infrequently. Historically change in the international security

system tends to unfold incrementally and in an evolutionary manner, rather than as a result

of wholesale transformation and revolution. Yet sweeping transformation does occur

periodically, and we often refer to the ensuing period in which the search for a new grand

strategy occurs as a “strategic pause.” What is often daunting in a period of strategic pause is

the fact that continuity and change coexist. We must examine a newly emerging system with

an eye toward identifying factors and forces that fall into four basic categories: 1) that which is

“old” but still relevant; 2) that which is “old” and no longer relevant; 3) that which is “new” and
relevant; and 4) that which is “new” but not relevant. Adapting effectively to the new

circumstances while simultaneously balancing against the lingering circumstances from the

older system is the central challenge. If we jettison too quickly parts of the old framework, we

may find ourselves ill prepared to deal with some of the traditional challenges that have

endured from one period to the next. If we fail to identify and respond quickly enough to the

new characteristics, we will find that we have outdated and only marginally useful

instruments for dealing with the new challenges. So how do we proceed in this search for a

new grand strategy in a period of strategic pause?

First, we must know what characteristics and factors are generally important in building

a grand strategy. Then we turn to an analysis of the contemporary international security

environment in an attempt to identify as precisely as possible the relevant characteristics of

that environment. Figure 1 provides one methodology for conducting such a strategic

assessment.

9

14

National Interests

National Values

Strategic Appraisal

National Policy

National Strategy

Risk Assessment

Military Strategy

Figure 1. Strategy Formulation.
15

The process begins with identifying core national values from which one can derive

national interests. Based on the identified interests, we can develop statements of national

objectives that are the ends of our grand strategy. Identifying the interests we wish to protect

is an essential ingredient of a strategic appraisal. That appraisal then continues with the

identification of threats and challenges to those interests. We want to know, as best we can,

who or what can threaten our interests in what ways. The threats and challenges may derive

from specific actors in the international system (states or non-state actors), or they may be

more generally based in developments and trends occurring within the system (such as

increasing economic globalization or weapons proliferation). Once the threats and challenges

to U.S. interests have been identified, we must examine current policy to see if we are

adequately addressing the protection and promotion of our interests. Realigning our strategy

with the protection and promotion of our interests, given the threats and challenges to them

in the contemporary security environment, is the essence of the search for a new grand

strategy. Of course, we must also identify and articulate the other component parts of that

strategy (such as a military strategy in support of the national security strategy), and conduct

a risk assessment. The latter is important because no country, including the United States,

has unlimited resources (means) with which to pursue its objectives (ends). This implies that

we must make tradeoffs in what we protect and promote and how. Such tradeoffs entail risk,

and we must make conscious decisions about how much risk in what areas we are willing to

bear.

Let us use this strategy framework to explore the ongoing United States search for

security in the contemporary international system. One of the most fundamental questions of

grand strategy is the general role that the country will play in international affairs. This

question has a long and serious history in the debate within American society. In its simplest

form it was a debate between isolationists and interventionists. The former argued that

United States interests were preeminently domestic and could be best protected by a refusal

to become engaged in international affairs. The interventionist school argued that United

States interests required an active international role for the country. In more recent years

this debate has played out in the realist-idealist schools of thought, with Wilsonian idealism

serving as an organizing framework for the advocates of intervention and realism serving the

same purpose for advocates of isolationism (or at least minimal activism).

10

The post-Cold War debate has witnessed the emergence of many proposals for the proper

grand strategic role for the United States, and our purpose here is not to review all of them.

Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross offer one very useful review of four general alternatives

that we use in this overview.

11

 They are: neo-isolationism, selective engagement, cooperative

security, and primacy. Neo-isolationism takes its cue from its isolationist precursors and

argues that the United States should adopt a minimally active, largely defensive role.

Selective engagement draws on the traditional realist concept of balancing power for its

definition of the proper United States role. Primacy is perhaps the extreme version of realism,

arguing for a highly active United States role designed to maintain American dominance of

the security environment. And cooperative security is the Wilsonian idealist legacy: Very

active United States role in support of cooperation and stability maintenance through close

and frequent participation with other actors in the international system.
In the remainder of this chapter we examine the existing United States National Security

Strategy. We will review this document for what it has to say both about United States

national interests and the current strategy for addressing them. What we don’t address here

is the nature of the threats and challenges to those interests in the contemporary

international system, and hence the overall soundness of the strategy. Readers may wish to

conduct their own assessment employing the framework outlined here.

CUR RENT U.S. NA TIONAL SE CU RITY STRAT EGY.

Beginning with congressional passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Department

Reorganization Act of 1986, the President of the United States is required to produce an

annual statement of the National Security Strategy.

12

 Although there are problems with the

document, it nonetheless provides an excellent starting point for our analysis of current

United States strategy. The most recent document appeared in October 1998 and is entitled

“A National Security Strategy for a New Century.” Let us highlight the key elements of that

document as they pertain to our search for security in the 21st Century.

According to this and other official statements of United States policy, there are certain

“fundamental and enduring needs” which our national security strategy must ensure. They

are: “...protect the lives and safety of Americans, maintain the sovereignty of the United

States with its values, institutions and territory intact, and promote the prosperity and

well-being of the nation and its people.”

13

 Based on these enduring needs, the document

articulates a set of national interests for the United States in three categories: vital interests,

important national interests, and humanitarian and other interests. Among vital interests

the National Security Strategy identifies “the physical security of our territory and that of our

allies, the safety of our citizens, our economic well-being and the protection of our critical

infrastructures.” Important national interests are identified as those that “do not affect our

national survival, but [which] do affect our national well-being and the character of the world

in which we live.” The document provides no specific list but continues on to state: “Our efforts

to halt the flow of refugees from Haiti and restore democracy in that state, our participation in

NATO operations in Bosnia and our efforts to protect the global environment are relevant

examples.”

14

 Humanitarian and other interests require action because “our values demand it.

Examples include responding to natural and manmade disasters or violations of human

rights, supporting democratization and civil control of the military, assisting humanitarian

demining, and promoting sustainable development.”

15

Based on these categories of interests, the document proceeds to identify three core

national objectives for our national security strategy: enhancing our security, bolstering our

economic prosperity and promoting democracy abroad. The threats and challenges it

identifies to U.S. security are regional or state-centered threats, transnational threats, the

spread of dangerous technologies, foreign intelligence collection, and failed states. Bolstering

our economic prosperity and promoting democracy abroad are objectives that support our

security, and a variety of ways and means are identified as potential contributors to the

accomplishment of these objectives. The strategy identified by the Clinton Administration, as

stated in its broadest terms, is one of “engagement and enlargement.”

16

 Arguing for the

16
17

“imperative of engagement” (the United States “must lead abroad if we are to be secure at

home”) it identifies the “enlargement” of the community of market democracies as the

strategic concept for achieving our objectives. The means? “Today’s complex security

environment demands that all our instruments of national power be effectively integrated to

achieve our security objectives.”

17

 Military instruments alone will not suffice; we must

employ the full range of the instruments, to include military, political, economic, and

informational.

The question of course remains whether this is indeed a sound and appropriate strategy.

Has the document correctly identified United States interests? Do the stated objectives

reflect the underlying interests? Does it address the likely challenges and threats to those

interests and objectives? Does it adequately articulate the concepts for pursuing those

objectives? Can we see the proper mix and amount of means for use in the ways proposed? In

other words, does this stated national security strategy offer a reasonable chance for finding

security in the 21st Century? It is here that the search begins in earnest. We provide no

answers but suggest that by using the basic framework and approach outlined in this essay,

readers can reach their own conclusions about the adequacy and appropriateness of current

and future U.S. National Security Strategy.

ENDNOTES - CHAP TER 2

1. That this might not always be true is illustrated by the case of a hopelessly outclassed team up against a

powerhouse: the former may just want to “make a good showing.”

2. This is consistent with the game framework used in many analyses of political systems. For example, see

James Eisenstein, Mark Kessler, Bruce A. Williams, and Jacqueline Vaughn Switzer, The Play of Power: An

Introduction to American Government (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996) in which the authors consistently

argue that rules are also resources that players can employ in the pursuit of their objectives. The same argument

can be made about rules such as international law and regimes in the international system.

3. For example, the DoD Dictionary contains the following statement as its definition of National Security

Strategy: “The art and science of developing, applying and coordinating the instruments of national power

(diplomatic, economic, military, and informational) to achieve objectives that contribute to national security.

Also called national strategy or grand strategy.”

4. See the chapter on “National Power” by David Jablonsky in this volume. Jablonsky focuses on “elements”

of national power, whereas the focus here is on instruments of national power and their use in the strategy

framework.

5. Ways are also “courses of action.” They represent the alternative approaches one can take in the pursuit of

the objectives.

6. George F. Kennan, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” reprinted in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Spring

1987): pp. 852-868. Quote p. 868.

7. We say “primarily” a collective defense organization because there was always something of a collective

security dimension to NATO’s purpose, too. This is perhaps most aptly summed up in a statement attributed to

the first Secretary General of NATO, Lord Ismay, that the purpose of NATO was to keep the Russians out, the

United States in, and the Germans down.
8. For a discussion of the role played by U.S. grand strategy in winning the Cold War, see John Lewis Gaddis,

How Relevant Was U.S. Grand Strategy in Winning the Cold War (Carlisle Barracks, PA: US Army War College,

Strategic Studies Institute, 1992).

9. This is the methodology employed by the United States Army War College in its core curriculum of

instruction. See also Appendix I for a detailed explanation of the Strategy Formulation Guidelines.

10. See the discussion of these schools of thought in my other essay in this volume, Chapter 4: “Some Basic

Concepts and Approaches to the Study of International Politics.”

11. Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross, “Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy,” International

Security, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Winter 1996/1997): pp. 5-53.

12. Section 603 stipulates this requirement. However, all Presidents from Reagan through Clinton have had

difficulties meeting this annual requirement.

13. A National Security Strategy for a New Century (Washington, DC: The White House, 1998), p. 5.

14. Ibid., p. 5.

15. Ibid., p. 6.

16. The title of the Clinton Administration’s first three national security strategies (1994, 1995, and 1996)

was in fact “A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement.” The basic concepts were that the

United States would play an active role in world affairs (engagement) in an attempt to expand the community of

market democracies (enlargement). Although the title was changed primarily because of concerns that it seemed

to suggest a US-based neo-imperialistic approach to exporting democracy and capitalism, the fundamental

components of the strategy remain the same: an active US role internationally in pursuit of a growing

community of stable market democracies.

17. A Na tional Se cu rity Strat egy for a New Cen tury, p. 1.

18
19

CHAP TER 3

ETHICAL ISSUES IN WAR:

AN OVERVIEW

Mar tin L. Cook

IN TRO DUC TION.

Violent conflict among human beings is, unfortunately, one of the great constants in our

history as a species. As far back as we can see, the human species has engaged in war and

other forms of organized violence. But it is equally true that, as far back as human culture and

thought have left written records, humans have thought about morality and ethics. Although

cultures vary widely in how they interpret death and killing from a moral and religious

perspective, every human culture has recognized that taking human life is a morally grave

matter; every human culture has felt the need to justify taking of life in moral and religious

terms.

In the modern world, a large body of ethical and legal thought attempts to limit, constrain

and to establish criteria that sanction the use of violence in the name of the state and society.

Through the mechanisms of the Hague and Geneva Conventions, the Charter of the United

Nations, military manuals such as the U.S. Army’s “Law of Land Warfare,” and similar

documents, modern governments and militaries attempt to distinguish “just war” and just

conduct in war from other types of killing of human beings. Morally conscientious military

personnel need to understand and frame their actions in moral terms so as to maintain moral

integrity in the midst of the actions and stress of combat. They do so in order to explain to

themselves and others how the killing of human beings they do is distinguishable from the

criminal act of murder.

Attempts to conduct warfare within moral limits have met with uneven success. Many

cultures and militaries fail to recognize these restraints, or do so in name only. The realities of

combat, even for the best trained and disciplined military forces, place severe strains on

respect for those limits and sometimes cause military leaders to grow impatient with them in

the midst of their need to “get the job done.” In the history of the U.S. Army, events like My Lai

in Vietnam show that even forces officially committed to just conduct in war are still capable

of atrocities in combat—and are slow to discipline such violations.

Despite these limitations, the idea of just war is one to which the well-led and disciplined

military forces of the world remain committed. The fact that the constraints of just war are

routinely overridden is no more a proof of their falsity and irrelevance than are similar points

about morality: we know the standard, and we also know human beings fall short of that

standard with depressing regularity. The fact of moral failure, rather than proving the falsity
of morality, points instead to the source of our disappointment in such failures: our abiding

knowledge of the morally right.

Because of the importance of just war thinking, the general history, key provisions, and

moral underpinnings of just war are things which every military person, and especially every

senior leader, must understand and be able to communicate to subordinates and the public. It

is important that senior leaders understand just war more deeply and see that the positive

laws of war emerge from a long moral tradition which rests on fundamental moral principles.

This essay will provide that history, background and moral context of ethics and war.

BACK GROUND OF JUST WAR THE ORY.

Most cultures of antiquity attempted to place some restraints on war. All recognized that

there are some causes of war which are justifiable and others which are not. All recognized

that some persons are legitimate objects of attack in war and others are not. All recognized

that there were times, seasons, and religious festivals, etc. during which warfare would be

morally wrong or religiously inappropriate.

The roots of modern international law come from one specific strand of thought emerging

out of Antiquity: the Christian Roman Empire that took shape after the conversion to

Christianity of the Emperor Constantine in the year 312 AD. Although there were important

ideas of restraint in war in pre-Christian Greek and Roman thought and indeed in cultures all

over the world, it is the blend of Christian and Greco-Roman thought that set the context of

the development of full-blown just war thinking over a period of centuries.

Christianity before this time had been suspicious of entanglement in the affairs of the

Empire. For the first several centuries of the movement, Christians interpreted the teaching

of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and other places quite literally, and saw themselves as

committed to pacifism (the refusal to use force or violence in all circumstances). Although

many appreciated the relative peace, prosperity and ease of travel the Empire’s military force

made possible, Christians felt prayer on behalf of the Emperor was the limit of their direct

support for it.

Much changed with Constantine. For many, war fought on behalf of a “Christian Empire”

was a very different thing than war on behalf of a pagan one. Further, during the century

following Constantine’s conversion, the Empire began to experience wave after wave of

invasion from the north, culminating in the fall of the city of Rome itself in 410 AD—a mere

hundred years after Constantine.

It was in that context that Christian thinkers, most notably St. Augustine, a doctor of the

church and bishop of Hippo in North Africa, first worked out the foundations of Christian just

war thought. History, Augustine argued, is morally ambiguous. Human beings hope for pure

justice and absolute righteousness. Augustine firmly believed that the faithful will

experience such purity only at the end of time when God’s kingdom comes. But until that

happens, we will experience only justice of a sort, righteousness of a sort.

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21

What passes for justice will require force and coercion, since there will always be people

who strive to take more than their share, to harm and steal from others. In that world, the

peacemakers who are blessed are those who use force appropriately and mournfully to keep

as much order and peace as possible under these conditions. The military officer is that

peacemaker when he or she accepts this sad necessity. Out of genuine care and concern with

the weak and helpless, the soldier shoulders the burden of fighting to maintain an order and

system of justice which, while far short of the deepest hopes of human beings, keeps the world

from sliding into complete anarchy and chaos. It is a sad necessity imposed upon the soldier by

an aggressor. It inevitably is tinged with guilt and mournfulness. The conscientious soldier

longs for a world where conflict is unnecessary, but sees that the order of well-ordered states

must be defended lest chaos rule.

For Augustine and the tradition that develops after him, Just War is an attempt to balance

two competing moral principles. It attempts to maintain the Christian concern with

non-violence and to honor the principle that taking human life is a grave moral evil. But it

attempts to balance that concern with the recognition that, the world being what it is,

important moral principles, and that protection of innocent human life requires the

willingness to use force and violence.

As it wends its way through history, the tradition of Just War thought grows and becomes

more precise and more elaborate. In that development, it faces new challenges and makes

new accommodations.

The Spanish in the New World, for example, were challenged to rethink the tradition as

they encountered and warred against indigenous populations. Are such wars, too, governed

by moral principles? Are all things permitted against such people? Or, it was seriously

debated, are they even people, as opposed to some new kind of animal? Through that

discussion came an expansion of the scope of Just War principles to populations that did not

share common cultures.

After the Protestant Reformation, as wars raged throughout Europe in the attempt to

restore religious unity to “Christendom,” some thinkers (most notably Hugo Grotius) argued

that Just War must be severed from a distinctively Christian religious foundation. Human

reason instead must provide a system for the restraint of war that will be valid despite

religious difference, valid etsi deus non daretur, even if God did not exist! In other words, for

Grotius and others, human reason is a commonality all people share, regardless of religious,

ethnic, and cultural differences. That rationality, rather than revealed religion or religious

authority, could suffice to ground moral thinking about war.

As a result of that “secularization” of Just War thinking in Europe, the foundation was laid

for the universal international law of the present international system. As a result, the

foundation was laid for that system in Natural Law (moral rules believed to be known by

reason alone, apart from particular religious ideas and institutions) and in the jus Gentium,

the “law of Peoples,” those customary practices which are widely shared across cultures. In

current international law these accepted practices are called “customary international law”

and set the standard of practices of “civilized nations.”
Since virtually all modern states have committed themselves by treaty and by

membership in the United Nations to the principles of international law, in one sense there is

no question of their universal applicability around the globe. But the fact that the tradition

has roots in the West and in the Christian tradition does raise important multicultural

questions about it.

How does one deal with the important fact that Muslims have their own ways of framing

moral issues of war and conflict and even of the national state itself which track imperfectly at

best with the Just War framework? How does one factor into one’s thinking the idea of “Asian

Values” which differ in their interpretation of the rights of individuals and the meaning of the

society and state from this supposedly universal framework? What weight should the fact

that much of the world, while nominally nation-states on the model established by the Peace

of Westphalia in 1648 in Europe, are in reality better described as “tribes with flags”? How

does one deal with the fact that, in much of the world, membership in a particular ethnic

group within an internationally recognized border is more an indicator of one’s identity than

the name of the country on one’s passport?

All of these questions are subject of intense scholarly debate and practical importance. All

have very real-world applications when we think about the roots of conflict around the

modern world and attempt to think about those conflicts in the ways many of the participants

do. But for our purposes, we will need to set them aside in favor of making sure we understand

the Just War criteria as they frame United States military policy and the existing framework

of international law.

This limitation of focus is justified not only by the limitations of time, but also by legal

reality. Whatever one might want to say about the important cross-cultural issues posed

above, it remains true that the United States and its allies around the world are committed by

treaty, policy, and moral commitment to conduct military operations within the framework of

the existing Just War criteria. That fact alone makes it important that strategic leaders

possess a good working knowledge of those criteria and some facility in using them to reason

about war.

Ideally, however, strategic leaders will also have some grasp of the ongoing debate about

cultural diversity and the understanding of war in fundamentally differing cultural contexts

as well.

THE PUR POSES OF THE JUST WAR FRAME WORK.

The framework of principles commonly called “Just War Criteria” provide an organized

schema for determining whether a particular conflict is morally justified. As one might

imagine, any such framework will inevitably fall short of providing moral certainty. When

applied to the real world in all its complexity, inevitably persons of intelligence and good will,

can, and do disagree whether those criteria are met in a given case.

22
23

Furthermore, some governments and leaders lie. No matter how heinous their deeds, they

will strive to cast their actions in just war terms to provide at least the appearance of

justification for what they do. If hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, it is testimony 

to the moral weight of the just war principles that even the most extreme lies follow the shape

of just war principles. Just war language provides the shape of the lie even the greatest war

criminals must tell. Rare indeed is the aggressor or tyrant willing to declare forthrightly the

real causes and motives of their actions.

The twin realities of real-world complexity and the prevalence of lying about these matters

suggest the importance not only of knowing the just war criteria as a kind of list, but also of

skillful and careful reasoning using the just war framework as a strategic leader competency.

Only if a leader is capable of careful and judicious application of just war thinking can he or

she distinguish valid application of just war thinking from specious and self-serving attempts

to cloak unjust action in its terms.

THE JUST WAR FRAME WORK.

Moral judgments about war fall into two discrete areas: the reasons for going to war in the

first place, and the way the war is conducted. The first is traditionally called jus ad bellum, or

justice of going to war, and the second jus in bello, or law during war. Two interesting features

of this two-part division are that different agents are primarily responsible for each, and that

they are to a large degree logically independent of each other.

Judgments about going to war are, in the American context, made by the National

Command Authority and the Congress. Except at the highest levels where military officers

advise those decision-makers, military leaders are not involved in those discussions and bear

no moral responsibility for the decisions that result. Still, military personnel and ordinary

citizens can and do judge the reasons given for entering into military conflict by those decision

makers and make their own determinations whether the reasons given make sense or not. A

morally interesting but difficult question arises concerning one’s obligations and

responsibilities when one is convinced that recourse to war is not justified in a particular case.

Just conduct in war concerns the rules of engagement, choice of weapons and targets,

treatment of civilian populations and prisoners of war and so forth. These concern the “nuts

and bolts” of how the war is actually conducted. Here the primary responsibility shifts from

the civilian policymakers to the military leadership at all levels. Of course political leaders

and ordinary citizens have an interest in and make judgments about how their troops conduct

themselves in war. Militaries conduct themselves in light of national values, and must be

seen as behaving in war in ways citizens at home can accept morally.

Modern war, usually fought in plain sight of CNN and other media, is for good and for ill,

especially subject to immediate scrutiny. Political leaders and ordinary citizens react to

virtually every event and require of their leaders explanations for why they do what they do

and conduct war as they do. This fact, too, indicates why strategic leaders must be adept in
explaining clearly and honestly the conduct of their forces within the framework of the Just

War criteria.

I turn now to a discussion of the criteria of Just War in some detail. These are the “tests”

one uses to determine the justification of recourse to war in particular circumstances.

We begin with the criteria for judging a way jus ad bellum (in terms of going to war in the

first place). In detail lists of these criteria vary somewhat, but the following captures the

essential elements:

l Just Cause

l Le git i mate Au thor ity

l Pub lic Dec la ra tion

l Just In tent

l Pro por tion al ity

l Last Re sort

l Rea son able Hope of Suc cess

Recall that the moral impulse behind just war thinking is a strong sense of the moral evils

involved in taking human life. Consequently, the ad bellum tests of just war are meant to set a

high bar to a too-easy recourse to force and violence to resolve conflict. Each of the “tests” is

meant to impose a restraint on the decision to go to war.

JUST CAUSE.

Just Cause asks for a legitimate and morally weighty reason to go to war. Once, causes like

“offended honor” or religious difference were considered good reasons for war. As it has

developed, just war tradition and international law have restricted greatly the kinds of

reasons deemed acceptable for entering into military confrontation. The baseline standard in

modern just war thinking is aggression. States are justified in going to war to respond to

aggression received. Classically, this means borders have been crossed in force. Such direct

attacks on the territorial integrity and political sovereignty of an internationally recognized

state provide the clear case of just cause, recognized in just war and in international law (for

example, in the Charter of the United Nations).

Of course there are a number of justifications for war which do not fit this classic model.

Humanitarian interventions, preemptive strikes, assistance to a wronged party in an

internal military conflict in a state, just to name some examples, can in some circumstances

also justify use of military force, even though they do not fit the classic model of response to

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aggression. But the farther one departs from the baseline model of response to aggression, the

more difficult and confusing the arguments become.

As one moves into these justifications, the scope for states to lie and try to justify meddling

in each others affairs grows. For that reason, international law and ethics gives an especially

hard look at claims of just cause other than response to aggression already received. To do

otherwise risks opening too permissive a door for states to interfere with each other’s territory

and sovereignty.

Legitimate authority restricts the number of agents who may authorize use of force. In

the Middle Ages, for example, there was the very real problem that local lords and their

private armies would engage in warfare without consulting with, let alone receiving

authorization from, the national sovereign.

In the modern context, different countries will vary in their internal political structure

and assign legitimate authority for issues of war and peace of different functionaries and

groups. In the American context, there is the unresolved tension between the President as

Commander in Chief and the authority of Congress to declare war. The present War Powers

Act (viewed by all Presidents since it was enacted as unconstitutional, but not yet subjected to

judicial review) has still not clarified that issue. But while one can invent a scenario where

this lack of clarity would raise very real problems, in practice, so far the National Command

Authority and the Congress have found pragmatic solutions in every deployment of American

forces. 

The public declaration requirement has both a moral purpose and (in the American

context) a legal one. The legal one refers to the issue we were just discussing: the role of

Congress in declaring war. As we all know, few twentieth-century military conflicts in

American history have been authorized by a formal Congressional declaration of war. While

this is an important and unresolved Constitutional issue for the United States, it is not the

moral point of the requirement.

The moral point is perhaps better captured as a requirement for delivery of an ultimatum

before initiation of hostilities. Recall that the moral concern of just war is to make recourse to

armed conflict as infrequent as possible. The requirement of a declaration or ultimatum gives

a potential adversary formal notice that the issue at hand is judged serious enough to warrant

the use of military force and that the nation is prepared to do so unless that issue is

successfully resolved peacefully immediately.

The just intent requirement serves to keep the war aims limited and within the context

of the just cause used to authorize the war. Every conflict is subject to “mission creep.” Once

hostilities commence, there is always the temptation to forget what cause warranted the use

of force and to press on to achieve other purposes—purposes that, had they been offered as

justifications for the use of force prior to the conflict, would have clearly been seen as

unjustifiable. The just intent requirement limits war aims by keeping the mind focused on the

purpose of the war. Although there are justified exceptions, the general rule is that the
purpose of war is to restore the status quo ante bellum, the state of affairs that existed before

the violation that provided the war’s just cause.

Proportionality is a common sense requirement that the damage done in the war should

be worth it. That is to say, even if one has a just cause, it might be so costly in lives and

property damage that it is better to accept the loss rather than to pay highly

disproportionately to redress the issue. In practice, of course, this is a hard criterion to apply.

It is a commonplace notion that leaders and nations are notoriously inaccurate at predicting

the costs of conflict as things snowball out of control.

But here too, the moral point of just war criteria is to restrain war. And one important

implication of that requirement is the demand for a good faith and well-informed estimate of

the costs and feasibility of redressing grievances through the use of military force.

The requirement that war be the ultima ratio, the last resort, stems too from a

commitment to restrict the use of force to cases of sad necessity. No matter how just the cause,

and no matter how well the other criteria may be met, the last resort requirement

acknowledges that the actual commencement of armed conflict crosses a decisive line.

Diplomatic solutions to end conflicts, even if they are less than perfect, are preferred to

military ones in most, if not all cases. This is because the costs of armed conflict in terms of

money and lives are so high and because armed conflict, once begun, is inherently

unpredictable.

In practical reality, judging that this criterion has been met is particularly difficult.

Obviously, it cannot require that one has done every conceivable thing short of use of force:

there is always more one could think to do. It has to mean doing everything that seems

promising to a reasonable person. But reasonable people disagree about this. In the Gulf War,

for example, many (including Colin Powell) argued that more time for sanctions and

diplomacy would be preferable to initiation of armed conflict.

The last requirement ad bellum is reasonable hope of success. Because use of force

inevitably entails loss of human life, civilian and military, it is a morally grave decision to use

it. The reasonable hope criterion simply focuses thinking on the practical question: if you’re

going to do all that damage and cause death, are you likely to get what you want as a result? If

you’re not, if despite your best efforts it is unlikely that you’ll succeed in reversing the cause

that brings you to war, then you are causing death and destruction to no purpose.

An interesting question does arise whether heroic but futile resistance is ever justified.

Some have argued that the long-term welfare of a state or group may well require a memory of

resistance and noble struggle, even in the face of overwhelming odds. Since the alternative is

acquiescence to conquest and injustice, might it be justifiable for a group’s long-term

self-understanding to be able look back and say, “at least we didn’t die like sheep”?

This completes the overview of the jus ad bellum requirements of just war. Recall that the

categories and distinctions of the theory are not simple and clear. Neither individually nor

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together do they provide an algorithm that can generate a clear-cut and obvious judgment

about a particular war in the minds of all fair-minded people.

On the other hand, it is important not to overemphasize the difficulty here. Although the

language of just war is used by virtually all states and leaders in the attempt to justify their

actions, not all uses are equally valid. Often it is not that difficult to identify uses that are

inaccurate, dishonest, or self-serving. While there certainly are a range of cases where

individuals of good will and intelligence will disagree in their judgments, there is also a good

range where the misuse is transparent.

Recall, for example, Iraq’s initial (and brief) attempt to justify its invasion of Kuwait on

grounds that there had been a revolution in the Kuwaiti government and the new legitimate

government of Kuwait had requested Iraq’s fraternal assistance in stabilizing the new

government. Had this story been true, of course, Iraq would have been acting in conformity

with international law and just war tradition by being in Kuwaiti. It is important to note that

Iraq did apparently feel obliged to tell a tale like this, since that itself is a perverse testimony

to the need of states to attempt to justify their actions in the court of world opinion in just war

terms. Of course the story was so obviously false that even Iraq stopped telling it in a matter of

hours (how many of you even recall that they told it?).

My point in citing this example is to forestall an easy relativism. It is simple intellectual

laziness to conclude that, because these judgments are hard and people disagree about them

in particular cases, that the principles have no moral force or, worse, that all uses of them are

mere window-dressing. In all moral matters, as Aristotle pointed out, it is a mark of an

educated person not to expect more precision than the matter at hand permits. And in

complex moral judgments of matters of international relations, one cannot expect more than

thoughtful, well-informed and good-faith judgments.

JUS IN BELLO.

I turn now to the jus in bello side of just war thinking. As I noted above, except at the

highest levels of the military command structure, officers do not make the decision to commit

forces to conflict. The moral weight of those judgments lies with the political leadership and

its military advisors. On the other hand, strategic military leaders, whether they are

technically responsible for decisions to go to war or not, will often be placed in the position of

justifying military action to the press and the people. Further, thoughtful officers will often

feel a need to justify a particular use of force in which they participate to themselves. For all

these reasons, therefore, facility with just war reasoning in both its dimensions (jus ad bellum

and jus in bello) is a strategic leader competency.

The practical conduct of war is, however, the primary responsibility of military officers.

They bear the responsibility for the training and discipline of military personnel. They issue

the orders that determine what is attacked, with what weapons and tactics. They set the tone

for how civilians are treated, how POWs are captured, confined and cared for. They determine
how soldiers who violate order and the laws of war are disciplined and what examples they

allow to be set for acceptable conduct in their commands.

Because of this weight of responsibility, the officer at all levels must thoroughly

incorporate thought about the jus in bello side of just war into standard operating procedure.

It is an integral part of military planning at all levels, from the tactical issues of employing

small units to the highest levels of grand strategy. United States policy, national and

universal values, and political prudence combine to require officers at all levels to plan and

execute military operations with a clear understanding of just war requirements.

The major moral requirements of just war in bello boil down to two: discrimination and

proportionality. Together, they set limits in the conduct of war—limits on who can be

deliberately attacked and on how war can legitimately be conducted.

Although we use the term “discrimination” almost wholly negatively (as in racial

discrimination) the core meaning of the word is morally neutral. It refers to distinguishing

between groups or people or things on the basis of some characteristic that distinguishes one

group from another.

In the context of thought about war, the relevant characteristic upon which just war

requires us to discriminate is combatant status. In any conflict, there are individuals who

are combatants—actively engaged in prosecuting the war efforts—and there are

noncombatants. The central moral idea of just war is that only the first, the combatants, are

legitimate objects of deliberate attack. By virtue of their “choosing” to be combatants they

have made themselves objects of attack and have lost that immunity from deliberate attack

all human beings have in normal life, and which civilians retain even in wartime. I put

“choosing” in quotes, of course, because we all know soldiers become soldiers in lots of ways,

many of which are highly coerced. But they are at least voluntary in this sense: they didn’t run

away. They allow themselves to be in harm’s way as combatants.

Of course, in modern war, there are lots of borderline cases between combatant and

non-combatant. The definition of the war conventions is straightforward: combatants wear a

fixed distinct sign, visible at a distance and carry arms openly. But in guerilla war, to take the

extreme case, combatants go to great lengths to blend in to the civilian population. In such a

war, discrimination poses very real practical and moral problems.

But the presence of contractors on a battlefield, or combat in urban environments where

fighters (whether uniformed or not) are mixed in with civilian populations and property (to

point to only two examples) also make discrimination between combatants and

noncombatants challenging both morally and practically.

It is less critical to focus on the hard case than on the central moral point. War can only be

conducted justly insofar as a sustained and good faith commitment is made to discriminate

between combatants and noncombatants and to deliberately target only the combatants.

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Of course civilians die in war. And sometimes those deaths are the unavoidable byproduct

of even the most careful and conscientious planning and execution of military operations.

Intelligence may be mistaken and identify as a military target something that turns out in the

event to be occupied by civilians or dedicated only to civilian use. Weapons and guidance

systems may malfunction, placing weapons in places they were not intended to go.

Just war recognizes these realities. It has long used the “principle of double effect” to sort

through the morality of such events and justifies those which, no matter how terrible, do not

result from deliberate attacks on civilians. Such accidents in the context of an overall

discriminate campaign conducted with weapons that are not inherently indiscriminate are

acceptable as “collateral damage.”

What is not acceptable in just war thinking is the deliberate targeting of civilians, their

use as “human shields,” or use of indiscriminate warfare on populations. In practice this

means choosing weapons, tactics and plans which strive to the limit of the possible to protect

innocent civilian populations, even if they place soldiers at (acceptably) greater risk.

The other major requirement of jus in bello is proportionality. It, too, attempts to place

limits on war by the apparently common-sense requirement that attacks be proportionate to

the military value of the target. Judgments about these matters are highly contextual and

depend on many dimensions of practical military reality. But a massive bombardment of a

town, for example, would be disproportionate if the military object of the attack is a single

sniper.

It is true, of course, that all sides violated these rules in World War II, especially in the

uses of airpower. But the development of precision munitions and platforms for their delivery

have, since that conflict, allowed the U.S. military to return to more careful respect for the

laws of war, even in air war. Furthermore, it is a testimony to the moral need to do so that, at

least in part, drove that development—along with the obvious point that munitions that hit

what they’re aimed at with consistency and regularity are more militarily effective as well.

CON CLU SION.

The moral tradition of just war, and its partial embodiment in the laws of war at any

moment is part of on-going evolution. They represent a drive to make practical restraints on

war that honor the moral claim of individuals not to be unjustly attacked while at the same

time recognizing that use of military force in defense of individuals and values is sometimes a

necessity.

All military officers charged with the grave moral responsibility of commanding and

controlling military units and weapons must, if they are to conduct war morally, have a good

working knowledge of the just war tradition and of the moral principles it strives to enshrine.

Above all, strategic leaders who set large-scale military policy, control training and

organizational culture, and supervise the preparation of operational plans for national
militaries need to understand and think in ways deeply conditioned by just war principles.

Because their responsibility is so great and because the weapons and personnel under their

control are capable of causing such destruction, they above all bear the responsibility to

insure that those forces observe the greatest possible moral responsibility in their actions.

As I indicated above, no amount of knowledge of the terms and concepts of just war will

make morally complex decisions miraculously clear. But clear understanding of the concepts

of just war theory and of the moral principles that underlie them can provide clarity of

thought and a way to sharpen one’s thinking about those choices.

If our military is to conduct itself in war in ways compatible with American national

values, and if individual soldiers and officers are to be able to see themselves and their

activities as morally acceptable, they must be able to understand the moral structure of just

conduct in war. Further, it is imperative that they integrate that understanding into the

routines of decisionmaking in military operations.

In the Gulf War, and in major operations since then, the language and concerns of just war

are integrated increasingly into planning and execution of military operations. Military

lawyers are fully integrated into modern targeting and operations planning cells of the U.S.

military. In light of those realities, facility in just war thinking is, indeed, a strategic leader

competency. This paper is only an introduction to the terms and grammar of that thought.

True facility in just war thinking will come from careful and critical application of its

categories to the complexities of real life and real military operations.

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CHAP TER 4

SOME BASIC CONCEPTS AND APPROACHES

TO THE STUDY

OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

Rob ert H. Dorff

The study, analysis, and planning of strategy require a basic familiarity with some

essential concepts and approaches to the study of international relations. It is not so much the

terms and the jargon that are important; rather, it is the conceptual understanding that they

bring to the study that makes them useful. Using the precise terminology is less critical than

grasping the essential, underlying foundations of nation-state behavior so crucial to

explaining the interactions that interest us as strategic thinkers. This chapter introduces

some of the basic concepts and approaches in order to make them accessible for future

reference in our study of strategy.

Why do nation-states (and other significant actors in the international system) behave as

they do? How can we explain this behavior and use those explanations to anticipate likely

future behavior? What are the contemporary characteristics of the international system and

how do they affect the actors in that system? What are the ongoing trends (political, economic,

military, and technological) in the international system? How are those trends likely to affect

the interactions among those actors? What are the implications for U.S. national security

strategy?

These are the kinds of questions we need to ask as strategic analysts. In order to answer

them we must be familiar with some basic concepts and tools of analysis. We begin with a

discussion of the actors, their interests, and the ways in which those interests help determine

how an actor behaves. We then turn to one very common approach to the study of

international relations, the “levels of analysis.” Finally, we conclude with a brief discussion of

the two most common sets of assumptions about the behavior of nation-states in the

international system: realism and idealism.

THE AC TORS.

The Nation-State. The nation-state is the central actor in the international system. Not

everyone agrees with this premise. There is growing evidence that substate and

transnational actors and forces in the international system are increasing in importance, and

in many cases challenging the cohesiveness and effectiveness of national governments.

Nonetheless the nation-state appears unlikely to surrender its preeminent position in the

international system anytime soon. Consequently, this chapter will devote considerable
attention to those tools that help us understand nation-state behavior in the international

system.

The concept of the nation-state provides a useful starting point. As the compound noun

implies, there are two essential components to the nation-state. The state is generally defined

as a group of human beings possessing territory and a government. The state represents the

physical and political aspects of a country. Sovereignty refers to the ability of a country to

exercise preeminent control over the people and the policies within its territorial boundaries.

To the extent that a state is sovereign, it is free to exercise its own control over its people

without undue interference from external forces such as other states. The nation represents

the human aspect of a country, or the concept of nationality. It suggests that the people living

within the state share a sense of distinctiveness as a people; this distinctiveness may be seen

in language, religion, ethnicity, or a more general and amorphous sense that “we are one

people.” The modern nation-state has its origins in the seventeenth century. The Treaty of

Westphalia, signed in 1648, brought a formal end to the Thirty Years War in Europe. That

bloody conflict is generally viewed as the catalyst for consolidating what we think of today as

the “countries” of Europe. Consequently, one frequently sees references to the “Westphalian”

system of states or nation-states. Although the nation-state was already forming before and

during the Thirty Years War, historical shorthand has provided us with a birth date for the

concept—1648. The powerful nation-states that emerged from that conflict could raise and

fund large militaries, and they soon spread worldwide as the means of organizing people

within a defined territory under a distinct government. In the early days of the nation-state,

the government was most often a monarchy headed by a king or queen.

The American and French Revolutions at the end of the eighteenth century added two new

dimensions to the modern state. The first was nationalism, as evidenced especially in the

Napoleonic Wars in which the masses of people were mobilized to fight for the country. No

longer were wars limited to a small group of elite warriors. Whole nations were mobilized and

fought against each other. The second dimension was popular sovereignty: the notion that

the people were no longer simply subjects to be ruled but the very source of the government’s

right to rule. Among other things, this led directly to an increase in public participation in

virtually all aspects of political affairs and to the emergence of a new form of government,

democracy. During the next two centuries democracy took hold and evolved in countries such

as the United States and Great Britain, while monarchies and authoritarianism continued to

dominate in many other countries. Wars of national unification further consolidated the

various nation-states, and great clashes among powerful states characterized both centuries,

culminating in the two great world wars fought in the first half of the twentieth century. By

the end of World War II the nation-state had been the central actor in international affairs for

roughly three centuries. But the twentieth century was to witness the emergence of other

actors.

Other Actors. Clearly, the nation-state is not the only actor in the contemporary

international system. International governmental organizations (IGOs), such as the United

Nations, are growing in number and importance. Regional organizations, such as the

European Union, are in some cases assuming functions traditionally performed by the

nation-state. Other functional organizations, especially in the areas of trade and economics,

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such as the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on

Tariffs and Trade (GATT) or the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF),

play significant roles in contemporary international relations. Similarly, there has been an

explosion in non-governmental organizations (NGOs), private groups that play an important

role in a variety of aspects of international affairs; groups such as the International Red Cross

and Greenpeace come readily to mind. Some of the IGOs and NGOs are even visibly involved

in military operations, as we have seen in Haiti, Somalia, and of course Bosnia. And hardly a

day goes by that we don’t see, read, or hear about the actions of terrorists, transnational

organized criminal groups, or religious and ethnic groups. While all of these other actors can

be very important in international affairs, much of their impact still lies in how they affect the

behavior of nation-states. So it is this central actor—the nation-state—on which we focus our

attention.

IN TER ESTS.

The behavior of a nation-state is rooted in the pursuit, protection, and promotion of its

interests. So if one can identify accurately the interests of a state, one should be able to

understand much of its behavior vis-a-vis other states and actors in the international system.

Most analysts begin with this notion that nation-states have basic, fundamental interests

that underlie their behavior. They are most often referred to as national interests. Exactly

what those interests are and how they are determined is a matter of considerable controversy,

however. What we should recognize here is that all states have core or vital interests, and the

most readily seen and agreed upon are the basic survival interests of the nation-state—its

territory, its people, and its sovereignty. While forces outside their own boundaries affect all

countries—large and powerful, small and weak—a certain level of sovereignty is critical to

the notion of national interests. A country that is unable to exercise effective control over its

territory and its peoples, relatively free from the intrusion of other nation-states into its

internal affairs, is lacking in this critical element of sovereignty. Historically, states and their 

peoples have been willing to risk much, including death and destruction, in order to protect

and promote their sovereign rights.

Despite the controversy and debate surrounding the identification of specific interests,

some agreement exists on what those interests are. Current U.S. policy, as formulated in the

most recent version of the national security strategy, identifies three broad interests and

three general categories of interests. The broad interests are: “...protect the lives and

personal safety of Americans, both at home and abroad; maintain the sovereignty, political

freedom and independence of the United States, with its values, institutions and territory

intact; and promote the well-being and prosperity of the nation and its people.”

1

 The three

broad categories are vital interests, important interests, and humanitarian and other

interests.

2

 While almost everyone agrees on the centrality of the survival interests,

considerable disagreement arises when one tries to be more specific about which economic or

value-based interests to pursue. Is access to oil a vital U.S. interest? Many analysts would say

yes because of the severe economic problems caused by the lack of such access. Others would

disagree, arguing that such access is important but not vital. Does the U.S. have an interest in
promoting democracy and individual rights? If so, is it a vital, important, or simply an “other”

interest? Resolving such debates is part of the overall political process, and is central to any

explanation of the behavior of nation-states.

NA TION-STATE BE HAV IOR.

The key questions a strategist asks about the behavior of nation-states in the

international system are really rather few. They are essentially generic and broad questions,

with other derived questions simply serving as variations. For example: Why do nation-states

go to war? Why does peace obtain? Why is there conflict? Why cooperation? Why does a state

choose to use military force? Why does it choose diplomacy instead? In the end, answers to

these and other questions are sought in the interplay between a nation’s interests and the

tools it has available to protect and promote them. To answer such questions we must look at

the different factors that affect the behavior of nation-states.

LEVELS OF ANAL Y SIS.

One of the most common frameworks for analyzing international relations suggests that

these factors can be organized according to three levels of analysis. Commonly associated

with the work of Waltz, the three levels are the international system, the nation-state, and

the individual.

3

 Over the years these levels have been discussed, refined, and expanded, but

in essence they remain the same. The purpose of the framework is to demonstrate that we can

explain the behavior of nation-states in the international system by looking at three different,

general sets of factors. As we will see, the first level explains nation-state behavior largely on

the basis of factors external to the country, while the other two levels emphasize internal

factors.

The System Level. The first level (international system) suggests that nation-states

behave the way they do because of certain fundamental characteristics of the system of which

they are all a part. The idea is simply that the system itself exerts a kind of force on the states

that compels them to behave and react in certain predictable ways. Theories such as the

balance of power are based on this kind of analysis; for example, that if a single nation-state

seeks to dominate the system (a hegemon), other states will join together to counter the power

of that single state (balancing). Who possesses how much and what kinds of power (political,

economic, military) at any given time are the critical variables. This leads to a basic focus on

the distribution of power in the international system as a key explanation for system and

hence nation-state behavior. The reasons for this are found in the characteristics of the

international system.

The characteristics of the system that are most important are relatively few. First, the

system is largely anarchic. In other words there is no collective decision-making body or

supreme authority to manage conflict among the competing states in the system. States

compete with each other and “manage” their conflicts through their own use of power. Second,

this means that the system basically relies on self-help by the individual states, so the states

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must be concerned about developing their power relative to other states in the system. The

more power one has, the more that state is able to achieve its goals and objectives; the less

power one has, the more that state may be subject to the whims of other states. These two

characteristics mean that each state has a basic goal of survival and must be the guardian of

its own security and independence. No other actor in the system will look out for the state, a

role performed for the individual by government in most domestic political systems. (So, for

example, if another individual wrongs you, you have a legal system to use in order to right

that wrong.)

To illustrate how the system level is used to explain nation-state behavior, such as the

causes of war, let us use the example of World War II. According to this approach, Hitler’s

Germany was a classic hegemonic actor. Its objective was to amass power (political, military,

and economic) in order to dominate the European and, perhaps, Asian continents, and

eventually the world. It saw in the weakness of other states (Great Britain, France, Russia,

and the United States) the opportunity to make its play for world domination. Yet the

“inevitability” of system influences would ultimately frustrate German aspirations. For as

Germany sought to dominate, other states in the system would eventually band together and

“balance power with power.” So the unlikely alliance (unlikely in the sense that they were not

natural allies) among those four against Germany, Italy and Japan is seen as a nearly

automatic occurrence that results from the necessity of balancing power. As Germany sought

to dominate, other states in the system naturally sought to balance it. Despite the roles

played by individuals such as Hitler, Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt (a point to which we

shall return in a moment), the decisions made by these countries were part of a broader

pattern of system-determined behavior. The titanic clash that was World War II was destined

to occur once Germany sought to dominate the system; natural system dynamics would see to

that.

The Nation-State Level. The second level of analysis is commonly referred to as the

nation-state level, although recently the term actor level has been used. The latter usage

reflects the fact that in contemporary international relations there is a growing number of

actors in the international system that are not nation-states, as we discussed earlier. While

we focus here primarily on the nation-state, we are reminded that non-state actors do play an

increasingly important role. This second level of analysis argues that because states are the

primary actors, it is the internal character of those states that matters most in determining

overall patterns of behavior. Because states are sovereign entities, they act relatively

independently; because they are part of the same system, the interaction of those

independent decisions is what leads to war or peace, conflict or cooperation. One of the most

common state-level approaches emphasizes the nature of the political system as a major

determinant of state behavior. So for example, we have the premise that democracies behave

differently than do authoritarian political regimes. This is precisely the notion that underlies

the “Theory of the Democratic Peace”, a central component of the current United States

national security strategy of engagement and enlargement. If democracies do not go to war

with other democracies (so runs the “democratic peace” argument), then it is only natural for

the United States to want to promote more democracies in the world as a way of increasing

peace and stability in the system. Other nation-state level explanations include cultural and

social factors.
The second level can also be used to explain the causes of World War II. In this case what is

important is not the systemic influences of balance of power, but the specific character of the

major actors. The totalitarian regimes in Germany, Japan, and Italy were compelled to

undertake aggressive foreign policies in order to pacify the oppressed peoples living under

them. If the leaders didn’t create external enemies for the people to fight against, the people

would soon focus on how oppressive their regimes were and they would eventually revolt. The

democratic regimes of Great Britain and the United States were similarly compelled to

oppose the totalitarian regimes’ expansionist desires because that is what democracies

do—they fight against the evils of totalitarianism and for the good of freedom. So in this view,

World War II was fought to protect the freedom-loving democracies of the world, not simply to

balance power against the expansionist desires of a potential hegemon. An alliance with

Russia was a “necessary evil” to be endured in the short-term in order to achieve the defeat of

the immediate aggressor.

The Individual Level. Finally, the third level of analysis emphasizes the role played by

individual leaders. Recently this level has been referred to as the decision-making level,

which tends to point to factors more general than the idiosyncrasies of individuals, and to the

fact that decisions about war and peace, conflict and cooperation are made by individuals,

organizations, and institutions within a society. But the primary emphasis remains the same;

real people make decisions that determine the pattern of behavior among states in the

international system. This level of analysis is frequently seen in “Great Man” historical

explanations or in the philosophical analyses of human nature. The former emphasizes the

critical role played by certain individuals who happen to be in the right place at the right time

to exert fundamental influence on the unfolding events. The latter tends to hold, as did

Hobbes and others before him, that there is a basic, aggressive tendency in human nature,

and that tendency will emerge time and again no matter how much we wish to keep it

suppressed. War occurs because individuals are inherently aggressive, and therefore war (not

peace) is the natural state of affairs among groups of individuals interacting in the

international system as nation-states. This is the basic view of human nature held by most

analysts who consider themselves realists. Alternatively, and with the same focus on human

nature, one can assume that individuals are inherently peace loving and perfectible, and that

peace is therefore the natural state of affairs, and the abnormal departure from it is war and

conflict. This is the basic view of human nature held by most analysts who consider

themselves idealists. (We shall return to these two views in the final section of this chapter.)

This level also focuses our attention on the perceptions and misperceptions of key actors (how

they see the world, how they see the motivations and goals of other actors in the system, and

so on). It also stresses the types of decisions being made (different policies generate different

kinds of decisions) and the processes with which they are made (whether public opinion plays

a role, whether the process is open or closed, etc.). If you want to know why a nation-state

behaves as it does, you need to ask questions such as: Who are the most important decision

makers, what are their motivations and perceptions, and what are they trying to achieve?

What is the type of decision being made? What kind of process is required to reach a decision?

One analysis employing a third-level approach offers a fairly straightforward explanation

of the causes of World War II. Hitler, seen from this perspective as the embodiment of evil that

exists in human nature, decided to pursue world domination and dragged the German people

36
37

(afflicted by the same frailties of human nature that affect us all) into his scheme. Churchill

and Roosevelt, viewed as those altogether rare examples of good prevailing over evil, saw it as

their calling to rally their democratic and freedom-loving peoples to the cause of eradicating

evil from the system. According to this level of analysis, there was nothing inevitable about

the causes or the outcomes of the war. Had Hitler not come on the scene, no power vacuum

would have drawn Germany toward domination. Had Churchill and Roosevelt not been

leaders of their countries, no necessities of balancing power or opposing evil would have

ensured a set of foes that would in the end prevail over Hitler’s Germany. According to this

admittedly simplified third-level perspective, the fact that we had these particular

individuals on the scene at that particular point in time is what explains the causes and the

outcomes of that Second World War.

Elegant theories and models have been developed using these levels of analysis, most of

which have focused on the system and the nation-state levels (elegant theories of

idiosyncratic individual behavior are hard to come by, but psychological approaches come the

closest). Trying to discern the compelling forces that drive nations to behave in certain ways is

the goal. For the strategic analyst, however, elegant theories are less important than accurate

assessments of current conditions and predictions of likely future courses of action. As a

consequence, we typically employ all three levels in attempts to understand and explain

international politics. Explanations drawn largely from the first level (such as balance of

power) interact with variables drawn from the other two levels (such as the nature of the

regime and the profiles of current leaders) to produce a strategic assessment and derivative

policy recommendations. Ultimately the goal is to explain why nation-states might pursue

certain courses of action, and what should be done to counter those actions that are

detrimental to one’s own interests or to encourage those actions considered favorable. To do

that requires familiarity with all three levels and the factors drawn from each that can help

lead to a better strategic assessment. In most cases, that will require an understanding of

some general system factors, characteristics of the actors in the system, and attributes of

individual leaders.

RE AL ISM AND IDE AL ISM.

No discussion of basic concepts and approaches would be complete without some

treatment of the two most prominent sets of competing assumptions about behavior in the

international system. Although adherents of these schools of thought often speak as though

their views are statements of fact, it is important to realize that they are actually

assumptions. They provide the underpinnings for explanations of nation-state behavior, but

for the most part they cannot be proven. What one assumes about nation-state behavior is of

course central for the explanations that derive from them. Therefore, we shall briefly outline

the core assumptions of the two approaches and compare and contrast them, particularly in

terms of where they lead us in our strategic analyses.

Realism. Realism, frequently identified with scholars such as Hans Morgenthau, Henry

Kissinger, and more recently Kenneth Waltz, considers anarchy the primary characteristic of

the international system; in other words, there is no central authority to settle disputes
among the competing member states, as there is in domestic political systems. Given this lack

of central authority, states compete with one another within a loose system that includes

some rules, norms, and patterns of behavior, but which ultimately causes the individual

nation-state to look out for its own interests (the system of “self-help” described earlier). The

means for protecting, preserving, and promoting one’s interests (the ends) is power, hence

states will be preoccupied with their own power capabilities and how they relate to the

capabilities of other states. Not surprisingly, realists tend to view the world in terms of

competition and conflict, a recurring struggle for power and its management.

In trying to explain why power and struggles over it are the central feature of nation-state

behavior, proponents of realism fall into two general groups. One group, perhaps best

epitomized by Morgenthau, argues that human nature is the key explanation. In their view

human nature is fixed and unchangeable, and it is inherently focused on the quest for ever

more power. Consequently, conflict among people competing for power is inevitable. And

since states are simply aggregations of individual humans, and statesmen are the leaders of

those groups, nation-states will exhibit this same lust for power in their behavior with one

another. No matter what one does, this lust for power anchored in human nature will make

some conflict inevitable. The best we can hope for is to manage that conflict because it can

never be eradicated.

The second group of realists, today most clearly associated with the writings of Waltz,

finds the explanation for the centrality of power relations in the structure of the international

system. This view, called structural realism or neorealism, is essentially what we have

outlined in the first paragraph of this section and in our earlier discussion of the international

system level of analysis. The primary characteristic of the international system is anarchy;

the absence of a central authority to make and enforce rules, settle disputes, and generally

regulate and manage the conflict that is inevitable in a system of individual, sovereign

nation-states. All states possess some level of military power, and ultimately each state has

the option of threatening or actually using that power. To some extent, then, each state must

be concerned with the power capabilities of other states. To the realist this creates a system in

which all states to varying degrees will be distrustful of other states. The more one state

increases its power capabilities, the more insecure other states will feel. This leads directly to

the security dilemma: the actions undertaken by a state to increase its security (such as

expanding its military capabilities) will lead to counteractions taken by other states, leading

eventually to the paradoxical outcome that all states will in fact feel (or actually be) less

secure. The classic example of this dilemma is an arms race.

This second school of realist thought is by far the largest, and its proponents generally

reject any notion of human nature as an underlying explanation for the prominent role played

by power in international relations. Neorealists tend to locate most, if not all, of the

explanations for nation-state behavior in the structural characteristics of the international

system, not in the internal characteristics of nation-states or individuals. But regardless of

their positions on this issue, all realists come to the same conclusion about power in the

international system: the distribution of power is the most important variable explaining

nation-state behavior, and the best way of managing conflict in the system is by balancing

power with power. Various balance of power theories all assume that the only effective way

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39

to prevent war is to prepare for war; one must be willing to threaten and to use force in order to

reduce the likelihood that such force will in fact be used. Hence the common dictum in

international relations, “If you want peace, you must prepare for war.” Whether through

increasing individual state capabilities or multiplying those capabilities through a system of

changing alliances, states must be constantly on guard against a shift in the overall balance of

power that would tempt the momentarily strong to exploit their advantage over the weak. To

the realist, a country has “no enduring allies, only enduring interests,” and those interests

can only be protected through its own vigilance and preparedness.

Idealism. Idealists can trace their modern heritage to the tenets of Woodrow Wilson,

although like realism its origins go much further back in history. Often referred to as

Wilsonian liberalism, idealist thought frequently views human nature as a positive force. It is

precisely the power politics of nation-state behavior that is the problem, so the cure is to find a

way to reduce or eliminate altogether that particular form of interaction. To the idealist, there

is a natural harmony of interests among nation-states, based on the inherent desire of most

people to live in peace with one another. Only when the corrupting influences of great power

politics, ideology, nationalism, evil leaders, and so on intervene do we see international

politics degenerate into conflict and war. The task then is to prevent the rise and control of

such corrupting influences. How is this to be accomplished? First and foremost it can be

encouraged through the growth of democracy as a form of government that gives maximum

expression to the voice of the people. After all, if most people are inherently peace loving, then

governments that express the desires of the people will themselves be less warlike. A second

means to the desired end is the use of international institutions to create forums in which

nation-states can discuss their disagreements in ways that will reinforce the cooperative

rather than the competitive dimensions of their relationships with one another. So the

idealist finds great promise not only in institutions like the United Nations but also in the

further development of international treaties and covenants, as well as common practice, as

the bases for a system of international law. Such international institutions can be used to

change the way states calculate their interests, hence they can encourage cooperation over

conflict. At one extreme, some idealists believe that the creation of a world government is the

answer; all we have to do is create the international equivalent of domestic government to

regulate and manage the behavior of the actors in the system.

Idealism is too often, and generally inaccurately, portrayed as a “fuzzy-headed liberal

notion” of peace and cooperation, in part because there are some idealists who do espouse

what sound very much like “utopian” aspirations. Yet the contemporary counterpoint to

realism is most accurately referred to as “liberal institutionalism”, which emphasizes the role

played by states’ interests (the liberalism of the 19th century that comprised the core

argument for conservative economic theory like that of Adam Smith) and international

institutions. The more states can be shown that their interests are effectively pursued within

international institutions, and that all states can benefit from such interaction, the more they

can be induced to behave cooperatively rather than competitively. Much of the post-World

War II international trade and economics regimes (Bretton Woods, GATT, and so on) are

based precisely on this “idealist” approach.
Yet both schools of thought have some shortcomings when we look carefully at the

assumptions and their implications. For example, while realists place great emphasis on the

fundamental influence of national interests on nation-state behavior, not all realists can

agree on what those interests are. For example, Morgenthau was an early and outspoken

critic of United States involvement in Vietnam, arguing that there was no vital national

interest being threatened. At virtually the same time no less prominent a realist than Henry

Kissinger was arguing that it was precisely United States vital interests that were

threatened by the possible communist takeover of Southeast Asia. How did realism help

decide who was correct? And in a later attempt to justify the covert United States role in the

overthrow of the leftist Allende regime in Chile, Kissinger is alleged to have said that Chile

“was a dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica,” which to many observers (including many

realists) sounded like a politician bending over backwards to produce a realist-sounding

defense for a rather silly policy decision. On the idealist side, we can return to our earlier

historical examples. The hope that the voice of the people would establish more reason and

peace in international relations seems a bit wishful when we consider that it was precisely the

vengeance sought by the publics in France and Great Britain that helped produce the fatally

flawed Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The punishment meted out to Germany in that peace

agreement almost certainly paved the way for the eventual rise of Hitler and the subsequent

explosion of the continent in World War II. And the same publics, so weary and fearful of war

based on their experiences in World War I, helped produce the climate of appeasement in the

1930s that rendered any meaningful “balance of power” approach impossible to implement.

Because it is virtually impossible to prove the accuracy of the underlying and competing

assumptions in these two approaches, the arguments between realists and idealists will

certainly continue. This will be especially the case in times of tremendous and profound

change in the international system such as we are now experiencing in the most recent period

of transition following the end of the Cold War. What we need to recognize, however, is the

nature of the assumptions we are making and the implications they have for our analysis of

nation-state behavior. In general, the differences between the realist and idealist schools of

thought show up in the relative weight they give to the levels of analysis discussed earlier,

and to the significance of the roles played by non-state actors, especially international

institutions, in the regulation and management of inter-state conflict. Not surprisingly, most

realists give primary emphasis to the system-level of analysis. In fact, some realists continue

to discount completely the influence of all domestic factors, such as the nature of the regime or

the individuals who occupy leadership positions. To them, nation-states are rational, unitary

actors who make decisions based on their interests and pursue them consistently over time

regardless of who leads them. To many idealists this is a great weakness of realist thought,

because they see the interests of nation-states growing out of a much more amorphous

domestic competition among differing views about just what those interests are, let alone how

best to pursue them. To the realist, the nation-state is all that really matters, and attempts to

create supranational institutions (such as the United Nations) to help manage state behavior

are doomed to fail. To the liberal institutionalist, it is precisely such institutions that can

bring more orderly and less conflictual patterns of behavior to the international system.

Theorists will continue to debate which level (or levels) is most important, so the basic

dialogue between realism and liberalism will go on. But for the strategic analyst concerned

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41

with current policy, the focus must be on the interactions across levels. While changes in the

international system will create situations and circumstances to which nation-states can

respond, how they perceive those changes and what they do in response, will be in part shaped

by domestic characteristics and conditions, including individual leadership. This ability to

integrate the levels of analysis and to understand the assumptions underlying different views

of what is important in international political behavior is essential to strategic thinking and

analysis.

ENDNOTES - CHAP TER 4

1. A Na tional Se cu rity Strat egy for A New Century, The White House. Washington, DC: December 1999, p. 1.

2. Ibid., pp. 5-6.

3. Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State, and War: A Theory of International Relations. New York: Columbia

University Press, 1959.
43

CHAP TER 5

THE PERSISTENCE OF CREDIBILITY:

INTERESTS, THREATS AND PLANNING

FOR THE USE OF AMERICAN MILITARY POWER

Da vid Jablonsky

In Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, when one protagonist comments “But, good heavens, we know

nothing of the future,” another replies: “No, but there is a thing or two to be said about it all

the same.” This is equally true today, even in a period of transition marked not only by

change, but by the ubiquity and rapidity of change. The reason is that continuity invariably

accompanies change, in many cases providing historical guidelines which, if used carefully,

can provide a basis for saying “a thing or two” about the future. The purpose of this chapter is

to demonstrate that such historical threads do indeed provide a basis for analysis of one of the

most important issues facing the United States in the post-Cold War era: the use of military

power in national security policy. Key to that analysis is the continuity implicit in the concept

of national credibility, defined as a combination of a nation’s capability to influence other

international actors and the perceived willingness to use that capability. It is a concept that

links the past, present and future in the complex interaction of national interests and the

threats to those interests.

THE COLD WAR LEG ACY OF IN TER ESTS AND CRED I BIL ITY.

“A small knowledge of human nature will convince us,” George Washington once stated,

“that with far the greatest part of mankind, interest is the governing principle.”

1

 At the U.S.

Army War College, national interests are presented as desired conditions—the enduring end

states by which nations rationally prioritize their efforts. The core interests are divided into

four categories: physical security, economic prosperity, promotion of values, and world order.

They are further refined in terms of their intensity: vital, important and peripheral.

2

Physical security refers to the protection against attack on the territory and people of a

nation state in order to ensure survival with fundamental values and political systems intact.

This category dominated U.S. focus for most of the Cold War, with containment of the Soviet

Union on the Eurasian landmass as the justification for the buildup of forces and institutions

that came to make up the national security state. In terms of prosperity during that same

period, the United States was economically supreme in the world as demonstrated in such

institutions as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and in the global

dominance of the dollar for much of that time. For Americans, foreign policy must also reflect

the values for which they believe their country stands. The promotion of these values in the

Cold War was captured in the crusade of anti-Communism, which in turn was enhanced by its

linkage to the geostrategic goal of containment. “I believe,” President Truman declared in the
March 1947 doctrine named for him, “that it must be the policy of the United States to support

free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation...to work out their own destinies in their

own way.”

3

It was in pursuit of the last category of world order that U.S. leaders discovered how the

concept of credibility during the Cold War could blur the distinction between intensity of

national interests. From a rational viewpoint, vital interests during that long twilight conflict

should have been focused exclusively on the bipolar, superpower core as opposed to the global

“periphery” of that core. But, as John Lewis Gaddis pointed out, the distant sound of dominoes

falling could be just as loud as sabres rattling next door.

4

 This type of connectivity was closely

tied to the psychological aspects of credibility with potential aggressors—summed up in

Pericles’ classic argument against giving in to foreign demands: “If you give in, you will

immediately be confronted with some greater demand, since they will think that you only

gave way on this point through fear.”

5

 Thus, there was the 1950 invasion of South Korea, the

survival of which had been defined as outside vital U.S. interests but which, because of the

nature of the North Korean attack, quickly joined that degree of intensity. “If we let Korea

down,” Truman briefed Congress after the attack,

the So vi ets will keep right on go ing and swal low up one piece of Asia af ter an other . . . . If we were

to let Asia go, the Near East would col lapse [and there is] no tell ing what would hap pen in Europe.

6

In addition, as George Kennan discovered at the beginning of the Cold War, the problems

with credibility were not just confined to actual or potential enemies. There were also the

psychological problems of open pluralistic societies in trying to differentiate between vital

and other interests. In this context, defeats on the periphery could have demoralizing effects

on the public and elites in areas where core or intrinsic interests were involved. Moreover,

there was also the problem of cumulative effects. In 1947, for example, Kennan was concerned

that Soviet victories might cause a bandwagon effect in West Europe, not because of any

ideological affinity, but from purely pragmatic motives to join the movement of the future.

And in the fall of 1961, this phenomenon was evident in President Kennedy’s justification for

his increasing commitment to South Vietnam. “There are limits to the number of defeats I can

defend in one twelve-month period,” he explained. “I’ve had the Bay of Pigs and pulling out of

Laos, and I can’t accept a third.”

7

By that time, the domino principle was fully enshrined in the indiscriminate perimeter

approach to containment with its assumption of undifferentiated interests and unlimited

means. The expectations of domino dynamics in this approach caused interests to become a

function of the threat and as a consequence credibility to become an interest in itself. In such

circumstances, prioritization was impossible. “I don’t know where the non-essential areas

are,” President Kennedy acknowledged in an off-the-record press briefing.

8

 Equally

important, the approach left the United States in a strategically reactive mode, since the

potential adversary could create a crisis at a time and place of its choosing which the U.S.,

focused on universal credibility, could ignore only at its perceived peril. “Unlike those sociable

games it takes two to play,” Thomas Schelling once noted, “with chicken it takes two not to

44
45

play. If you are publicly invited to play chicken and say you would rather not, you have just

played.”

9

RE AC TION.

The most important concerns with domino dynamics and the use of military force found

expression in a 1984 speech by the Secretary of Defense outlining six criteria for commitment

of U.S. troops abroad that were clearly focused on the problem of credibility. Under this

so-called “Weinberger Doctrine,” force would be used as a last resort and with the clear

intention of winning—but only when the vital interests of the United States and its allies

were threatened. There must also be clearly defined political and military objectives

combined with the knowledge of how the U.S. forces could accomplish those objectives. “War

may be different today than in Clausewitz’s time, but the need for a well-defined objective and

a consistent strategy is still essential.” Moreover, the relationship between political and

military objectives and the size and composition of the forces committed must be continually

reassessed and adjusted if necessary with, as a constant “beacon light,” the basic question: “Is

this conflict in our national interest?” Finally, there was the requirement for the reasonable

assurance of support by the American people and their elected representatives in Congress.

We can not fight a bat tle . . . at home while ask ing our troops to win a war over seas or, as in the case of

Viet nam, in ef fect ask ing our troops not to win, but just to be there.

10

But the issue of credibility would not prove so simple. A few months later, Secretary of

State Shultz defined the dilemma in a reply to the Weinberger Doctrine that was muted at the

time by the Cold War. In a complex world, Shultz pointed out, there were also “gray-area

challenges” in regional and local conflicts that were often far removed from major war but

nonetheless, absent responses by the United States, would have important adverse

cumulative effects on American credibility. We live as is commonly said, on a shrinking planet

and in a world of increasing interdependence. We have an important stake in the health of the

world economy and in the overall condition of global security; the freedom and safety of our

fellow human beings will always impinge upon our moral consciousness. Not all these

challenges threaten vital interests, but at the same time an accumulation of successful

challenges can add up to a major adverse change in the geo-political balance. . . . American

military power should be resorted to only if the stakes justify it, if other means are not

available, and then only in a manner appropriate to the objective. But we cannot opt out of

every contest. If we do, the world’s future will be determined by others—most likely by those

who are the most brutal, the most unscrupulous and the most hostile to our deeply held

principles.

11

 This theme was renewed after the end of the Cold War. As he left office, President

Bush pointed out in a major speech that the use of military power must be considered without

“rigid criteria” on a case-by-case basis. “The relative importance of an interest is not a guide,”

he concluded. “Military force . . . might be the best way to protect an interest that qualified as

important, but less than vital.”

12

President Bush was no doubt influenced by the outcome of Desert Storm, which only fed

the post-Cold War euphoria concerning the management of power, and led to impossibly high
expectations in the realm of lesser multilateral operations on the periphery ranging from

peacekeeping to peace enforcement. The result early in the Clinton Administration was a

policy that came to be called “assertive multilateralism,” the major rationale of which was to

maintain U.S. global involvement at a much-reduced cost. The principal vehicle was to be a

reinvigorated United Nations that not only would provide legitimacy to interventions on the

periphery, but would mount such operations with its own resources. All this, it was expected,

would constrain unwanted unilateralism by other nations while easing the burden for the

U.S.

13

The reality was somewhat different. To begin with, there was the realization that

traditional UN peacekeepers had never been able to create the conditions for their own

success and that to establish institutional capabilities in the UN for such endeavors would be

an enormous undertaking. At the same time, U.S. forces were increasingly involved in

Somalia where humanitarianism was evolving into peace enforcement and nation building.

The loss of American soldiers in Mogadishu in October 1993 renewed an intense debate by the

public and Congress. The outcome in May 1994 was Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 25,

a set of preconditions for U.S. participation in Security Council votes on peace operations as

well as for the actual involvement in such operations—all distinctly reminiscent, with its

“stringent conditionality,” of the Weinberger Doctrine. Most of the considerations in the PDD,

one analyst observed, “taken individually, appear reasonable...under most circumstances.

Taken collectively, however, against the backdrop of the experiences with the use of force in

the post-Cold War world and the current priorities of the Administration and Congress, these

factors appear so constraining as to be prohibitive of action.”

14

WARFIGHTING VS. MOOTW.

The question of selectivity is particularly important for a U.S. military stuck squarely on

the horns of a dilemma between, on the one side, peace operations and other nontraditional

missions—all collectively labeled Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW)—and on

the other, preparation for threats to vital national interests. For some critics, there is no

dilemma. Many non- or less-traditional MOOTW missions, Carl Builder points out, are

actually more traditional than those normally associated with military forces and likely to

become even more common in the future. Army engineers, for example, worked on roads

throughout much of America’s history and built the Panama Canal. And the military has

remained the ultimate safety net whether it involved efforts at the 1871 Chicago fire or those

concerned with earthquake, flood and other humanitarian relief in the 1990s; or whether it

involved the suppression of riots and revolt ranging from Shay’s 1786 Rebellion to the 1992

Los Angeles riots. For Builder, however, the case for nontraditional roles ultimately rests on a

view of the future in which states lose their legal monopoly of armed forces and the current

distinctions between war and crime break down.

15

 At that time, contends Robert Kaplan, the

leading exponent of this apocalyptic view, “the classificatory grid of nation-states is going to

be replaced by a jagged-glass pattern of city states, shanty-states, nebulous and anarchic

regionalisms. . . .” It will be a “bifurcated world” with part of the globe inhabited by the

well-fed recipient of all that technology can offer, and the other, much larger part, peopled by

Hobbes’s First Man, living out his “poor, nasty, brutish, and short” life. In such a world,

46
47

Kaplan sees re-primitivized man in warrior societies operating in an environment marked by

planetary overcrowding and unprecedented resource scarcity in which state supported,

technologically-enhanced military will have no effect.

The in tense sav agery of the fight ing in such di verse cul tural set tings as Li be ria, Bosnia,the Cau ca sus,

and Sri Lanka—to say noth ing of what ob tains in Amer i can in ner cit ies—in di cates some thing very

trou bling that those of us in side the stretch limo, con cerned with is sues like mid dle-class entitlements

and the fu ture of in ter ac tive ca ble tele vi sion, lack the stom ach to con tem plate. It is this: a large number of peo ple on this planet, to whom the com fort and sta bil ity of a mid dle-class life is ut terly un known,

find war and a bar racks ex is tence a step up rather than a step down.

16

In this environment, other critics contend, the U.S. military has hunkered down,

protecting hierarchical structures, and like German officers a half-century before,

attempting to reestablish a basis for military professionalism incorporated in the view that

war remains the special province of the warrior who can thus rightly claim a distinctive status

in society. The revolution in military affairs in such a milieu is nothing more than a

reactionary attempt to ignore nuclear and unconventional warfare as well as other factors

that shape warfare, while conveying, in A.J. Bacevich’s description, a “techno-chic” image of

military institutions “in the midst of continuous transformation, redesigning, restructuring

and reorganizing in a hell-bent rush to embrace the future.” In this light, scenarios of major

regional contingencies are simply attempts to revive an unlikely model of limited war more

suited to 18th century politics than an era of changing warfare. “If forces designed and

equipped in compliance with the dictates of the future are ill-suited for dealing with civil

wars, ethnic conflicts, failed states, and terror,” Bacevich concludes, “then they are of limited

utility in the world as it exists.”

17

All this, particularly that concerned with the more likely low intensity aspects of future

conflict, is reminiscent of those arguments during the Cold War that caused Robert Komer to

define the “likelihood fallacy” as posturing to deal primarily with the most likely

contingencies on the conflict spectrum to the detriment of the less likely but most critical

ones. The ultimate result is that by ignoring the most critical contingencies, they become in

fact the most likely.

18

 Such considerations have direct credibility implications for trade-offs

concerning forces designed to protect vital national interests in major regional contingencies.

For example, the U.S. Army, primarily configured for these contingencies, has a shortage of

mobile light divisions that could be used in urban, jungle or mountain operations. The

temptation in such circumstances is to ignore Ambassador Komer’s warning. “Given the

increased importance of peacemaking, peacekeeping operations and the likelihood of other

contingencies to which airborne and air assault forces would be best suited,” one analyst

concludes, “. . . it seems that the priority being given to heavy units—the very forces for which

Air Forces can most nearly substitute on the margin—may be overdone.

19

For other critics like Paul Bracken, the controversy itself is irrelevant, since the choices

are irrelevant. On the one hand, there is warfighting against “B” competitors, “mid-level

developing states with modernized conventional forces (much like Iraq in 1990), with the

possibility of Model T nuclear, chemical and biological (NBC) forces.” On the other, there is

what is essentially MOOTW against “C” competitors, “militarily ineffectual nations with

complex or complicated security problems: ethnic civil war (Yugoslavia), insurgency (Peru),
terrorism (Egypt), civil disorder (Somalia), or infiltration (narcotic flows).” Bracken’s advice

is to avoid the messy “C” states and deal with the “terra incognita” of potential “A” nations,

“peer competitors, or major regional competitors with which the United States may have to

deal.” In the future, “B” countries may graduate to this level by a combination of training,

doctrine, and the availability worldwide of advanced military technologies, to include

weapons of mass destruction. In any event, an emergent “A” state may not have a direct

adverse effect on U.S. interests, but like Germany after 1870, might so upset a regional

balance as to affect those interests.

20

THE SE CU RITY DI LEMMA.

There is today, of course, a historically remarkable absence of great power competition.

Nevertheless, international politics not only abhors a vacuum, but the diffusion of power as

well. And although predictions of even more such diffusion are currently fashionable,

situations involving either impending or actual power maldistribution always return. “There

may not be a precisely predictable superpower force (state or coalition) in the U.S. future of

today,” Colin Gray reminds us, “but all of history says that such a force will reappear.”

21

It is comforting to think that with the communication-information revolution, it is

improbable that an “A” level peer superthreat could grow and suddenly emerge. But even one

of the sharpest critics of the current U.S. global role admits the possibility of “the appearance

of a ‘careful’ challenger able to cloak its ambitions and ward off external balancing against 

it. . . .”

22

 Moreover, as described in chaos theory, there can be a rapid growth and emergence of

nonlinear threats—that is, some change in fundamental conditions that may have later

consequences radically disproportionate in their adverse effect. Trend analysis has great

difficulty in dealing with such nonlinear possibilities. All in all, as Richard Betts has pointed

out in terms that apply to any future peer threat for the United States, major discontinuities

in international politics are seldom predicted. Who would not have been derided and

dismissed in 1988 for predicting that within a mere 3 years Eastern Europe would be

liberated, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union deposed, and the Union itself on the ash

heap of history? Yet it is hard to believe that the probability of equally revolutionary negative

developments, of economic crisis and ideological disillusionment with democracy, of

scapegoating and instability leading to miscalculation, escalation, and war several years

from now is lower than the probability of the current peace seemed several years ago.

23

The security dilemma in such an environment is not that U.S. defense precautions will

cause other nations to perceive them as hostile and thus counterbalance; but rather that

absent a standing military force sufficient to deal credibly with such surprises, democratic

politics will respond with too little, too late to burgeoning security dangers. Historically in

such a situation, as Britain’s interwar “Ten Year Rule” illustrates, there is a tendency to wish

away the gap between perceived risks and political action even as those risks grow. “It should

be assumed for framing revised estimates,” the “Rule” stipulated, “that the British Empire

will not be engaged in any great war during the next ten years, and that no Expeditionary

Force is required to this purpose. . . .”

24

 And although there were compelling international and

domestic reasons for the “Rule” when it was adopted in 1919, the automatic annual renewal

48
49

through 1932 of the assumption that there would be no major war for ten years, left the

British ripe for appeasement of the emerging peer threat in Nazi Germany for the remaining

years of the interwar period.

25

 In this, as W. H. Auden captured in 1939, Britain was not

alone.

In the night mare of the dark

All the dogs of Eu rope bark,

And the liv ing na tions wait,

Each se ques tered in its hate;

In tel lec tual dis grace

Stares from ev ery hu man face,

And the seas of pity lie

Locked and frozen in each eye.

CRED I BIL ITY AND CON NEC TIV ITY.

The exaggerated domino linkage in the Cold War blurred the distinction between the

intensity of national interests. Nevertheless, connectivity can be an important tool in making

such a differentiation. Vital interests from this perspective are those end states in the world

that would require very few dominoes to fall in order to affect core national interests.

Important interests would require more dominoes; and peripheral interests are those which

no matter how many dominoes fall, will not affect core interests. All this would still not

mitigate the danger of connectivity becoming a function of the threat. If a government begins

with a threat assessment before a conceptualization of interest intensity, it may react to a

threat with major commitments and resources devoid of any rational linkage to that

intensity. In a similar manner, rational cost-benefit analysis should not be allowed to affect

the intensity of interest. Although U.S. administrations sensibly make just such cost-benefit

calculations, Robert Blackwill points out that these should be analytically independent from

judgements about how important to the United States a particular national security interest

is. We may choose to defend a peripheral U.S. interest because it is not costly to do so; the

interest nevertheless is still peripheral. Or we may choose not to defend vigorously an

important—hopefully not vital—U.S. national security interest because we decide it is too

expensive in a variety of ways to do so; the interest nevertheless is still important, and we may

well pay dearly for our unreadiness to engage.

26

Prioritization, then, is the ultimate rationale for the use of national interests—the sine

qua non for any clarity and long-term consistency in a nation’s security policy. To move

interest after interest upward into the vital or important degrees of intensity is simply to

avoid choice, an unrealistic policy given declining means and the myriad domestic problems

facing the nation. This all presupposes, of course, fairly rational environments and processes.

But, as an example, nations can miscalculate the relationships between near-term cost and

long-term benefits. Thus, there was Neville Chamberlain’s perception of the Munich crisis: “If

we have to fight it must be on larger issues than that.”

27

 And, in addition to domestic

considerations, there was more than a touch of the credibility argument in the Clinton

administration’s rationalization for the deployment of U.S. forces to Haiti—all somewhat

reminiscent of arguments why Britain had to suppress the Irish rebellion in World War I
despite the adverse effect on the war effort: “If you tell your empire in India, Egypt and all over

the world that you have not got the men, the money, the pluck, the inclination, and the

backing to restore order in a country within twenty miles of your own shore, you may as well

begin to abandon the attempt to make British rule prevail throughout the empire at all.”

28

In theory, the credibility factor should be drastically mitigated in the post-Cold War world.

It is, after all, a world in which high indivisibility in political and economic relations among

the advanced states is matched, using any rational standard, by low indivisibility in terms of

security issues and conflicts on the periphery. Consequently, as cascading dominoes on the

periphery have become increasingly less plausible, attention has turned to humanitarian

concerns. Even here, however, end states in a pure value-based sense have proven much

harder to achieve without the geopolitical tandem of the Cold War. The result in the current

transition period is that intervention on the periphery is often debated in terms of what

degree of intensity should be allotted to humanitarian concerns as a national interest. For

example, institutions like Amnesty International generally perceive one connective step

between abuses of human rights anywhere in the world and vital U.S. interests, because

American values are at stake. While it is easy to dismiss such universal escalation as

undermining the rational concept of connectivity and the ability to distinguish interest

intensity, there are, as even Edmund Burke could conclude, “obligations written in the

heart.”

29

 Humanitarian abuses, for instance, connect more directly with the higher intensity

of U.S. interests to the extent the violations become public knowledge, the more they affect

large groups of humans over longer periods of time, and the more they disproportionately

strike at the most helpless, particularly children.

All that notwithstanding, the road of solitary universalist promotion of values leads

everywhere and thus nowhere. The basic fact remains that peace in the post-Cold War era is

simply not indivisible, which means that occasional failures to preserve stability in regions of

secondary geopolitical importance are tolerable. “There will be some safety in indifference,”

Josef Joffe concludes in this regard, “and not every crisis needs to be approached as if it were a

wholly owned subsidiary of American diplomacy.”

30

 Promoting regional security because of

humanitarian concerns will rarely work and only then if the ways for achieving that security

are cost-effective and can be sustained economically and politically on a long-term basis. That

acceptability, as Douglas MacDonald points out, is key.

If cost-effectiveness cri te ria are not ob served in mak ing moral choices, moral out rage will soon

dis solve into dis il lu sion ment, cre at ing pres sure to cut and run, which might leave mat ters worse

than if there had been no in ter ven tion. Fighting bloody, in con clu sive wars for hu man i tar ian

pur poses will serve only to un der cut sup port for Amer ica’s long-range role as a lead ing force for

world or der.

31

CON CLU SION.

Ultimately, the indiscriminate use of the U.S. military for social welfare is self-defeating.

Such use normally places troops in situations where there are no demonstrable vital, much

less important national interests. The fact is that conflict on the periphery just as it is at the

core is controlled by its political objective, and that as Carl von Clausewitz long ago observed,

50
51

“the value of this object must determine the sacrifices to be made for it in magnitude and also

in duration.”

32

 And as acknowledged by U.S. policy in the Balkans, in the absence of a

convincing value for military intervention on the periphery, the cost in terms of casualties will

always appear to be prohibitive. In such circumstances, the American public is unlikely to

suffer U.S. losses for long. The consequent withdrawal of the forces in turn undercuts

American credibility abroad, encouraging would-be aggressors. All this eventually

undermines public support even in those situations where vital national interests are at

stake: the post-Cold War version of the Komer “likelihood fallacy.”

At the same time, the Bosnias of the world in various forms are proliferating in the current

transition period, and all cannot be ignored. Selective, achievable missions for the military

will be necessary occasionally to counter the cumulative credibility loss that can occur if the

United States declines consistently to respond to the “gray area challenges” described by

Secretary Shultz. That credibility also plays a role in the preservation of national values.

Without it, the most likely alternative is an American public suffused with flickering pictures

of suffering populations, increasingly reacting to international horrors with the apathy it

currently reserves for the daily news reports of the panoply of murder and mayhem on the

streets of U.S. cities. In addition, the skills learned and practiced on non-traditional missions

by no means constitute a loss in terms of traditional warfighting leadership and training.

Finally, selective non-traditional missions at home and abroad can provide a relevancy to the

American public for the U.S. military that may be lacking, as it often is, before the ultimate

emergence of a clear and present A-level danger.

It is, of course, the possibility of such future peer threats to vital American national

interests that must be the primary concern of U.S. military planners even as pressures mount

for nontraditional missions. It is in this context that warfighting capabilities for major

regional contingencies remain critical as the U.S. military continues to plan for uncertainty in

the best tradition of Admiral Horatio Nelson. “But in case signals can neither be seen or

perfectly understood,” the admiral instructed off Cadiz in October 1805, “no captain can do

very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of an enemy.”

33

 The problem today, is that even

the enemy ships are not yet clearly visible, leaving U.S. planners to deal, in the absence of

tangible evidence, with what Colin Gray calls the fundamental rule in world politics: “bad

times return.”

34

 Historical experience also suggests that by the time a distant threat emerges

as a clear and present danger to the United States, it will be too late, as it was in 1941 when

the Imperial Japanese Navy had to announce that danger from the air. At the same time, the

ongoing unprecedented technological revolution is creating an increasingly more

instantaneously dangerous world. In such an environment, capabilities-based planning

focused on major regional contingencies can form a credible force foundation for threat-based,

requirements planning and implementation when major threats emerge in the future. On the

other hand, a premature return in the present to such threat-based, requirements planning,

coupled with a preoccupation concerning emerging trends in non-traditional missions for the

U.S. military, can lead to a new version of the Ten Year Rule, in which even the existence of

Nelson’s enemy ships is assumed away for the future as universal U.S. credibility becomes an

interest in itself.
ENDNOTES - CHAP TER 5

1. Greg Russell, “Hans J. Morgenthau and the National Interest,” Society, January/February 1994, p. 81.

2. Categories from Donald Neuchterlein, America Overcommitted: U.S. National Interests in the 1980s

(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1985). For the intensity of interests, see Robert D. Blackwill, “A

Taxonomy for defining U.S. National Security Interests in the 1990s and Beyond,” Europe in Global Change.

Strategies and Options for Europe, eds., Werner Weidenfeld and Josef Janning (Guetersloh: Bertelsmann

Foundation Publishers, 1993).

3. Harry Truman, 12 March 1947, message to Congress, A Decade of American Foreign Policy. Basic

Documents 1941-49, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office,

1950), p. 1256.

4. John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National

Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 91-92.

5. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. & ed. Rex Warner (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin,

1976), p. 92.

6. Floyd Gardner, “Truman Era Foreign Policy: Recent Historical Trends,”The Truman Period as a Research

Field, A Reappraisal, 1972, ed., Richard Kirkendall (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974), p. 63. See

also Robert Jervis, “Domino Beliefs and Strategic Behavior,” Dominoes and Bandwagons. Strategic Beliefs and

Great Power Competition in the Eurasian Rimland, eds., Robert Jervis and Jack Snyder (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1991), pp. 20-21 and Jack Snyder, “Introduction,” Ibid., p. 13.

7. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), p. 761. See also

Gaddis, pp. 85-88.

8. Herbert Parmet, JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (New York: Dial Press, 1983), p. 328. See also

John Lewis Gaddis, “Containment and the Logic of Strategy,” The National Interest, Winter 1987/1988, pp.

27-38, and Strategies of Containment, particularly, pp. 352-353.

9. Original emphasis. Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), p.

118.

10. Caspar W. Weinberger, “The Uses of Military Power,” National Press Club speech, 28 November 1984.

11. George Shultz, “The Future of American Foreign Policy: New Realities and New Ways of Thinking,”

Statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 31 January 1985.

12. George Bush, “The Use of Military Force: The President’s Difficult Choice,” Speech to the Corps of

Cadets, United States Military Academy, 5 June 1993.

13. Madeleine Albright, “The Myths About UN Peacekeeping,” Statement to the House Foreign Affairs

Subcommittee on International Security, International Organizations and Human Rights, 24 June 1993.

14. Stanley R. Sloan, The United States and the Use of Force in the Post-Cold War World: Toward

Self-Deterrence (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service Report 94-5815, 20 July 1994), p. 17. See

also, The Clinton Administration’s Policy on Reforming Multilateral Peace Operations (Washington, DC: GPO,

May 1994).

15. Carl Builder, “Non-traditional Military Missions,” 1994 American Defense Annual, ed. Charles F.

Hermann (New York: Lexington Books, 1994), p. 236.

52
53

16. Robert D. Kaplan, “The Coming Anarchy,”The Atlantic Monthly, February 1994, p. 72. See also Ibid.., pp.

60 & 73.

17. A.J. Bacevich, “Preserving the Well-Bred Horse,” The National Interest, Fall 1994, pp. 45 & 49. See also

A. J. Bacevich, “The Use of Force In Our Time,” Wilson Quarterly, Winter 1995, p. 61, and Robert L. Borosage,

“Inventing the Threat. Clinton’s Defense Budget,” World Policy Journal, Winter 1993, p. 12.

18. Robert W. Komer, “Future of U.S. Conventional Forces: A Coalition Approach,” Rethinking Defenses and

Conventional Forces, John Glenn, Barry E. Carter, Robert W. Komer (Washington, DC: Center for National

Policy, 1983), p. 45.

19. Emphasis added. Paul K. Davis, “Planning Under Uncertainty Then and Now: Paradigms Lost and

Paradigms Emerging,” New Challenges for Defense Planning. Rethinking How Much Is Enough, ed. Paul K.

Davis (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1994), p. 41.

20. Paul Bracken, “The Military After Next,”The Washington Quarterly, Autumn 1993, pp. 164-165 and 167.

On peer competitors, see also Alvin H. Bernstein, Director,Project 2025 (Washington, DC: Institute for National

Strategic Studies, 6 November 1991), pp. 62, 68 and 77.

21. Colin S. Gray, “Strategic Sense, Strategic Nonsense,” The National Interest, Fall 1992, p. 19

22. Christopher Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise,” International Security,

Spring 1993, p. 48.

23. Richard Betts, “Systems for Peace or Causes of War? Collective Security, Arms Control, and the New

Europe,” International Security, Summer 1992, p. 14. See also Steven R. Mann, “Chaos Theory and Strategic

Thought,” Parameters, Autumn 1992, pp. 54-68 and Colin S. Gray, “Villains, Victims, and Sheriffs: Strategic

Studies and Security for an Interwar Period,” Comparative Strategy, October-December 1994, p. 359.

24. Brian Bond, British Military Policy Between the Two World Wars (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), p. 24.

25. In their annual review for 1926 and repeated in 1927, the British Chiefs of Staff reported: “We wish to

place on record our view that forces available for Imperial Defense are now reduced to a minimum and are hardly

capable of dealing with the problems that are liable to arise either singly or simultaneously.” Correlli Barnett,

The Collapse of British Power (New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1972), p. 277. In their annual

review for 1932, which caused the government to end the Ten Year Rule, the Chiefs stated that the Rule had

caused a “terrible deficiency in essential requirements for all three Defense Services and a consequential

inability to fulfil our major commitments.” Ibid., p. 343. The Ten Year Rule and the recommendations of the

Geddes Report or Geddes Axe as it was known were entirely in keeping with the strong public faith in the League

Covenant’s substitution of collective security for national “swords.” Bond, p. 27.

26. Blackwill, p. 118.

27. Telford Taylor, Munich (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979), p. 885.

28. Quote is from the imperialist, E. H. Carson in Bond, p. 18.

29. Irving Kristol, “Defining Our National Interest,” America’s Purpose. New Visions of U.S. Foreign Policy,

ed. Owen Harries (San Francisco: ICS Press, 1991), p. 69. See also Blackwill, pp. 107-108. In November 1994.

Secretary of Defense Perry added humanitarian concerns to “vital” and “important” as a separate and lesser

degree of intensity. In future humanitarian operations, Perry pointed out, the United States would use “military

forces, as opposed to military force, to meet a specific need.” Generally, he concluded, “the military is not the right

tool to meet humanitarian concerns. . . . We field an Army, not a Salvation Army.” Original emphasis. William J.

Perry, “The Rule of Engagement,” Speech at the Fortune 500 Forum, Philadelphia, PA, 3 November 1994.

Perry’s three degrees of interest intensity are repeated in the current national security strategy document.
William J. Clinton, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement (Washington, DC: GPO,

February 1995), p. 7.

30. Josef Joffe, “Entagled Forever,” America’s Purpose, p. 154.

31. Douglas J. MacDonald, “The Truman Administration and Global Responsibilities: The Birth of the

Falling Domino Principle,” Dominoes and Bandwagons, p. 137.

32. Original emphasis. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. And trans., Michael Howard and Peter Paret

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 92.

33. Appendix D, Julian S. Corbett, The Campaign of Trafalgar (London: Longmans and Green, 1910), pp.

447-449.

34. Gray, “Villains, Victims, and Sheriffs,” p. 354.

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55

CHAP TER 6

NATIONAL INTEREST:

FROM ABSTRACTION TO STRATEGY

Mi chael G. Roskin

We have no eter nal al lies and we have no per pet ual en e mies. Our in ter ests are eter nal and per pet ual,

and those in ter ests it is our duty to fol low.

Lord Palmerston, 1848

The student new to international relations is often at first intoxicated by the concept of

“national interest.” It seems crisp, clear, objective: what’s good for the nation as a whole in

international affairs. (What’s good for the nation as a whole in domestic affairs is the public

interest.) National interest lies at the very heart of the military and diplomatic professions

and leads to the formulation of a national strategy and the calculation of the power necessary

to support that strategy.

Upon reflection, however, one comes to realize how hard it is to turn concepts of national

interest into working strategy. It requires one to perceive the world with undistorted clarity

and even to anticipate the second- and third-order effects of policies. Few are so gifted.

Instead of bringing clarity and cohesion, many quarrel over what the national interest is in

any given situation. This essay will argue that the concept of national interest still has utility,

not as an objective fact but as a philosophical argument in favor of limiting the number of

crusades a country may be inclined to undertake.

PHILO SOPH I CAL BACK GROUND.

“National interest” traces its roots at least back to the pessimistic realism of Machiavelli

in the fifteenth century.

1

 As such, it represents a repudiation of earlier Western sources in

Hellenic idealism, Judeo-Christian biblical morality, and the teachings of medieval

churchmen such as Thomas Aquinas. You may have splendid moral goals, argued

Machiavelli, but without sufficient power and the willingness to use it, you will accomplish

nothing. Machiavelli’s overriding aim: Italian unification and liberation from foreign

occupiers. Nothing could be more moral than the interest of the Italian state; accordingly,

seemingly immoral ends could be employed for its attainment. Power rather than morality is

the crux of this school.

At least one element of the medieval churchmen survives in national-interest thinking.

Humans have souls, and these are judged in an afterlife, they argued. Accordingly, humans

can be held to exacting standards of behavior with curbs on beastly impulses. States, being

artificial creations, have no souls; they have life only in this world. If the state is crushed or
destroyed, it has no heavenly afterlife. Accordingly, states may take harsh measures to

protect themselves and ensure their survival. States are amoral and can do things individual

humans cannot do. It is in this context that churchmen such as Thomas Aquinas proposed

theories of jus ad bellum and jus in bello.

2

Clausewitz also contributes to the national-interest approach. All state behavior is

motivated by its need to survive and prosper. To safeguard its interests the state must

rationally decide to go to war; there should be no other reason for going to war. Unlimited war,

however, is foolish, for it serves no national interest.

3

 By this time, concepts of raison d’etat or

Staatsraison were long and firmly embedded in European thinking.

The Founding Fathers practiced a cautious realism in preserving and expanding the

thirteen original states, indicating they understood the concept of national interest.

Washington’s farewell address showed a shrewd appreciation of national interest: “Europe

has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation. Hence she must

be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our

concerns.”

4

During the 19th century the United States pursued its national interests by means of cash

and force in ridding its continent of non-hemispheric powers. Less and less, however, it called

its actions “national interest,” and by the twentieth century national interest in the United

States took a back seat to ethical and normative approaches to international relations. If

considered, it was given short shrift as distasteful German Realpolitik as practiced by

Bismarck. As was typical of American political science in its first decades, Woodrow Wilson

despised as amoral or even immoral approaches that used power, national interest, and

recourse to violence as normal components of international relations.

5

 America had a higher

calling than that. Wilson’s father was a minister, and Wilson trained as a lawyer; he was thus

steeped in what George F. Kennan called the “legalistic-moralistic approach” prevalent in

America.

6

RE AL ISM COMES TO AMER ICA.

With the flight of scholars from Europe in the 1930s, however, American universities

became exposed to what were called “realist” approaches that used national interest as their

primary building block. The man who more than any other acquainted Americans with the

idea of national interest was the German émigré Hans Morgenthau (1904-1980; no relation to

FDR’s treasury secretary). He was the truly powerful mind of Realism, as he called his

approach. Bringing the wisdom of Machiavelli and Clausewitz with him, Morgenthau told

Americans that they must arm and oppose first the Axis and then the Soviet Union, not out of

any abstract love of liberty and justice, but because their most profound national interests

were threatened. “International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power,” he wrote.

7

Morgenthau’s writings immediately sparked controversy and to this day are not

uniformly accepted. They go against the grain of the Wilsonian idealism that was and still is

taught as international relations on some college campuses.

8

 American scholars resisted

56
57

what they perceived as Germanic amorality. Many American academics and decisionmakers

still prefer “world order” approaches that posit peaceful, cooperative behavior as the

international norm. Denunciations of Morgenthau circulated much as “anti-machiavells” had

circulated to refute the wicked Florentine. McGeorge Bundy of Harvard, for example, during

the late 1950s taught an international relations course devoted entirely to denouncing

Morgenthau. 

Actually, Morgenthau, a friend and collaborator of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, was

deeply moral. His theory was, at bottom, a normative one, a philosophical argument for how

states ought to behave. He argued that if states pursue only their rational self-interests,

without defining them too grandly, they will collide with other states only minimally. In most

cases, their collisions will be compromisable; that is the function of diplomacy. It is when

states refuse to limit themselves to protection of their rational self-interests that they become

dangerous. They define their interests too broadly, leading to a policy of expansionism or

imperialism, which in turn must be countered by the states whose interests are infringed

upon, and this can lead to war. When states make national interest the guide of their policy,

they are being as moral as they can be. We can’t know what is good for the whole world or for

country X; we can only know what is good for us.

IN TER EST DE FINED AS POWER.

Morgenthau supposed he had an objective standard by which to judge foreign policies:

were they pursuing the national interest defined in terms of power?

9

 That is, was the

statesman making decisions that would preserve and improve the state’s power, or was he

squandering power in such a way that would ultimately weaken the state? The statesman

asks, “Will this step improve or weaken my power?” The foreign policy of any state—no matter

what its “values”—can thus be judged rationally and empirically. It matters little whether the

national values are Christianity, Communism, Islam, or vegetarianism. Only one question

matters: is the statesman acting to preserve the state and its power? If so, his policy is

rational. 

A policy of “improving” the state’s power is not to be confused with territorial expansion,

which is the hallmark of dangerous and disruptive imperialist powers, against whom the

prudent statesman is always on guard.

With power as a yardstick Morgenthau had no trouble defining the national interest at

any given time and under any circumstance. He was uncannily prescient. He also had no

difficulty in reading the minds of statesmen both dead and alive. “Using national interest

defined as power, we look over the statesman’s shoulder when he writes his dispatches; we

read and anticipate his very thoughts.”

10

 Did Morgenthau have this ability because he

applied some formula of national interest or because he was tremendously intelligent? Lesser

minds have tried to define certain policies as national interest and have thereby committed

egregious errors. Overseas expansion, for example, might appear to enhance state power by

the influx of new riches. But it may also drain state power by spreading it too thin and

engaging too many enemies. A giant empire may actually ruin the state; the Spanish
Habsburgs put themselves out of business. Hitler flung away German power and ruined the

state. 

There are times when the statesman must move decisively to engage his armed forces in

the threat or practice of war. When the borders or existence of the state are threatened by an

expansionist or imperialist neighboring state, one must arm and form alliances, and it is best

to do so earlier rather than later. Accordingly, one of the great tasks of the statesman is to

scan the horizon for expansionist or imperialist threats. Any state engaged in expanding its

power is pursuing a “policy of imperialism,” wrote Morgenthau. A state merely intent on

preserving itself and conserving its power is pursuing a “policy of the status quo.” The

statesman is able to tell one from the other despite the imperialist’s claim to be for the status

quo. When you see a Hitler on the march, arm yourself and form alliances. Do not wait for him

to flagrantly violate some point of international law, such as the invasion of Poland, for that

might be too late. Britain and France, more intent on the details of international law, failed to

understand the imperialist thrust behind German moves in the late 1930s.

Potentially the most dangerous policy is one of declaring certain interests to be vital but

then not backing up your words with military power. This is a policy of bluff and tends to end

badly, in one of two ways: either your adversary sees that you are bluffing and continues his

conquests, or you belatedly attempt to back up your words, in which case you may have to go to

war to convince him that you were not bluffing. One horrifying example is the U.S. policy of

angry words at Japan in the 1930s over its conquest of China, words unsupported by military

power or any inclination to use it. Tokyo simply could not believe that China was a vital U.S.

interest; the Americans were bluffing. Was not poker, the game of bluff, the Americans’

favorite card game?

Something similar occurred in Bosnia: many strong words from the United States and the

West Europeans, unsupported by military power or the intent to use it. Quite reasonably, the

Serbs concluded we were bluffing. They changed their minds only when U.S.-backed Croatian

and Bosnian forces rolled back their conquests in 1995. Always back your interests with

adequate power. If you don’t have the power, don’t declare something distant to be your

interest. Thou shalt not bluff.

VI TAL AND SEC OND ARY IN TER ESTS.

Morgenthau saw two levels of national interest, the vital and the secondary.

11

 To preserve

the first, which concerns the very life of the state, there can be no compromise or hesitation

about going to war. Vital national interests are relatively easy to define: security as a free and

independent nation and protection of institutions, people, and fundamental values. Vital

interests may at times extend overseas should you detect an expansionist state that is distant

now but amassing power and conquests that later will affect you. Imperialist powers that

threaten your interests are best dealt with early and always with adequate power.

Secondary interests, those over which one may seek to compromise, are harder to define.

Typically, they are somewhat removed from your borders and represent no threat to your

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sovereignty. Potentially, however, they can grow in the minds of statesmen until they seem to

be vital. If an interest is secondary, mutually advantageous deals can be negotiated, provided

the other party is not engaged in a policy of expansionism. If he is engaged in expansionism,

compromises on secondary interests will not calm matters and may even be read as

appeasement. 

Additionally, Realists distinguish between temporary and permanent interests,

12

 specific

and general interests, 

13

and, between countries, complementary and conflicting interests.

14

Defense of human rights in a distant land, for example, might be permanent, general, and

secondary; that is, you have a long-term commitment to human rights but without any

quarrel with a specific country, certainly not one that would damage your overall relations or

weaken your power. Morgenthau would think it absurd for us to move into a hostile

relationship with China over human rights; little good and much harm can come from it. A

hostile China, for example, offers the United States no help in dealing with an aggressive,

nuclear-armed North Korea. Which is more important, human rights in China or restraining

a warlike country which threatens U.S. allies? More often than not, political leaders must

choose between competing interests.

Two countries, even allies, seldom have identical national interests. The best one can hope

for is that their interests will be complementary. The United States and Albania, for instance,

may have a common interest in opposing Serbian suppression of Kosovar Albanians, but the

U.S. interest is a general, temporary, and secondary one concerning human rights and

regional stability. The Albanian interest is a specific, permanent, and possibly vital one of

forming a Greater Albania. Our interests may run parallel for a time, but we must never

mistake Albanian interests for U.S. interests.

Types of National Interest

Examples

Importance

Vital

Secondary

No Soviet missiles in Cuba

An open world oil supply

Duration

Temporary

Permanent

Support for Iraq in opposing

Iran

No hostile powers in Western

Hemisphere

Specificity

Specific

General

No Japanese trade barriers

Universal respect for human

rights

Compatibility

Complementary

Conflicting

Russian cooperation in Kosovo

Russian support for Serbs

Figure 1. The Realists’ Taxonomy of National Interests.
It is sometimes hard to anticipate how other countries will define their national interest.

They see things through different eyes. Hungary in the 1990s was very cooperative with the

West and eager to join NATO. In 1994, however, when the United States and France proposed

air strikes to curb Serbian artillery atrocities in Bosnia, Hungary stopped the U.S. use of its

territory for AWACS flights. An American looking at this refusal is puzzled: “But don’t they

want to be on our team?” A Hungarian looking at the refusal says, “We’ll have to live with the

Serbs for centuries; that border is a vital, permanent interest for us. Some 400,000 ethnic

Hungarians live under Serbian control in Voivodina as virtual hostages. The Americans offer

no guarantees of protection, but they expect us to join them in an act of war. Sorry, not a good

deal.” (The AWACS flights were quickly restored as the crisis passed.)

The diplomat’s work is in finding and developing complementary interests so that two or

more countries can work together. (Better diplomatic spadework would have signaled in

advance the difference between Hungarian and U.S. interests in 1994.) Often countries have

some interests that are complementary and others that are conflicting, as when NATO

members cooperated to block the Soviet threat but clashed over who would lead the alliance.

The French-U.S. relationship can be described in this way. Where interests totally conflict, of

course, there can be no cooperation. Here it is the diplomat’s duty to say so and find ways to

minimize the damage. Do not despair in this situation, as national interests can shift, and

today’s adversary may be tomorrow’s ally.

Much national-interest thought has a geographical component; that is, a country,

waterway, or resource may have a special importance for your national interest. Britain, for

example, had a permanent, specific, and often vital interest in the Netherlands. Who

controlled the Low Countries had the best invasion route to England. (For the blue-water

types: the northerly winds that sweep between England and the Continent allow a sailing

vessel to take a beam reach, the fastest point of sail, west from Holland to England. Here the

winds, in facilitating rapid invasion, helped define England’s national interest.) Whether the

threat was Habsburg emperors, French kings, or German dictators, Britain felt it had to

engage to secure this invasion springboard.

Morgenthau found much folly in U.S. policy during the Cold War, some of it on

geographical grounds. He thought it irrational that the United States could tolerate a Soviet

puppet state, Cuba, near our continent while we engaged in Vietnam on the other side of the

globe. Cuba was a vital interest; Vietnam was not. Morgenthau spoke against the Vietnam

War as an irrational crusade that did nothing but drain American power in an unimportant

part of the world.

15

 At this same time, many claimed Vietnam was a vital U.S. interest. How

can you tell at that moment who’s right?

Morgenthau’s favorite contemporary statesman was Charles de Gaulle of France, whom

he called extraordinarily intelligent. De Gaulle indeed was able to pursue French national

interests without undue sentimentality. When he realized that French colonies, especially

Algeria, were a net drain on French power, he cut them free despite the howls of French

imperialists. A richer, stronger France emerged from decolonization. De Gaulle also reasoned

that no state willingly entrusts its security to foreigners, so he built a French nuclear force

and kicked the Americans out of France. (In confining U.S. forces to the narrow width of

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Germany, he also pushed them into an implied doctrine of early first use, thus assuring

France precisely the U.S. nuclear guarantee that it sought.)

VARI A TIONS ON MORGENTHAU.

Gradually, Morgenthau’s powerful arguments caught on. Operating independently of

Morgenthau, the diplomatist-historian George F. Kennan came to essentially identical

conclusions from his studies of U.S. and Soviet foreign policies.

16

 Protestant theologian

Reinhold Niebuhr insisted that Christians must look at the this-worldly effect of aggression

and be prepared to counter it; pacifism is a form of Christian heresy, for it requires the

Christian to stand impotent in the face of evil.

17

Perhaps the greatest damage done to Realism was by those who embraced it but

misunderstood and misused it. By the 1960s, Realism was part of mainstream thinking, just

in time to be used to support President Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam War. Vietnam

hawks used Morgenthau’s reasoning to justify the war: an expansionist power was

swallowing one country after another and would not be stopped until defeated by force of

arms. A communist victory in Southeast Asia would destabilize the U.S. defense, economic,

and political presence in all of Asia. Stop them there or stop them later. Here the great

weakness of national-interest thinking came out with a vengeance: precisely how can you tell

when a genuinely vital national interest is at stake?

National-interest thinking also has been misused by idealistic interventionists who wish

to expand U.S. interests so that they include some kind of “world interest.” They would like to

use U.S. power to right wrongs the world over. A “crusade” may be thus defined as the use of

one’s power in causes unrelated to the national interest. In our day, for example, one hears

many prominent people, in and out of government, claim that slaughter of civilians in a

distant war is a vital U.S. interest, for if allowed to spread such behavior will eventually

threaten U.S. interests. They often use Nazi Germany and Munich as analogies. In defining

national interest so broadly, however, they turn it into altruism: “By helping the victims of

aggression, we make the world a safer, more stable place, and that redounds to our benefit,”

they argue. An altruist has been called someone who defines his self-interest so broadly that it

includes everybody’s interest. On such a basis, Morgenthau would argue, the United States

could be engaged permanently in a half dozen wars around the globe, a frittering away of U.S.

power that could come to no good end.

True national-interest thinking is rather tightly limited to one’s own nation. It is a

constant temptation to expand your thinking beyond your nation’s interest to include many

nations’ interests or the world’s interest, and under certain circumstances you may wish to do

this, but please do not call it “the national interest.” If you do, you may soon be “fighting for

peace” in many spots around the globe. The great utility of national-interest thinking is to tap

the statesman on the shoulder and ask, “Is this proposed effort for the good of your country or

to carry out an idealistic abstraction?”
Feasibility is linked to national interest; power is the connecting link. An infeasible

strategy—where your power is insufficient to carry out your designs—is inherently a bad

strategy. If the type of power is wrong for the setting (e.g., heavy tanks to counter Vietnamese

or Afghan guerrillas; air power to stop a civil war), you are undertaking an infeasible strategy.

Further, remember that objectively any country’s expansion of its power is a policy of

imperialism. If you are expanding your power—even for the noblest of causes, to save the

world or to save country X—other nations, even friendly ones, still see it as imperialism. Once

we have sufficient power to stabilize conflicts, prevent aggression, and stop nuclear

proliferation, we will have accumulated so much power that we are de facto king of the world.

For some curious reason, other nations resent this; they can’t understand that our power will

be used only for good. This is the story of U.S. power both during the Cold War (e.g., French

resentment) and after it (e.g., Russian resentment).

One can make as many gradations and subdivisions in the national interest as one wishes.

Donald Nuechterlein, for example, saw four levels rather than Morgenthau’s two: survival,

vital, major, and peripheral.

18

 Examined more closely, though, survival interest concerns

only destruction in nuclear war (a subset of vital), and peripheral interests are too minor to

concern us. Thus we are back to Morgenthau’s two: vital and secondary. You could devise a

10-point or 20-point scale of national interests if you wished, but its precision is spurious as it

will soon reduce itself to the dichotomy of interests worth going to war for and interests upon

which one may compromise. As William of Ockam put it, do not needlessly multiply entities.

WARPING EF FECTS ON THE NA TIONAL IN TER EST.

At any given time, the national interest may be difficult to define due to the warping

effects of ideology, the global system, public and elite convictions, the mass media, and policy

inertia. 

Ideology. An ideology is a plan to improve society, or at least a claim to be able to do so.

Ideology closely parallels religion, except the former aims to improve things in this world

rather than in the next. People caught up in an ideology often exhibit religious-like fervor and

disregard of empirical reality. The opposite of ideology is pragmatism. Morgenthau and other

realist thinkers generally scoff at ideology and claim it is essentially a trick to justify

dictatorship. The dictator himself generally takes ideology with a big grain of salt while

pursuing a policy of national interests. Did Lenin withdraw Russia from World War I because

it was a dirty imperialists’ war or to save Russia from further dismemberment at the hands of

the advancing Germans? In the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, Stalin ordered the Comintern

volunteers in Spain to adopt an extremely moderate, non-revolutionary line. Stalin was

trying to convince Britain and France to join him in the struggle against Hitler. Without such

an alliance, Soviet vital national interests were threatened. Communist ideology or Spanish

democracy had nothing to do with it; the security of Soviet territory was all Stalin cared about.

Ideology can be changed at the drop of a hat. Stalin stopped excoriating Nazi Germany in

1939 because he couldn’t get any cooperation out of Britain and France to secure his western

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borders; he turned to Hitler to get a deal for the same end. By the same token, Winston

Churchill, a fire-breathing Conservative, explained why Britain was now in alliance with the

Soviet Union: “If Hitler invaded hell, I would find a few good words to say about the devil in

the House of Commons.” Ideological differences or affinities do not matter, only safeguarding

one’s country matters. Later in the war, the redoubtable Brigadier Maclean reported back

from Yugoslavia that Tito’s Partisans were communists and would communize Yugoslavia

after the war. Churchill took the news without surprise and asked Maclean, “Do you intend to

make Yugoslavia your permanent residence after the war?” Maclean allowed as he did not.

“Good,” nodded Churchill, “neither do I.” The ideology of postwar Yugoslavia was not

uppermost in his mind, indicated Churchill; the survival of Britain in the war was.

But what of the true believer, the revolutionary who still acts on his ideology? Such people

are extremely difficult to deal with because they ignore their own national interests and are

thus unpredictable. Typically, their passion does not last long as they become acquainted

with the burdens of governing and preserving their country. Lenin started switching from

ideology to pragmatism almost immediately upon seizing power, for now he had Russia to

take care of. Ideologues who are unable to switch may destroy their entire region, including

their own country, as Hitler did. Notice how after the death of Khomeini, Iranian policy has

gradually become more pragmatic. Ideology and national interest are at odds; a country

caught up in ideology is typically unable to pursue a policy of national interest, which requires

a calm, uncluttered view of reality.

Global System. The global configuration of power may also warp national-interest

thinking. Late in the nineteenth century, with the globe largely carved up by European

imperial powers, many countries felt compelled to grab the leftover pieces to prove

themselves major powers. A kind of contagion or copycat effect warped the national interest,

leading to the U.S. seizure of the Philippines from Spain. Teddy Roosevelt engineered the

move but some years later regretted it when he noticed that the Philippines had become a

U.S. vulnerability in the Pacific, one that had to be defended at great cost from the Japanese.

It is easy to declare something to be your national interest but hard to back out afterward.

A world divided by many powers is quite different from one divided by just two

superpowers.

19

 Probably the biggest distortions come in the latter case, that of Cold War

bipolarity, a zero-sum game that tended to make everything important. Limited definitions of

the national interest fall by the wayside, and the superpowers plunge ever deeper into

obscure corners of the world as if one more client state proved they were winning. Laos,

Ethiopia, Afghanistan, everything becomes the national interest. Only Antarctica remained

outside the superpower competition. Like the Sherwin-Williams paint symbol, national

interests “cover the Earth” and thus lose their utility. You must be able to discriminate and

rank national interests lest you spread your power too thin and in areas of little importance.

In a bipolar situation, the hegemonic superpower of each camp is forced, in order to hold its

alliance together, to take on the national interests of each client state. One of the causes of the

1948 Tito-Stalin split, for example, was Tito’s insistence that Trieste belonged to Yugoslavia.

Trieste may have been a Yugoslav national interest, but it was not a Soviet national interest,

and Stalin was reluctant to provoke the British and Americans over it. The United States was
reluctant to come to French aid in the first Indochina war; it was not a U.S. national interest.

To draw France into the common defense of Europe in the early 1950s, however, it was

necessary to support French imperialism on the other side of the globe. U.S. involvement in

Indochina started as a bribe to get French cooperation in Europe. The care and feeding of the

alliance became a dominant national interest, one that blotted out a careful review of military

engagement in a distant swamp.

The clients, of course, feel little obligation to make the national interests of the hegemon

their own. France did not come to the aid of the United States in Indochina; de Gaulle, in fact,

told the Americans they were quite foolish. Aside from the Soviets, no members of the Warsaw

Pact had any interest in Afghanistan. The bipolar world thus produces a tail-wags-dog effect

in pushing the hegemon to defend the clients with no reciprocity implied. As such, bipolar

systems come under great stress and have finite lifespans. This bothers a Realist not at all, for

no alliance lasts forever; alliances change as the national interests of their members change.

An alliance is not an end in itself; it is merely one device that, for a certain time, may support

the national interest.

The collapse of the bipolar world of the Cold War now permits an un-warping or

normalizing of national interests. Laos, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan now receive precisely the

attention they merit. We are no longer so solicitous of our European friends, whose national

interests may diverge from and even conflict with ours. We are not desperate to hold together

NATO and may now tell the Europeans to feel free to do whatever they wish; we may or may

not back them up, depending on our national interests involved. Notice how the end of the

Cold War brought some very tough talk and inflexible positions in trade negotiations. There

was no longer much reason for the United States to be especially nice to the West Europeans

and East Asians on trade; it seemed to be high time for Washington to look out for U.S.

economic interests.

Public and Elite Convictions. While not as explicit as ideologies, the culture, values, and

convictions of a country also can warp definitions of the national interest. Every country has

national values, but the statesman who acts on them without reference to the national

interest risks damaging the nation. The long American missionary experience in China

convinced many Americans that China was our responsibility to uplift and defend, a

conviction that contributed to war with Japan. The cultural and ethnic affinities of many

Americans lead them to automatically support their country of origin and to define its

national interests as America’s. The Israeli and Greek lobbies are quite influential, even

though Israeli and Greek interests sometimes diverge from U.S. interests. The Greek lobby,

for example, made Washington hesitate for years before officially recognizing Macedonia.

A lack of interest also can be warping. If left to itself, some analysts believe, U.S. mass

opinion tends toward isolationism; that is, it sees no important national interests anywhere.

Americans are especially indifferent to Latin America, which is seen as having no influence

on the United States except as a source of drugs and illegal immigrants. Americans

mistakenly but deeply believe there are few U.S. national interests there.

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Elites—the top or most influential people—pay far more attention to foreign affairs than

the public at large; therefore they are instrumental in defining national interests. The

anglophilia of the WASP elite of the Northeast inclined America to enter two world wars to

defend Britain. This inclination was not shared by the Midwest, where elites were more Irish

and German in origin; hence the purported “isolationism” of the Midwest.

Economic elites may define U.S. holdings abroad as the national interest. United Fruit

saw Arbenz’s reforms in Guatemala as a threat to their bananas and hence to the United

States. ITT saw Allende’s takeover of the ITT-owned Chilean telephone network as a threat to

U.S. interests. Some critics wonder if the U.S. war against Iraq was a defense of national

interests or of oil-industry interests.

Educational elites may awaken or keep alive issues that do not interest the public at large.

By inculcating a “world order” view of global politics, educators may convince students that

distant problems are vital U.S. interests. As young officials these students may carry

idealistic views with them into government agencies and news organizations. Some young

State Department officials resigned when they could not get their way in defining Bosnia as a

U.S. interest.

Mass Media. Especially important in awakening the broader public to questions of

national interest are the mass media. Unfortunately, they do so on a capricious basis little

grounded in calm calculation. One noted columnist made the Kurds his pet national interest.

Addicted to good visuals and action footage, television goes where the action is and brings

back images of maimed or starving children—“If it bleeds it leads.” Implicit in the images is

the message that atrocities so terrible automatically become a U.S. interest. But the media

can be highly selective, giving extensive coverage to horrors in Bosnia but ignoring similar

horrors in Peru, Sri Lanka, or Angola. South America would have to sink before U.S.

television would cover it. To have the media set the national interest is to let show biz take

over the guidance of the nation.

Policy Inertia. Once a policy is set, it takes on a life of its own and may continue

indefinitely.

20

 It is the nature of bureaucracy to keep marching in the direction initially set,

which may include definitions of the national interest. The situation may change over time,

but not the bureaucracy. Dean Rusk testified that South Vietnam had become a vital U.S.

interest because we had sunk so much foreign aid into it. Henry Kissinger later said that even

if Vietnam had not initially been a U.S. interest, the commitment of American blood and

treasure had put U.S. credibility on the line and thus turned Vietnam into a vital interest. On

this basis, you can create national interests anywhere in the world where previously you had

none.

THE UTIL ITY OF NA TIONAL IN TER EST.

If the definition of the national interest can be warped in so many ways, what good is the

concept? It’s only as good as your ability to perceive reality accurately, a gift granted to few.

For the rest of us, to get an accurate fix on the national interest it would be necessary to travel
into the future in a time machine to see how things worked out under a given policy. The real

national interest is sometimes knowable only many years after the fact. Second- and

third-order effects of a policy are often wildly unpredictable.

In the mid-1960s, Vietnam seemed to most Americans to be a national interest; a decade

later few thought it had been a national interest. The victorious communists in Vietnam,

having impoverished their country, now seek to enter the capitalistic world market economy.

Funny how things work out.

As noted above, the real problem is when reputedly intelligent, well-informed analysts

come down on opposing sides in defining the national interest. Whom can the statesman

trust? “National interest” is often used on a polemical basis, with each side claiming to have

the true picture.

The utility of national interest is not in any formula that can untangle complex issues.

Beware of anyone trying to sell you a formula or pat answer; there are none. National interest

is useful in training the decisionmaker to ask a series of questions, such as: How are current

developments affecting my nation’s power? Are hostile forces able to harm my vital interests?

Do I have enough power to protect my vital interests? Which of my interests are secondary?

How much of my power am I willing to use to defend them? What kind of deals can I get in

compromises over secondary interests? The net effect of these questions is to restrain

impetuous types from embarking on crusades defined, again, as overseas military actions

little related to national interest.

It is Morgenthau’s argument that the world would be a much better place if all statesmen

would consistently ask such questions, for that would induce a sense of limits and caution into

their strategies that might otherwise be lacking. For those who simply will not keep their

national interests defined tightly and close to home but instead are intent on expanding their

power (imperialism), Morgenthau’s approach is also useful. The statesman is constantly

scanning the horizon to detect the growth of hostile power centers, and if they seem likely to

impinge on his national interests he formulates strategies to safeguard his interests, each

step grounded in adequate power.

The national-interest approach is terribly old-fashioned, and some thinkers argue it has

been or must be superseded by “world interest” or “world order” approaches, which go beyond

the inherent selfishness of national interest. Empirically, however, one would still find

national interest a better predictor of state strategy than world order. In a crisis, when it

comes to putting their troops in harm’s way, statesmen ask themselves, “What is my nation’s

interest in all this?” It’s still not a bad question.

ENDNOTES - CHAP TER 6

1. The original is still perhaps the best: Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince and the Discourses (New York:

Random House, 1940). For more modern interpretations, see also the explication of 19th-century German

scholar Friedrich Meinecke, Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d’Etat and Its Place in Modern History,

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67

trans. Douglas Scott (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1957); and of Herbert Butterfield, The Statecraft of

Machiavelli (New York: Macmillan, 1956).

2. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 2-2ae, Quest. 40, Art. 1 in Aquinas, Selected Political Writings,

trans. J. G. Dawson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1948), p. 159.

3. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton

Univ. Press, 1976), pp. 80-81, 87-88.

4. Henry Steele Commager and Milton Cantor, eds., Documents of American History (10th ed.; Englewood

Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1988), I, p. 174.

5. For a review of the split in US academic thinking on international relations, see Grayson Kirk, The Study

of International Relations in American Colleges and Universities (New York: Council on Foreign Relations,

1947).

6. George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy (expanded ed.; Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1984), p. 95.

7. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (6th ed.; New York: Knopf, 1985), p. 31.

8. See, for example, Robert E. Osgood, Ideals and Self-Interest in America’s Foreign Relations (Chicago:

Univ. of Chicago Press, 1953).

9. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, p. 5.

10. Ibid.

11. Morgenthau, The Impasse of American Foreign Policy (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 191.

12. Morgenthau, “Another Great Debate: The National Interest of the United States,” American Political

Science Review, 46 (1952), p. 973.

13. Morgenthau, “Alliances in Theory and Practice,” in Arnold Wolfers, ed., Alliance Policy in the Cold War

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1959), p. 191.

14. Morgenthau, The Restoration of American Politics (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1964), p. 203.

15. Morgenthau, A New Foreign Policy for the United States (New York: Praeger, 1969).

16. In addition to Kennan’s brilliant little American Diplomacy, see his Russia and the West under Lenin and

Stalin (Boston: Little, Brown, 1961).

17. Reinhold Niebuhr, Christian Realism and Political Problems (New York: Scribner’s, 1953).

18. Donald E. Nuechterlein, America Overcommitted: United States National Interests in the 1980s

(Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1985), p. 15.

19. For a discussion of the concept of international systems, see Morton A. Kaplan, System and Process in

International Politics (New York: John Wiley, 1957).

20. Henry A. Kissinger, “Do mes tic Struc ture and For eign Pol icy,” Daedalus, 95 (Spring 1966), pp. 503-29.
69

CHAP TER 7

REGIONAL STUDIES AND GLOBAL STRATEGY

R. Craig Na tion

THE NEW RE GION AL ISM.

The 20th Century has been a period of global conflict. The First and Second World Wars

were implacable struggles waged on the world stage, and they were followed by the Cold War,

a militarized contest between superpower rivals described by Colin Gray as “a virtual World

War III.”

1

 Not surprisingly, interstate rivalry propelled by Fritz Fischer’s Griff nach der

Weltmacht (Strike for World Power) gave rise to theoretical perspectives concerning the

dynamic of international relations dominated by globalist perspectives.

2

 From the founding

of the first university department devoted to the formal study of International Relations at

the University of Aberystwyth (Wales) in 1919 to the present, globalist and universalizing

theoretical models have been at the core of the profession.

Such models have also dominated the practice of American foreign and security policy.

The venerable traditions of American isolationism and exceptionalism, integral to the

founding of the republic, and through most of the 19th century the inspiration for a cautious

and discrete U.S. world role, were gradually pushed aside against the background of the

Great War by the liberal tradition of benign engagement under the aegis of international law,

international organization, and collective security. Though Woodrow Wilson’s project for a

U.S. led League of Nations was frustrated by congressional reversion to isolationist

sentiment, in the larger picture there would be no return from “over there.” America was a

dominant world power from at least 1916 (when the U.S. became a creditor for the major

European powers), and the range of its interests no longer permitted the luxury of an

exclusively national or even hemispheric policy focus.

Already on the eve of the Second World War, in his seminal work The Twenty Years’

Crisis, E. H. Carr argued that a relative neglect of the role of power and coercion in

international affairs had paved the way for the rise of fascism.

3

 Carr’s “realist” perspective,

given greater theoretical substance in the U.S. by transplanted Europeans such as Hans

Morgenthau, Arnold Wolfers, and Stanley Hoffman, who viewed themselves as tutors for

potent but naive American elites, became the dominant conceptual framework for postwar

U.S. policy.

4

 The classical realism of postwar theorists was never a vulgar philosophy of might

makes right, though it is sometimes interpreted in that spirit. Its most prominent

promulgators, often European Jews like Morgenthau who had fled the holocaust and were

lucidly aware of what unchecked power set to evil ends could affect, were preoccupied with

ethical concerns and the need to constrain the inherent violence of anarchic interstate

competition.

5

 But the realist tradition made no bones about the need to place power, the

global balance of power, and the inevitability of strategic rivalry between competing
sovereignties at the center of an unrepentently globalist worldview. George Kennan’s

containment doctrine, the backbone of U.S. security policy through most of the cold war

decades, was little more than an astute application of realist premises to the management of

U.S.-Soviet relations.

6

Regional conflict was a significant part of cold war competition, but it too was usually

interpreted in a global perspective, as a projection of superpower rivalry into peripheral

regions on the shoulders of proxy forces. Architects of U.S. cold war strategy like Henry

Kissinger could publicly opine about the marginality of third world regions, and assert a great

power orientation that perceived the essence of foreign policy as an elegant game of balance

between power centers in Washington, London, Paris, Bonn, Moscow, and Beijing.

7

 Nuclear

competition between the superpowers, and the theory of strategic deterrence that was crafted

to direct it, encouraged ever more abstract modeling of interstate rivalry. These trends

culminated in the 1980s with the emergence of “neo” versions of traditional theoretical

paradigms that consciously sought to void international theory of its historicist and

humanistic foundations. Kenneth Waltz’s neo-realist argument used austere logic in

interpreting interstate competition as an abstract calculus of power.

8

 The related schools of

game and rational choice theory sought to use mathematical modeling to reproduce the

dynamics of foreign policy decision-making. Neo-liberal institutionalist models built

alternatives to realism upon the universalizing trends of interdependence and globalization,

often founded upon a simplistic Benthamite utilitarianism.

9

 By the end of the Cold War, much

of the rationale for U.S. foreign and security policy rested upon assumptions integral to these

approaches—the centrality of great power rivalry, the balance of power as the axis of

interstate competition, the changing nature of power in an age of globalization where

economic strength and various soft power options have accrued in importance, and the need

for a competitive strategy to maintain and extend U.S. advantage.

Part of the reigning confusion surrounding the nature of post-Cold War world order

derives from the fact that it is no longer defined by an all-consuming rivalry between peer

competitors. With a Gross Domestic Product of $7.7 trillion in 1998, levels of defense spending

superior to any imaginable combination of rivals, a clear-cut technological advantage, and a

strong and stable domestic order, the U.S. stands head and shoulders above any real or

potential rival. The current distribution of world power is objectively hegemonic, and

American leadership is less a goal than a fact. In the absence, now and for the foreseeable

future, of an authentic peer competitor capable of posing a serious challenge to U.S.

dominance, balancing strategies such as that promulgated by Russia’s Evgenii Primakov,

seeking to regenerate a “multipolar” world order in which America will be limited to the

status of first among equals, must remain essentially rhetorical.

10

 Maintaining U.S. status

and using the advantages of preeminence to good ends have become primary responsibilities

for U.S. security planners.

11

 These are tasks that demand different kinds of perceptions and

priorities than those which motivated policy during the Cold War.

Most of the documents drawn up to chart directions for security policy into the new

century assert similar conclusions concerning the kinds of threats that the U.S. will be

required to respond to. In contrast with the focused strategic environment of the postwar

years, these threats will be dispersed rather than concentrated, unpredictable and often

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unexpected, and significantly derived from regional and state-centered contingencies. The

officially mandated A National Security Strategy for a New Century asserts that

“globalization ... means that more and more we as a nation are affected by events beyond our

borders,” and cites as a first strategic priority the effort “to foster regional efforts led by the

community of democratic nations to promote peace and prosperity in key regions of the

world.”

12

 The current edition of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) also places regional

dangers first in its list of challenges, noting “the threat of coercion and large-scale,

cross-border aggression against U.S. allies and friends in key regions by hostile states with

significant military power,” the possible rise of “more than one aspiring regional power” with

“the desire and means to challenge U.S. interests militarily,” and “failed or failing states” that

“may create instability, internal conflict, and humanitarian crises, in some cases within

regions where the United States has vital or important interests.”

13

 The Report of the

National Defense Panel, drawn up to provide an alternative perspective to that of the QDR,

asserts that among the types of military and security-related missions that the U.S. will be

called upon to perform in the time frame 2010-2020, “maintaining regional stability is

probably foremost among them” and calls regional engagement “an essential component of

U.S. national security.”

14

 The preface to the Hart-Rudman Report, intended to make

recommendations for recasting national security policy in a new century, likewise highlights

regional threats, including “an increase in the rise of suppressed nationalisms, ethnic or

religious violence, humanitarian disasters, major catalytic regional crises, and the spread of

dangerous weapons.”

15

These conclusions rest upon shared assumptions about the emerging 21st Century world

order, the changing contours of global security, and the evolving U.S. world role. The new

configuration of global power, which combines U.S. preeminence with considerable regional

fragmentation and turbulence, ensures that major world regions will be an ever more

important target for U.S. engagement—as sources of critical strategic resources, as platforms

for geostrategic leverage, as integral parts of an increasingly interdependent global economy,

and as testing grounds for great power will and determination to impose rules of the game.

Preeminence does not imply total control. Influence in key world regions will be a significant

apple of discord between the hegemonic leader, great power rivals, and influential local

powers. Regions and sub-regions will remain the primary forums for armed conflict and

instability, with a variety of small wars, rather than major theater engagements, posing the

most imminent demands upon a U.S. military committed to engagement and shaping

strategies. Aspiring regional hegemons, sometimes tempted by hopes of gaining access to

weapons of mass destruction, will continue to promote disorder and pose direct threats to

important U.S. interests. To navigate effectively under these circumstances, U.S. strategists

will have to base international engagement upon a sophisticated understanding of major

world regions, viewed not only in regard to their place within an overarching structure of

world power, but as entities in their own right, including the underlying social, political, and

cultural processes that make the national and regional context unique.

For all of these reasons, regional studies will remain a necessary foundation for an

integrated curriculum in national security policy and planning. If the 20th Century has been

the century of global conflagration, the 21st Century seems well placed to become the century

of regional disaggregation. New directions in international relations theory, cast around
concepts such as turbulence and chaos theory, have been honed to highlight these trends.

16

For U.S. policy makers, the challenge will be to integrate regional perspectives, and

sensitivities to national and regional dynamics, into a realistic and balanced approach to the

pursuit of global security; not to question the relevance of regional perspectives (which should

be self-evident), but to better understand the ways in which they need to be joined to a

comprehensive strategy for the pursuit of national interest.

WHAT IS A RE GION?

Regions may be defined and distinguished according to an approximate combination of

geographic, social, cultural, and political variables. It will always be difficult, however, to

create clear lines of separation. As an analytical category in international relations, the

“region” is fated to remain contingent and contentious. Geographical contiguity is clearly a

prerequisite for tightly defined regional identity, and without some geographical limitation

the concept loses all coherence, but drawing uncontested boundaries is usually an impossible

task.

17

 The concept of “eastern Europe” once had a fairly high degree of integrity, but since

1989 it has virtually disappeared from the political lexicon. The phrase “Middle East,” which

was originally the product of colonialist and Eurocentric world views, continues to be used to

describe an extremely diverse area stretching from the Maghreb into distant Central Asia.

Meanwhile, the designation of an eastern Mediterranean Levant has fallen out of fashion.

The Balkans have been regarded as a distinctive European sub-region for well over a century,

but almost any Balkan state with elsewhere to turn rejects the designation unambiguously.

18

“All regions,” writes Andrew Hurrell with some justification, “are socially constructed and

hence politically contested.”

19

One of the more influential recent attempts to delineate regions according to cultural

criteria has been Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilizations thesis. Huntington identifies

nine world civilizational zones based significantly, though not entirely, upon confessional

affiliation.

20

 The argument that geostrategy will be increasingly dominated by civilizational

conflict waged along the “faultlines” dividing these zones has been widely used to explain the

apparent upsurge in ethnic conflict of the past decade. Huntington’s argument, however, is

neither entirely novel nor altogether convincing. Geopolitical analysis has long used the idea

of the “shatterbelt,” defined as a politically fragmented and ethnically divided zone that

serves as a field of competition between continental and maritime powers.

21

 Great

civilizations cannot be precisely bounded spatially, and they are rarely either entirely

homogenous or mutually exclusive. Huntington’s attempt to designate geographically

bounded civilizational zones, and to use these zones as the foundation for a theory of

geostrategy, rests on suspect premises.

Barry Buzan has developed the concept of the “regional security complex” in an effort “to

offset the tendency of power theorists to underplay the importance of the regional level in

international security affairs.”

22

 He offers the assertion that in security terms, “ ‘region’

means that a distinct and significant subsystem of security relations exists among a set of

states whose fate is that they have been locked into geographical proximity with each

other.”

23

 The existence of a “subsystem” of security relations presumes high levels of

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interdependence, multiple interactions, and shared sensitivities and vulnerabilities. Any

attempt to identify such complexes empirically, however, poses obvious problems. Regional

security complexes are rarely if ever defined exclusively by geographical proximity, they are

often dominated by external powers, and they are sometimes held hostage by

national-cultural variables or systemic dynamics. The United States is the focus of

functioning security complexes in both Europe and Asia. Turkey and Israel lie within

different security complexes according to most of Buzan’s criteria, but they have recently

developed a close bilateral relationship that impacts significantly upon their relations with

contiguous states. Transnational threats such as terrorism, international crime, drug

trafficking, illegal migration, or environmental disintegration also overlap regions and create

dynamics of association that prevent security complexes from becoming significantly

self-contained.

The U.S. makes an approximate distinction between geographic regions in the Unified

Command Plan that lies at the basis of its war-fighting strategy, by fixing the contours of

unified command areas assigned to combatant commanders-in-chief (CINCs). The present

division designates a European Command combining western and central Europe with

Africa, a Central Command approximately contiguous with an extended Middle East, a

Pacific Command covering most of eastern and southern Asia and Oceania, a Southern

Command including much of Latin America and the Caribbean, and a Joint Forces Command

based in the United States. This approach originally evolved from the division of

responsibilities adapted by the U.S. to fight the Second World War, and was formalized by the

National Security Act of 1947. Over the years the geographic division of responsibility has

been adapted repeatedly, on the basis of changes in the international security structure,

technological advances, and strategic calculation, but also bureaucratic infighting over areas

of responsibility and access to resources. Geographic CINCs have recently been required to

draw up an annual Theater Engagement Plan defining regional shaping priorities, but the

CINC is primarily a war-fighter, and the division of responsibility which the current unified

command plan structure embodies is geared to position the U.S. to prevail in armed

confrontations. Current U.S. national security strategy, which mandates readiness to fight

two nearly simultaneous major theater wars, concentrates the attention of the CINCs on the

areas where such conflicts are presumed to be most likely—in the Middle East/Southwest

Asian and Western Pacific/Northeast Asian theaters. Three major nations of critical

importance to U.S. security—Canada, Mexico, and the Russian Federation—are not attached

to geographic CINCdoms. The distinction between CINCdoms is not altogether arbitrary, but

it is geared to the performance of the functional tasks of warriors, does not rest upon careful

conceptual distinctions, and is partially incomplete.

David Lake and Patrick Morgan define region minimally, as “a set of countries linked by

geography and one or more common trends, such as level of development, culture or political

institutions.”

24

 Their definition has the advantages of simplicity and flexibility. It is, however,

too broad to be really useful, and also potentially misleading. The nation-state is an

inadequate building bloc for regional complexes. Any viable definition of the post-Soviet

Central Asian region would have to include China’s Xinjiang province, whose population is

composed of 60 percent Turkic Muslims. Russia’s far eastern provinces are an integral part of

the Asia-Pacific region, while the core of historic Russia is an extension, both geographically
and culturally, of a greater Europe. Ukraine’s population is divided politically along the line

of the Dnieper River, with the western provinces affiliating with an enlarged central Europe

and the eastern provinces oriented toward the Russian Federation and Eurasia. Northern

Mexico and southern California have become intimately associated as a result of high levels of

economic interaction and cross-border movement of peoples.

25

 The European Union has even

sought to institutionalize transnational communities, by creating multi-state districts

designated as “Euro-regions.”

26

 The commonalities used to distinguish regions cannot be

terminated artificially at national boundaries, and “one or more common trends” is too weak a

foundation for association to give regional designations analytical substance.

In its regional studies curriculum, the U.S. Army War College designates six major world

regions on the basis of broad geographical criteria—Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Russia

and Eurasia, the Asia-Pacific region, and the Americas. These are designations of

convenience intended primarily for pedagogical purposes. Our working definition of what

constitutes a region is of necessity broad and multidimensional. Geographical propinquity; a

sense of identity and self-awareness based upon shared experience, ascribed traits, or

language; a degree of autonomy within the international state system; relatively high levels

of transactions; economic interdependencies; and political and cultural affinity may all be

cited as relevant criteria. It is presumed that there will be gray areas and significant overlap

between regions however they are defined. The Turkish Republic, for example, is

simultaneously part of a greater Europe, an extended Middle East, and post-Soviet Eurasia.

No single set of associations is essential, and in the best of cases fixing the contours of major

world regions and sub-regions will remain a problematic exercise.

WORLD RE GIONS AND WORLD OR DER.

However regions are defined and differentiated, the impact of local, national, and regional

dynamics upon world politics is substantial and destined to grow larger. For the foreseeable

future, effective strategy will require sensitivity to the various ways in which regional affairs

condition the global security agenda, channel and constrain U.S. priorities, and affect the

contours of a changing world order.

1. Regional Instability and Regional Conflict. Regional instability poses diverse kinds of

challenges to U.S. interests. Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait in 1990 placed a critical mass of

Middle Eastern oil reserves in the hands of an ambitious and hostile regional power, thus

posing a clear threat to vital interests. Such dramatic scenarios will not occur very often, but

the potential consequences are so great as to demand high degrees of readiness. “Rogue

states,” which aspire to regional hegemony and whose leaders are often defiant of

international norms, are now acknowledged as a distinct threat in their own right. The most

persistent challenge of recent years, however, has been the chronic instability born of flawed

regional orders marked by severe underdevelopment, unequal development, frustrated

nationalism, ethnic rivalry, and the “failed state” phenomenon where weak polities lose the

capacity to carry out the basic tasks of governance.

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In the post-Cold War decade, the U.S. armed forces have been called upon to participate in

an unprecedented number of complex contingency operations ranging from simple

non-combatant evacuations to extensive, protracted, and dangerous peace enforcement and

peacekeeping duties. The logic of U.S. engagement is usually impeccable. Unchecked regional

or civil conflicts risk escalation with broadening consequences; threaten the credibility of the

U.S., its allies, and major international instances as guarantors of world order; and confront

decision makers with horrendous and morally intolerable humanitarian abuses. But the U.S.

should not feel obligated, nor can it afford, to take on the role of global policeman. Protracted

and open-ended peacekeeping deployments risk to undermine combat readiness by

disrupting training routines, erode the morale of the volunteer force, and pose the constant

possibility of deeper and higher-risk engagement. Shaping regional complexes to head off

resorts to coercive conflict behavior, and responding to regional challenges, if possible

preemptively and under the aegis of international organizations or multinational coalitions,

have as a result become pillars of U.S. security policy.

The challenges of civil war and low-intensity regional conflict will not go away or diminish.

In a larger historical perspective it seems clear that the total wars of the 20th Century have

been exceptional events rather than typical ones. Prior to our century, technological

limitations made the concept of “world” war unthinkable—warfare, of necessity, was waged

within physically constrained theaters on the regional level. Ironically, the technological

possibilities unveiled with the creation of massive nuclear arsenals during the Cold War have

once again made the outbreak of hegemonic warfare between great power rivals highly

unlikely, as well an eminently undesirable. The increasing lethality (and expense) of modern

conventional armaments only further raises the threshold of total war. While the Kantian

thesis that great power warfare has become obsolete may or may not be credible, it rests upon

substantial foundations.

27

 If for no other reasons than those imposed by the evolving

technology of violence, wars and armed confrontations are today once again being contested

almost exclusively as low and medium intensity conflicts on the local and regional level. “In

the foreseeable future,” write Lake and Morgan, “violent conflict will mostly arise out of

regional concerns and will be viewed by political actors through a regional, rather than global,

lens.”

28

In some ways, cold war bipolarity worked to constrain regional conflict. Neither

superpower could afford to tolerate an uncontrolled escalation of regional rivalry that risked

to draw it into a direct confrontation, and regional allies were consistently pressured to limit

their aspirations and bend to the will of their great power sponsors.

29

 It is difficult to imagine

that the anarchic disintegration of the Yugoslav Federation would have been allowed to

proceed unchecked in 1991 had the fragile European balance of terror of the cold war system

still been at risk. The extent of such constraint may nonetheless be exaggerated. Many of the

regional conflicts of the cold war era—in southern Africa, the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan, the

Middle East, or southern Asia—have perpetuated themselves into the post-Cold War period

without missing a step. Cumulatively, post-World War II regional conflicts have occasioned

the deaths of over 25 million individuals, and the incidence and intensity of such conflicts

continues to increase.
A composite portrait of post-Cold War regional conflict calls attention to the difficulties

involved in programming effective responses. The large majority of contemporary “limited”

wars are civil wars or wars of secession, waged with the ferocity that is typical of such

contests. Combat operations often include the significant engagement of poorly controlled

and disciplined irregular forces. The bulk of casualties are imposed upon innocent civilians,

sometimes including genocidal massacre and forced population transfers (ethnic cleansing).

While often obscure in terms of their origins, such conflicts are usually highly visible. The

modern mass media, commercially driven and chronically in search of sensation, brings

regional chaos “into the living room” and generates popular pressure to respond that political

leaders often find difficult to ignore. Limited and often frustrated or only partly successful

intervention by the international community in the role of would-be peacemaker is another

shared trait that gives many contemporary regional conflicts a fairly uniform contour. Wayne

Burt notes correctly that, in comparison with the structured context of cold war bipolarity, the

“post-Cold War world is a much ‘messier’ world where limited conflict will be fought for

limited and often shifting objectives, and with strategies that are difficult to formulate, costs

that are uncertain, and entrance and exit points that are not obvious.”

30

As undisputed world leader, and the only major power with significant global power

projection capacity, the U.S. is often compelled to react to such conflicts whether or not it has

truly vital interests at stake. America’s ability to manage and shape the conflict process is

nonetheless severely limited. A decade of struggling with regional conflict in post-communist

Yugoslavia, including intensive diplomatic efforts, punitive air strikes, large and open-ended

peacekeeping deployments, and a full-scale war over Kosovo, has led to what may at best be

described as a mixed result. Peace enforcement and peacekeeping responsibilities have been

carried out with impressive efficiency, but the much more problematic, and politically

charged task of post-conflict peace building has proven to be something close to a mission

impossible.

31

The U.S. has made the maintenance of regional stability a strong pillar of its security

strategy, but the forces of disintegration at work within many world regions are daunting.

Effective responses will first of all require some selectivity in choosing targets for

intervention. When we do elect to become involved, our efforts should be based upon a much

greater awareness of regional realities than has been manifested in the recent past. We will

also need to make better use of friends and allies. Regional instability is often best addressed

by local actors, who usually have the largest vested interest in blocking escalation, and in

some cases regionally based conflict management initiatives can become a significant

stimulus to broader patterns of regional cooperation. Engaging allies and relevant

multilateral forums in managing regional conflict, as the U.S. has sought to do with the

African Crisis Response Initiative, should be a high national priority.

2. Geopolitics. Many currently fashionable approaches to international relations assume

the decline of territoriality as a motive for state behavior. The dominant trend in world

politics is persistently, albeit vaguely, described as globalization, implying a rapid increase in

interactions fueled by revolutions in communications and information management, the

emergence of a truly global market and world economy, the primacy of economic competition

as a mode of interstate rivalry, and an unprecedented space-time compression that places

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unique demands upon decision-makers.

32

 The globalization scenario is built on overarching

generalizations about world order and it rests upon universalizing premises that leave little

space for sticky concern with the intricacies of regional affairs. There are alternatives to

theoretical perspectives cast on so high a level of abstraction, however, that bring regional

issues into the forefront of international discourse. Most important among them is the

tradition of geopolitics.

The core challenge of geopolitical analysis is to link the systematic study of spatial and

geographical relations with the dynamic of interstate politics. As a formal discipline,

geopolitics dates from the late nineteenth century work of the Leipzig professor Friedrich

Ratzel. His 1897 study Politische Geographie (Political Geography) presents states as

organisms with a quasi-biological character, rooted in their native soil, embedded in a

distinctive spatial context or Lebensraum (living space), and condemned to either grow and

expand or wither away.

33

 In the works of various contemporaries and successors, including

Alfred Thayer Mahan, Rudolf Kjellén, Halford Mackinder, Alfred de Severing, Klaus

Haushofer, and Nicholas John Spykman, these insights have been pushed in a number of

directions. The strong influence of geopolitical categories, especially as transmitted through

the work of Haushofer, upon Adolf Hitler’s strategic program during the 1930s has brought

enduring discredit upon the discipline, widely but unfairly regarded as a vulgar amalgam of

social Darwinism and military expansionism. In fact, in its manifold and not always

consistent manifestations, geopolitical analysis presents a range of alternative strategic

perceptions whose common ground is a sense of the permanent and enduring relevance of

spatial, cultural, and environmental factors in world politics.

34

 These are also the factors that

stand at the foundation of regional studies.

Geopolitics is rooted in the study of geography, broadly but relevantly defined by Saul

Cohen as “spatial patterns and relations that reflect dynamic physical and human

processes.”

35

 Geography is a rich and complex construct that provides a context for weighing

the impact of a number of significant but often neglected variables. These include ethnicity,

nationalism, and the politics of identity; access to natural and strategic resources;

geostrategy and the role of lines of communication and strategic choke points; relations

between human communities and their natural environment; and the strategic implications

of increasing environmental stress. It encompasses demographic issues such as population

growth, cycles of migration and changing patterns of population distribution, and

“decision-making milieus” including Huntingtonian civilizational zones, political systems

and political cultures, as well as the spatial distribution of power within the world system.

Geopolitical analysis is best known in the West as refracted by Halford Mackinder’s

heartland concept, which defines control of the Eurasian land mass as the key to world power.

Mackinder distinguished between a World-Island encompassing the joined continents of

Europe, Asia, and Africa, the Eurasian Heartland approximately equivalent to Russia and

Central Asia, and the Rimlands (including east-central Europe) along the Eurasian

periphery. “Who rules East Europe,” he wrote in a famous passage, “controls the Heartland.

Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island. Who rules the World-Island

commands the World.”

36

 Mackinder was not a fascist militarist, but a moderate professor and

civil servant, whose thinking lay at the foundation of British strategy through much of the
twentieth century. By calling attention to the spatial dimensions of grand strategy, his work

points out the extent to which geostrategic concepts have been and continue to be at the heart

of modern statecraft.

A striking contemporary illustration of the continuing impact of geopolitical perspectives

is provided by the heartland power par excellence, the Russian Federation, where

disillusionment with the gilded promises of globalization and integration with the U.S.-led

world economy have led to a rapid and broadly influential revival of geopolitical theory.

37

 The

new Russian geopolitics has been dismissed in the West as a manifestation of radical

extremism, a sort of Russian fascism born of the post-communist malaise.

38

 In fact, core

geopolitical perceptions (the need to maintain the integrity of the Russian Federation, the call

to reassert a strong sphere of influence in the territories of the former Soviet Union, the

cultural distinctiveness of the Russian Idea and its historical role as a force for integration in

the expanses of Eurasia, the need for alliances to balance and contest American hegemony)

have moved into the mainstream of Russian strategic thought and share nearly consensual

support.

Haushofer has written that “geopolitics is the science of the conditioning of political

processes by the earth,” and that “the essence of regions as comprehended from the

geopolitical point of view provides the framework for geopolitics.”

39

 This is a plaidoyer for the

concrete and substantial, for a theory of world politics built from the ground up. Effective

geopolitical reasoning leads us back to the earth, to the distinctive political communities

nested upon it, to the patterns of association that develop between them, and to the conflicts

that emerge from their interactions. It is not the only school of thought that prioritizes the

relevance of geography and regional studies, but it provides a particularly good example of

the relevance of the textured study of peoples and places as a foundation for effective strategy.

3. The Cultural Dimension of Warfare. The maxim “know thy enemy” is often counted as

the acme of strategic wisdom. It is unfortunately a maxim that has not always been highly

respected in the U.S. military and security communities. War has organizational and

technological dimensions which make it a rigorous, practical, and precise enterprise, but

wars are also waged between calculating rivals in a domain of uncertainty, and by distinctive

political communities in ways that reflect deeply rooted, culturally conditioned preferences.

During the Cold War the U.S. made an intense effort to understand the societal and

cultural dynamics shaping the perceptions of its Soviet rival, arguably to good effect. In

general, however, in depth knowledge of national and regional cultural dynamics has not

been a strong point for U.S. strategy, which has tended to rest upon the sturdy pillars of

relative invulnerability and the capacity to mobilize overwhelming force.

40

 In the volatile and

uncertain security environment of the years to come, however, the assumption of

technological and material advantage may not be a safe one, nor will these advantages always

suffice to ensure superiority in every possible contingency. The People’s Republic of China

represents a potential long-term rival with considerable assets and great self-confidence,

derived in part from a highly distinctive and ancient culture.

41

 Russia’s current time of

troubles has temporarily brought her low, but eventually the inherent strengths that made

the USSR so formidable a rival during the cold war decades will reassert themselves. The U.S.

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will need to know “what makes them tick” if it wants to manage its relations with potential

peer competitors successfully. Effective intervention in complex contingencies will likewise

demand sophisticated knowledge of real or potential rivals. Strategy is not uniquely the

product of culture, and culture itself is not a lucid or unambiguous construct. But all strategy

unfolds in a cultural context, and cannot be fully or properly understood outside it.

Colin Gray defines strategic culture as “the socially constructed and transmitted

assumptions, habits of mind, traditions, and preferred methods of operation ... that are more

or less specific to a particular geographically based security community.”

42

 The foundations of

strategic culture are the fundaments of culture itself; shared experience, language, common

governance, and values. The cultural orientation that derives from these commonalities, it

can be argued, affects the ways in which polities conduct diplomacy, define and pursue

interests, and wage war. In his controversial History of Warfare, John Keegan suggests that

throughout history war has always been an essentially cultural phenomenon, an atavism

derived from patterns of group identification and interaction rather than the purposeful

activity implied in Clausewitz’s famous dictum that “war is the continuation of politics by

other means.”

43

 Victor Hanson argues that the ancient Greek preference for physical

confrontation and quick decision has created a “Western way of war,” dominated by a search

for decisive battle and strategies of annihilation, that remains alive to this day.

44

 Such

conclusions are extreme, but they are useful in underlining the fact that wars are conceived,

plotted, and waged by socially conditioned human agents.

As a dominant global power the U.S. will be called upon to wage war in a variety of contexts

in the years to come. A better understanding of the strategic cultures of real or potential

adversaries will place another weapon in its arsenal and strengthen prospects for success. In

Bernard Brodie’s classic formulation, “good strategy presumes good anthropology and

sociology. Some of the greatest military blunders of all time have resulted from juvenile

evaluations in this department.”

45

 Knowing the enemy goes well beyond order of battle, to the

sources of strategic preference and military operational codes that are grounded in the social

and cultural context of distinctive nations and regions.

46

4. Espaces de Sens: Regional Alliance and Association. The Cold War was a phase of

intense global competition manifested in ideological polarization, arms racing, and

militarized regional rivalry. It nonetheless offered a structure of purposeful endeavor for its

leading protagonists, as well as for critics who sought alternatives to what they perceived as

the dead-end of belligerent bipolarity. The USSR justified its international policy on the basis

of a distinctively Soviet variant of Marxism-Leninism. The U.S. consciously developed its cold

war strategy as a defense of the values of freedom and democracy. Various non-aligned

alternatives called for a plague upon both houses, and sought to develop a third way

independent of either power bloc. Regardless of where one stood, world politics took on the

contours of a moral tale infused with meaning.

The end of the Cold War was accompanied by a certain euphoria, captured by Francis

Fukuyama’s “End of History” thesis, according to which the demise of the communist

challenge meant “the end of history as such: that is, the end point in mankind’s ideological

evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human
government.”

47

 Fukuyama’s sweepingly optimistic argument promised an era of global

harmony in which interstate strategic rivalry would give way to cooperation under the

impetus of democratization, development, and consumerism, promoted by a benign American

hegemony. In place of a contest of values, Fukuyama’s Hegelian vision looked forward to the

unchallenged primacy of the culture of the West.

Needless to say, nothing of the kind has transpired. The post-Cold War period has been

marked by regional turbulence, torturous and sometimes unsuccessful post-communist

transitions, violent ethnic conflict, and continued, if sometimes muted, great power rivalry.

Western values are contested rather than embraced, and the absence of a compelling sense of

overall direction, of a larger domestic or international project, of a source of signification and

meaning, has arguably become a problem in its own right. Uncertainty about direction has

also contributed to strategic confusion. The suspicion or rejection of large civilizational

projects that has become so prominent a part of contemporary post-structuralist and social

constructivist approaches to international theory, often accompanied by a quasi-indifference

to any kind of strategic analysis whatsoever, reflects the state of affairs with admirable

clarity.

48

The United Nations, symbol of an earlier generation’s aspirations for a more peaceful

world order, has languished during the post-Cold War decade. In contrast, projects for

regional association have flourished. Realist theory portrays the formation of alliances and

regional blocs as an “outside-in” phenomenon, occurring as a response to real or perceived

external challenges, whether via “balancing” efforts to correct a maldistribution of power, or

“bandwagoning” whereby weak polities seek to dilute threats through association with a

hegemonic leader.

49

 Neo-mercantilist approaches follow an identical logic in explaining

regional association as a logical response to enhanced international economic competition.

But regional association may also be understood as a function of “inside-out” dynamics driven

by social and cultural trends. Zaki Laïdi has argued that, in the face of the universalizing

tendencies of globalization, meaningful civilizational projects can only be constructed on a

regional basis, as espaces de sens (spaces of meaning) bound together by a complex of

historical, social, cultural, political, and economic associations.

50

 These are contrasting

arguments, but they are not mutually exclusive. Both “outside-in” and “inside-out”

approaches to regional association need to be combined in an effort to come to terms with a

phenomenon that is well on the way to transforming world politics root and branch.

51

The “new regionalism” is manifested both by the revitalization of traditional regional

organizations and the creation of new forms of regional association. Large regional or

sub-regional blocs with a history of institutionalization, such as the European Union (EU),

the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the Organization of American States (OAS), the

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC),

often have a strong security orientation, though today their focus is more often placed upon

internal conflict management than external threats.

52

 The proliferation of regional projects

for economic integration, including some of the organizations listed above as well as others

such as the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA), the Asia-Pacific Economic

Cooperation Forum (APEC), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the

Arab Magreb Union (AMU), the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), the Southern Cone

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81

Common Market (MERCOSUR), the Andean Pact, the Central America Common Market

(CACM), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and the South Asian Association

for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), has an obvious economic logic, but also a strong cultural

foundation; within these broadly drawn and sometimes overlapping zones of association one

may observe a powerful revival of regional and sub-regional awareness and identity. In other

cases, functionalist logic prevails. Regional associations are sometimes appropriate forums

for approaching large global problems such as environmental disintegration, occasioned on

the systemic level but not always effectively addressed on that level.

Regional alliances and associations play a critical role in U.S. strategy. The most

important by far is the Atlantic Alliance, uniquely successful as a formal security association

over many decades, but an organization whose raison d’être has been called into question in

the new circumstances of the post-Cold War. NATO was originally built up and maintained as

an organization for collective defense against a clear and present external threat. The

collapse of the USSR and the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact have made this aspect of its

identity considerably less important, if not altogether irrelevant, but the Alliance has

adapted by restructuring itself as a “new NATO” including commitments to enlargement, out

of area peace operations, and gradual movement toward a broader collective security

orientation. Former Secretary General Javier Solana describes the process extravagantly, as

a “root and branch transformation” aimed to create “a new Alliance, far removed in purpose

and structure from its Cold War ancestor,” inspired by the premise of “cooperative security.”

53

This “new” NATO is arguably more important than ever in the broader context of U.S.

security policy, as a platform for power projection, as a forum for managing relations with key

allies, as an instrument for reaching out to the emerging democracies of central and eastern

Europe, as the foundation for a new European security order, and as a context for engaging

the Russian Federation in a cooperative security effort.

The Atlantic Alliance is also a regional pact, whose stability has always been presumed to

rest in part upon close historical and cultural associations between the U.S. and its European

partners. Unfortunately, the new NATO will not have the luxury of assuming that a close

cultural affinity will continue to link both sides of the Atlantic indefinitely. Changing

demographic balances in the U.S. are reducing the proportion of citizens with European roots

and heritage. Enlargement has made NATO itself a politically and culturally more diverse

organization, where decision by consensus will be harder to achieve. Most of all, the project for

European unification is moving slowly but steadily toward the goal of a more autonomous

European subject possessed of the capacity to pursue an independent foreign and security

policy. Managing regional conflict in the Balkans has placed strains upon Alliance

mechanisms, and the Kosovo conflict in particular generated considerable tension between

the U.S. and its European allies. NATO rests upon secure foundations, but friction in

trans-Atlantic relations persists and it is likely to grow stronger as the European project

continues to unfold and efforts to bolster a European defense identity progress. Alliance

management, based upon a careful appreciation of changing European realities and

awareness of the cultural specificities of key European partners, will be an ever more

important strategic task.
Other forms of regional association represent potential dangers. At least since the Iranian

revolution of 1979, concern for an emerging “Islamic threat” has been prominent in U.S. policy

circles. Somewhat less prominent, unfortunately, has been an informed understanding of

what Islam is and is not, as a religion, as a philosophy of governance, and a way of life.

54

 The

possible solidification of a Russian-Chinese strategic axis, which would rest in large measure

upon mutual alienation from the West, has the potential significantly to effect global power

balances, and the European Union clearly aspires to challenge the U.S. economically.

Contesting, co-opting and counter-acting these kinds of patterns will remain an important

priority for U.S. planners.

There is an unmistakable momentum pushing in the direction of stronger local and

regional identities, and more robust regional association. For some analysts, the trend is part

and parcel of a “retreat from the state” occasioned by changes in the locus of power in the

global political economy, whose logical endpoint will be a “new medievalism” in which

alternative forms of political association, with a more pronounced regional character, will

eventually come to prevail.

55

 Whether or not such forecasts are correct, shifting patterns of

association and the heightened visibility of a variety of regional forums are clear

manifestations of the increased relevance of regional perspectives in global security affairs.

CON CLU SIONS.

The foundations of regional studies have changed remarkably little over time.

Substantive understanding of major world regions demands a thorough mastery of the

relevant specialized literature, careful and persistent monitoring of events and trends,

appropriate language skills, and a period of sustained residence allowing for immersion in

regional realities, accompanied by periodic visits to keep perceptions up-to-date. Regionalists

need refined skills that demand a considerable investment of time and resources to create and

maintain. If the argument presented in this essay is correct, however, and regional dynamics

will in fact become an increasingly important part of the international security agenda in the

years to come, the investment will be well worth making.

Although the confines of major world regions and sub-regions are difficult to fix with a

great deal of consistency and rigor, the relevance of local, national, and regional perspectives

in international political analysis is more or less uncontested. For U.S. strategists in the

post-Cold War period the importance of such perspectives is particularly great. In the absence

of a peer competitor, significant challenges to U.S. interests are most likely to emerge from

various kinds of regional instability, including threatened access to critical strategic

resources, the emergence of “rogue” states with revisionist agendas, and persistent low and

medium intensity conflict. In an increasingly integrated world system, geographic, cultural,

and environmental factors that are importantly or uniquely manifested in the regional

context will play an increasingly important role in shaping national priorities and

international realities. Strategic culture is a vital context for war-fighting, as relevant to

contests with peer competitors as it is to clashes with less imposing adversaries in regional

contingencies. Shifting patterns of regional association, often motivated by a heightened

sense of regional identity and a search for meaning and relative security in the face of the

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impersonal and sometimes dehumanizing forces of globalization, is an important worldwide

trend. None of these dynamics can be properly incorporated into U.S. security strategy

without a solid understanding of regional decision-making milieus and cultural proclivities.

To assert the importance of regional approaches in a balanced strategic studies

curriculum is not to deny the relevance of alternative perspectives. Universalizing theory is

essential and unavoidable. The formal and technical specializations necessary to make sense

of political and military affairs are ineluctable. And there is the ever-present danger of

regionalists falling into a narrow preoccupation with local problems and personalities, while

missing the larger, structural forces at work in the background. In context, however, and

approached with appropriate modesty, regional perspectives have an essential place in

strategy formulation.

The U.S. Army War College builds a regional studies component into its core curriculum,

structured around the six major world regions mentioned above and focused on the effort to

define and understand U.S. interests at stake on the regional level. Students are exposed to

an in-depth study of a particular region, and to an overview of all six world regions, as a

foundation for the school’s capstone exercise, which tests their ability to manage a series of

overlapping regional crises in an integrated political-military framework. Students are

expected to become familiar with the general historical, cultural, political, military, and

economic characteristics of the six major world regions; to evaluate U.S. national and security

interests in these regions and to identify the kinds of challenges that are most likely to

emerge; and to develop a regional strategic assessment that identifies alternative courses of

action that can lead toward the achievement of U.S. national security objectives. The skills

and expertise garnered during this bloc of instruction should make a vital contribution to the

cultivation of future strategic leaders.

Regional strategic analysis is also of particular relevance to Army leaders. Though we live

in the age of jointness, the Army remains the service branch primarily charged with placing

boots on the ground in regional contingencies. Its operational environment is the land, where

people live and societies are rooted, and it must at a minimum come to terms with the

geographical realities of the places where it is constrained to operate, and the cultural

characteristics of the peoples it is charged to fight or to protect. The emphasis placed upon

regional studies in the U.S. Army War College strategy curriculum is unique among our

senior service schools. Experience, as well as common sense, shows that it is an emphasis

well-placed.

ENDNOTES - CHAP TER 7

1. Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 9.

2. Griff nach der Weltmacht is the original title of Fischer’s influential book asserting German responsibility

for the outbreak of the First World War, translated into English as Fritz Fischer, Germany’s Aims in the First

World War, New York: W. W. Norton, 1967.

3. Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919-1939, London: Macmillan and Co., 1962.
4. The key text is Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 5th ed.,

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.

5. Michael Smith, Realist Thought from Weber to Kissinger, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,

1986.

6. George F. Kennan, Memoirs: 1925-1950, Boston: Little, Brown, 1967, pp. 39-40, and the original

conception published incognito under the designation “X,” “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs, No.

4, July 1947, pp. 566-582.

7. Note the analysis in Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994, pp. 703-732.

8. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979.

9. See, for example, Robert O. Keohane, International Institutions and State Power, Boulder: Westview

Press, 1989, and David A. Baldwin, ed., Neorealism and Neoliberalism, New York: Columbia University Press,

1993.

10. Evgenii Primakov, “Na gorizonte—mnogopolisnyi mir,” Mezhdunarodnaia zhizn’, No. 10, 1996, pp. 3-13.

11. Richard N. Haas, “What to do With American Primacy,” Foreign Affairs, September-October 1999, pp.

37-49.

12. A National Security Strategy for a New Century, Washington, D.C.: The White House, October 1998, pp.

1-2.

13. William S. Cohen, Secretary of Defense, Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review, Washington, D.C.,

May 1997, p. 9.

14. Report of the National Defense Panel, Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st Century,

Arlington, VA, December 1997, pp. ii and 29.

15. Gary Hart and Wayne Rudman, New World Coming: American Security in the 21st Century,

Washington, D.C., 21 September 1999.

16. James N. Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity, Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1990.

17. See Bruce Russett, International Regions and the International System, Chicago: Rand McNally, 1967.

18. Elena Zamfirescu, “The ‘Flight’ From the Balkans,” Südosteuropa, Nos. 1-2 1995, pp. 51-62.

19. Andrew Hurrell, “Explaining the Resurgence of Regionalism in World Politics,” Review of International

Studies, Vol. 21, No. 4, October 1995, p. 334.

20. Huntington asserts that “religion is a central defining characteristic of civilizations,” and cites

Christopher Dawson’s observation that “the great religions are the foundations on which the great civilizations

rest.” Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York: Simon &

Schuster, 1996, p. 47.

21. Philip Kelly, “Escalation of Regional Conflict: Testing the Shatterbelt Concept,” Political Geography

Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1986, pp. 161-180.

22. Barry Buzan, People, States & Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War

Era, 2nd ed., New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991, p. 186.

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85

23. Ibid., p. 188 and the entire discussion on pp. 186-229.

24. David A. Lake and Patrick M. Morgan, “The New Regionalism in Security Affairs,” in David A. Lake and

Patrick M. Morgan, eds., Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World, University Park, PA: The

Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997, p. 11.

25. See Abraham F. Lowenthal and Katrina Burgess, eds., The California-Mexico Connection, Stanford:

Stanford University Press, 1993.

26. Rudolf Hrbek and Sabine Wegand, Betrifft! Europa der Regionen, Berlin: C.H. Beck, 1994.

27. John Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War, New York: Basic Books, 1989.

28. Lake and Morgan, “The New Regionalism,” p. 5.

29. Roger E. Kanet and Edward A. Kolodziej, eds., The Cold War as Cooperation, Baltimore: The Johns

Hopkins University Press, 1991.

30. Wayne Burt, The Reluctant Superpower: United States Policy in Bosnia, 1991-95, New York: St. Martin’s

Press, 1997, p. xxv.

31. See R. Craig Nation, “Peacekeeping in Bosnia-Heregovina: Lessons and Prospects,” in R. Craig Nation,

ed., The Yugoslav Conflict and its Implications for International Relations, Rimini: Longo, 1998, pp. 41-60.

32. Kenichi Ohmae, The Borderless World, London: Fontana, 1991.

33. Friedrich Ratzel, Politische Geographie, Munich: Oldenbourg, 1897, and Martin Ira Glassner, Political

Geography, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1993.

34. For a recent survey see the special edition “Geopolitics, Geography and Strategy,” The Journal of

Strategic Studies, Vol. 22, Nos. 2/3, June/September 1999.

35. Saul B. Cohen, “Geopolitics in the New World Era: A New Perspective on an Old Discipline,” in George J.

Demko and William B. Wood, eds., Reordering the World: Geopolitical Perspectives on the 21st Century, Boulder:

Westview Press, 1994, p. 17.

36. Cited from Glassner, Political Geography, pp. 226-227.

37. See Aleksandr Dugin, Misterii Evrazii, Moscow: Arktogeia, 1996, and Osnovy geopolitiki:

Geopoliticheskoe budushchee Rossii, Moscow: Arktogeia, 1997. The prestigious Russian military journal

Voennaia mysl’ (Military Thought) publishes a regular series of articles devoted to geopolitics.

38. Charles Clover, “Dreams of the Eurasian Heartland: The Reemergence of Geopolitics,” Foreign Affairs,

Vol. 78, No. 2, March-April 1999, p. 10.

39. K. Haushofer, E. Obst, H. Lautenbach, and O. Maull, Bausteine zur Geopolitik, Berlin: Kurt Vowinkel

Verlag, 1928, p. 27.

40. See Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States Strategy and Policy,

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973. These preferences, of course, are an integral part of an American

strategic culture.

41. See Alastair I. Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History,

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
42. Gray, Modern Strategy, p. 28.

43. John Keegan, A History of Warfare, New York: Vintage Books, 1993.

44. Victor Davis Hanson, The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece, New York: Knopf,

1989.

45. Bernard Brodie, War and Politics, New York, 1973, p. 332. Colin Gray describes this remark as “one of

the wisest observations in the entire history of strategic thought.” Gray, Modern Strategy, p. 131.

46. John W. Jandora, “War and Culture: A Neglected Relation,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 24, No.4,

Summer 1999, pp. 541-556.

47. Francis Fukuyama. “The End of History,” The National Interest, No. 16, Summer 1989, p. 18.

48. See, for example, James Der Derian and Michael J. Schapiro, eds., International/Intertextual Relations:

Postmodern Readings of World Politics, Oxford: Basic Blackwell, 1989.

49. Stephen M. Walt, The Origin of Alliances, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.

50. Zaki Ladi, Les espaces de sens, Paris: Gallimard, 1995.

51. For a wide-ranging and critical evaluation of the phenomenon, see Louise Fawcett and Andrew Hurrell,

eds., Regionalism in World Politics: Regional Organizations and International Order, Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1995.

52. Muthiah Alagappa, “Regionalism and Conflict Management: A Framework for Analysis,” Review of

International Studies, Vol. 21, No. 4, October 1995, pp. 359-388.

53. Javier Solana, “A New Alliance for a New Era,” The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Vol. IV, No. 2,

Summer/Fall 1997, pp. 73 and 75.

54. See Ahmed Rashid, “The Taliban: Exporting Extremism,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 78, No. 6,

November/December 1999, pp. 2-8 for a recent assessment, and, for an attempt to caution against alarmism,

John L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

55. Su san Strange, The Re treat of the State, Cam bridge: Cam bridge Uni ver sity Press, 1996, and Alain Minc,

Le nou veau Moyen Age, Paris: Gallimard, 1993.

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CHAP TER 8

NATIONAL POWER

Da vid Jablonsky

I put for a gen eral in cli na tion of all man kind, a per pet ual and rest less de sire of power af ter power, that

ceaseth only in death.

Thomas Hobbes

1

Thomas Hobbes personifies the realist approach to international relations in a world of

anarchy and self-help, in which individual man and men aggregated into states seek to

maintain or to increase power. In the modern era, this approach is reflected quintessentially

by Hans Morgenthau, who presents national power not only as an end in the Hobbesian sense

that “power is always the immediate aim,” but as a means to that end.

2

 The study of strategy

also deals with power primarily from the national security perspective, an acknowledgment

that the nation-state is still the most important actor in the international arena.

Most scholars focus on power as a means, the strength or capacity that provides the

“ability to influence the behavior of other actors in accordance with one’s own objectives.”

3

At

the national level, this influence is based on relations between nation-state A and another

actor (B), with A seeking to influence B to act in A’s interest by doing x, by continuing to do x,

or by not doing x. Some governments or statesmen may seek influence for its own sake. But for

most, influence, like money, is instrumental, to be used primarily for achieving or defending

other goals, which could include prestige, territory, raw material, or alliances. To achieve

these ends, state A can use various techniques of influencing, ranging from persuasion or the

offering of rewards to threats or the actual use of force.

4

From this standpoint, the use of a nation’s power in national security strategy is a simple

relational exercise. But in dealing with the concept of national power, as Clausewitz

remarked of war, “everything . . . is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.”

5

 To begin

with, there are subtle characteristics of power that render its use in the national strategic

formulation process more art than science. Moreover, relationships among the elements of

national power as well as the context in which they are to be used to further a nation’s

interests are seldom clear-cut propositions. All this means that in the end, national power

defies any attempts at rigorous, scientific assessment. The purpose of this chapter is to

demonstrate why this is so and, more important, why, all the complexity notwithstanding,

the concept of national power remains a key building block for understanding and developing

national security strategy.
THE CON TEXT OF NA TIONAL POWER.

National power is contextual in that it can be evaluated only in terms of all the power

elements and only in relation to another player or players and the situation in which power is

being exercised. A nation may appear powerful because it possesses many military assets, but

the assets may be inadequate against those of a potential enemy or inappropriate to the

nature of the conflict. The question should always be: power over whom, and with respect to

what?

6

Multidimensional Interrelationship. National power is historically linked with military

capacity, a natural relationship since war in the international arena is the ultima ratio of

power. Nevertheless, one element of power alone cannot determine national power. For

instance, there is the huge size of Brazil, the large population of Pakistan, the industrial

makeup of Belgium, and the first-class army of Switzerland. Yet none of these states is a

first-rank power. Morgenthau calls the mistaken attempt to define national power in terms of

one element of that power the “Fallacy of the Single Factor.” Another aspect of this fallacy is

the failure to distinguish between potential and actual power. Part of the problem stems from

the fact that the term “power” has taken on the meaning of both the capacity to do something

and the actual exercise of the capacity. And yet a nation’s ability to convert potential power

into operational power is based on many considerations, not the least of which is the political

and psychological interrelationship of such factors as government effectiveness and national

unity.

7

In this context, the elements of national power, no matter how defined, can be separated

only artificially. Together, they constitute the resources for the attainment of national

objectives and goals. And while those goals may be judged as moral, immoral, or amoral, the

elements of power are simply means to national strategic ends and as such are morally

neutral. It is possible, in other words, to reject the cynic’s belief that God is on the side of the

largest number of battalions, as well as the assumption that the side with the smallest

number always fights for the right.

8

Relations and Dynamics. National power is relative, not absolute. Simply put, a nation

does not have abstract power in and of itself, but only power in relation to another actor or

actors in the international arena. To say that the United States is the most powerful nation on

earth is to compare American power with that of all nations as they currently exist.

Nevertheless, leaders of a nation at the peak of its power can come to believe that such power

has an absolute quality that can be lost only through stupidity or neglect. In reality the

superior power of a nation is derived not only from its own qualities, but from that of other

actors compared with its own. Many observers in the late 1930s, for example, perceived

France as more than a match for Nazi Germany, since the French military of that era was

superior in quality and quantity of troops and weaponry to the victorious French forces of

1919. But the French military power of 1919 was supreme only in the context of a defeated

and disarmed Germany; that supremacy was not intrinsic to the French nation in the manner

of its geographic location and natural resources. Thus, while the French military of 1939 was

superior to that of 1919, a comparison of 1939 French military power to that of Germany in the

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89

same year would have shown a vastly different picture for many reasons, not the least of

which was the German adoption of the military doctrine of blitzkrieg.

9

Closely allied to all this is the fact that national power is dynamic, not permanent. No

particular power factor or relationship is immune to change. In this century, in particular,

rapid changes in military technologies have accelerated this dynamism. America’s explosion

of a nuclear device instantly transformed its power position, the nature of warfare, and the

very conduct of international relations. A war or revolution can have an equally sudden effect

on power. The two world wars devastated Europe, caused the rise of the flank powers, the

United States and the Soviet Union, and set the developing world on a road to decolonization

that in less than 50 years dismantled a system that had been in existence for over three

centuries. Economic growth can also quickly change a nation’s power position, as was the case

with Japan and Germany after World War II. In addition, the discovery of new resources, or

their depletion, can alter the balance of power. Certainly OPEC’s control over a diminishing

supply of oil, coupled with its effectiveness as a cartel, caused a dramatic shift in power

relations after 1973.

10

Such shifts are not always so immediately discernible. Power, as Hobbes long ago pointed

out, is what people believe it is until it is exercised. Reputation for power, in other words,

confers power on a nation-state regardless of whether that power is real or not. At the same

time, there are examples throughout history of nations that continued to trade on past

reputations, only to see them shattered by a single event. For France, the battles of Sedan

produced just such effects in 1870 and again in 1940.

11

This subjective characteristic of power also plays a key role in deterrence, the exercise of

negative power as state A influences actor B not to do x. The influence is effectively exercised

because B perceives that A not only has the capability to prevent B from doing x, but the

willingness to use that capability as well. In other words, national credibility must be a

concomitant of national capability for deterrence to work. When the combination doesn’t

occur, as Britain and France discovered when Hitler discounted their guarantee of Poland in

the summer of 1939, the result can be war. “The men of Munich will not take the risk,” the Nazi

leader explained to his commanders on August 14, 1939.

12

Situational. Some elements of national power or combinations of power cannot be applied

to certain situations involving certain actors. The United States in 1979-80, for instance, was

powerless to rescue American citizens held hostage in Teheran, and American nuclear power

during the Cold War had little value in causing nonaligned countries to modify their policies;

nor did it deter North Korea or North Vietnam in their attempts to unify their countries.

The Vietnam War also illustrates another contextual aspect of national power, that of

cost-risk-benefit analysis, in which power can be exercised but the costs and risks are

perceived to be disproportionate to the benefit achieved. Power, in other words, must be

relevant in the existing circumstances for the particular situation. This explains why, during

the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the United States was not able to persuade its European allies to

allow American planes to use NATO bases for refueling and maintenance. The overall

economic and military strength of the United States as well as the political bonds of alliance
solidarity proved less influential on European decisionmakers than the possible economic

loss of their access to oil. This type of American power was equally irrelevant in late 1994

when Britain and France, with troops involved in peace operations on the ground in Bosnia,

turned down a U.S. plan for NATO air strikes to support Muslims in the besieged town of

Bihac.

13

This aspect of the contextual nature of national power introduces even more complications

when the diversity of actors in the international arena is taken into account. In an

increasingly multi-centric world, nation-states will increasingly deal with transnational

actors in the exercise of national power. The European Union is just one example of

international government organizations in which the confluence of political and economic

trends has created a supra-national regional unit that transcends in many ways both the

legal- territorial aspects of the state and the psychological unity of the nation. This type of

challenge is abetted by international nongovernmental actors ranging from multinational

corporations focused on self-interested profit and national liberation movements seeking to

establish new governments within existing states, to organizations such as Amnesty

International or Greenpeace, seeking to mobilize international public opinion in order to

bring pressure on national governments to alter particular policies.

14

Some of these actors respond more willingly to one aspect of national power than to

another. Multinational corporations, for example, will generally react to economic factors

more rapidly than the United Nations or a national liberation movement. Conversely,

negotiations and appeals to human morality may prove to be more powerful at the United

Nations than in the corporate boardroom or in the field. And the allegiance of an uneducated

people in a newly independent country may help create a powerful national liberation

movement, yet be meaningless for a multinational corporation or the United Nations.

National power, then, is contextual not only in its application to other states, but to other

global actors as well.

15

THE EL E MENTS OF NA TIONAL POWER.

It is convenient to organize the study of national power by distinguishing between natural

and social determinants of power. The natural determinants (geography, resources, and

population) are concerned with the number of people in a nation and with their physical

environment. Social determinants (economic, political, military, psychological, and, more

recently, informational) concern the ways in which the people of a nation organize themselves

and the manner in which they alter their environment. In practice, it is impossible to make a

clear distinction between natural and social elements. For instance, resources are a natural

factor, but the degree to which they are used is socially determined. Population factors, in

particular, cut across the dividing line between both categories. The number of people of

working age in the population affects the degree of industrialization of a nation, but the

process of industrialization, in turn, can greatly alter the composition of the population.

16

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NAT U RAL DE TER MI NANTS OF POWER. 

1. Geography. Geographical factors, whether they are location and climate or size and

topography, influence a nation’s outlook and capacity. Location, in particular, is closely tied to

the foreign policy of a state. Vulnerable nations, like Poland caught geographically between

Russia and Germany, have even had to deal with the loss of national existence. Conversely,

Great Britain, the United States, and Japan have been protected by large bodies of water

throughout their histories. Each, in turn, used the combination of a large navy and overseas

trade to become a great power. With its oceanic moats, the United States was able to follow

George Washington’s advice to avoid entangling alliances and expand peacefully for almost a

century, free of external interference. In addition, that expansion came about primarily

without conquest, through the purchase of huge land tracts from European powers that found

the location of the territories too remote to defend easily.

The connection between foreign policy and location is, in fact, so fundamental that it gave

rise in this century to geopolitics as a field of study. At its most extreme, geopolitics can

succumb to Morgenthau’s “Fallacy of the Single Factor” or be distorted as it was at the hands

of Karl Haushofer and his disciples into a kind of political metaphysics with a call for

adequate national living space (Lebensraum) that was put into ideological service for Nazi

Germany. At its best, geopolitics has many insights to offer. Consider, for instance, the

connection between the British and American development of democracy and civil rights and

the relatively secure strategic locations of both countries, as opposed to the authoritarian

regimes of Germany and Russia, direct neighbors for much of history, lying exposed on the

North European plain. Or consider the continuing Russian drive for warm-water ports and

the continuing value of choke points, as was demonstrated when Egypt’s closure of the Straits

of Tiran in May 1967 led to war. The persistence of this field of study was reflected in the Cold

War by Raymond Aaron, who described the forward deployment of U.S. troops as analogous in

geographical terms to earlier British policy:

In re la tion to the Eur asian land mass, the Amer i can con ti nent oc cu pied a po si tion com pa ra ble to that

of the Brit ish Isles in re la tion to Eu rope: the United States was con tin u ing the tra di tion of the in su lar

state by at tempt ing to bar the dom i nant con ti nen tal state’s ex pan sion in cen tral Ger many and in Korea.

17

Location is also closely tied to climate, which in turn has a significant effect on national

power. The poorest and weakest states in modern times have all been located outside the

temperate climate zones in either the tropics or in the frigid zone. Even Russia has chronic

agricultural problems because all but a small part of that country lies north of the latitude of

the U.S.-Canadian border. Russia is also a good example of how geographical factors such as

size and topography can have advantages and disadvantages for a nation. The Soviet Union,

with its 11 time zones, was able to use its vast size during World War II to repeat the historical

Russian military method of trading space for time when invaded. At the same time, that

immense size certainly played a role in the complex ethnic and political centrifugal forces that

eventually pulled apart the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In a similar manner, the

predominantly north-south Russian rivers are great natural resources that would have been

economically and politically more valuable had they run in an east-west direction. In the
future, technology may mitigate some of these factors in the same way that intercontinental

missiles affected the importance of insular locations. But here, as in other areas, there are

many geographical obstacles to the acquisition of power that are costly or impossible to

overcome.

18

2. Population. Demographics in the form of size, trends, and structure are an important

aspect of national power. A large population is a key prerequisite, but not an automatic

guarantee of strength. Thus, there is Canada, more powerful than the more populous but less

industrialized Mexico. And Japan, with a small population marked by widespread technical

skills, has been able to exercise national power far in excess of China for all its masses. At the

same time, trends in population growth and decline can have significant effects on national

power. The Prussian unification of the German-speaking peoples in 1870, for example,

instantly created a great power with a population that grew by 27 million between then and

1940, even as that of France reflected the shift in European power, increasing by only four

million in the same period. In another example, the historical increase in American power

was partly due to the arrival of more than 100 million immigrants between 1824 and 1924.

During the same century, Canada and Australia, comparable in territory and developmental

level but with populations less than a tenth of America’s, remained secondary powers. That

such trends could have more complex causes dealing with other elements of power was

illustrated by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had a large and growing population

during most of that period, but also remained a secondary power because it was divided

ethnically, weak politically, and at an extremely low level in terms of industrial

development.

19

In the future, global trends also will affect the structure and balance of national

populations, particularly those of the poorest countries. In 1830, the global population

reached one billion for the first time; it required 100 years to double. It took only 45 more years

(1975) for the population to double again to four billion. In the next 21 years the population

increased almost two billion, reflecting a growth rate of about 90 million a year. For the next

several decades, 90 percent of this growth will occur in the lesser-developed countries, many

already burdened by extreme overpopulation for which there is no remedy in the form of

economic infrastructure, skills, and capital.

20

Population structure and balance are also significant for developed nations. Important

here is the percentage of the population in the most productive cohort, generally considered to

be somewhere between the ages of 18 and 45, that can best meet the needs of the nation’s

military and industry as well as create the following generation. Comparing the numbers in

this group to those in the younger cohort also provides a more accurate picture of population

trends and the interaction of demographics with all power elements. Israel, for example, has

to deal with its relatively small population and the fact that the military siphons off a

significant segment of the civilian workforce in the middle cohort. One consequence is

government emphasis on education across all age groups. Another is the government’s

military focus on sophisticated weaponry, mobility, air power, and the preemptive strike in

order to avoid drawn-out land warfare that could be costly in manpower. Finally, a

comparison of the middle population group to the older will provide a picture of trends that

can have significant consequences for a nation’s power. For example, any nation with an

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increasing cohort of retired people coupled with generous social welfare benefits will

eventually have to face hard choices between guns and butter on the one hand, and possible

limits to its national power as well as to its investment and economic growth potential on the

other. These choices already face the United States as the “baby boomer” generation

approaches retirement age against the backdrop of a staggering explosion in social

entitlements.

21

3. Natural Resources. Large amounts of natural resources are essential for a modern

nation to wage war, to operate an industrial base, and to reward other international actors

through trade and aid, either in modern industrial products or in the raw materials

themselves. But these resources, whether they be arable land and water or coal and oil, are

unevenly distributed around the world and are becoming increasingly scarce. Moreover, as in

the case of the geopolitical ownership of strategic places, the physical possession of natural

resources is not necessarily a source of power unless a nation can also develop those resources

and maintain political control over their disposition. In their raw state, for example, minerals

and energy sources are generally useless. Thus, the Mesabi iron deposits had no value to the

Indian tribes near Lake Superior, and Arabian oil a century ago was a matter of indifference

to the nomads who roamed above it. Conversely, those nations with great industrial

organizations and manufacturing infrastructures have traditionally been able to convert the

potential power of natural resources into actual national power.

Very few nations, however, are self-sufficient. A country like the United States has a rich

store of natural resources, and yet may be dependent on imports because of its voracious

consumption. Japan, on the other hand, has few natural resources; it is dependent on imports

for 100 percent of its petroleum, bauxite, wool, and cotton; 95 percent of its wheat; 90 percent

of its copper; and 70 percent of its timber and grain.

22

 Nations have traditionally made up for

such difficulties in several ways. One time-honored method is to conquer the resources, a

principal motivation for the Japanese expansion that led to World War II and the Iraqi

invasion that led to the Gulf War. A second method is to develop resources in another country

by means of concessions, political manipulation, and even a judicious use of force—all used

earlier to considerable effect by the United States in Latin America. In an age of increasing

interdependence, this type of economic penetration has long since lost its neocolonial identity,

particularly since both of America’s principal World War II adversaries now regularly

exercise such penetration in the United States.

The third and most common method for obtaining natural resources is to buy them. In

recent years, however, the combination of rapid industrial growth and decline of resources

has changed the global economy into a seller’s market, while providing considerable economic

leverage to nations in control of vital commodities. OPEC’s control of oil, for example,

provided its members influence all out of proportion to their economic and military power. A

similar transformation may occur in the future with those nations that are major food

producers as the so-called “Green Revolution” faces the prospect of more depleted lands and

encroaching deserts. Finally, there is the short supply of strategic and often esoteric minerals

so necessary for high technology and modern weapons. One consequence of this diminishment

of raw materials has been the emergence of the sea bed, with its oil and manganese reserves,

as a new venue of international competition, in which those nations with long coastlines and
extensive territorial waters have the advantage. Such shortages are a reminder of how closely

connected is the acquisition of natural resources to all the elements of power, particularly for

a truly dependent nation like Japan, which can neither feed its people nor fuel its

high-technology economy without access to overseas markets. Absent its alliance with the

United States as a means to ensure its access to such resources as Persian Gulf oil, Japan

would be forced to expand its “self-defense” military force, perhaps even becoming a declared

nuclear power.

23

SO CIAL DE TER MI NANTS OF POWER.

1. Economic. Economic capacity and development are key links to both natural and social

determinants of power. In terms of natural resources, as we have seen, a nation may be well

endowed but lack the ability to convert those resources into military hardware,

high-technology exports, and other manifestations of power. Ultimately, however, economic

development in a nation flows from the social determinants of power, whether they be

political modernization and widespread formal education, or geographic and social mobility

and the ready acceptance of innovation. All this, of course, is worked out against the backdrop

of balanced military investment. An excess of military spending can erode the underlying

basis for a nation’s power if it occurs at the expense of a larger economy and reduces the

national ability to invest in future economic growth. For developing countries already short of

economic investment capital, military spending represents a serious allocation of resources.

But even advanced countries, especially since the end of the Cold War, have to make some

choices between guns and butter. Because a nation’s political stability as well as the

legitimacy of its government are increasingly linked to domestic economic performance,

excessive military spending, as the former Soviet Union discovered, can be dangerous for

large and small countries alike.

Strong domestic economies also produce non-military national power in the international

arena. Leading industrial nations have available all the techniques for exercising power,

including rewards or punishment by means of foreign trade, foreign aid, and investment and

loans, as well as the mere consequences their domestic policies can have on the global

economy. This type of power can be weakened, however, if a nation suffers from high inflation,

a large foreign debt, or chronic balance-of-payment deficits. In short, the strength of a nation’s

economy has a direct effect on the variety, resiliency, and credibility of its international

economic options. The size of the US budget and trade deficits, for example, means that the

Federal Reserve must maintain interest rates high enough for deficit financing, which limits

its ability to stimulate the economy with lower rates. And American foreign aid is becoming

less influential as an economic instrument of power as budgets decline. On the other hand, US

trade policy has become increasingly important to the US economy, with American exports,

as an example, expected to create 16 million jobs by the year 2000.

24

 That such economic

considerations are closely interrelated to other elements of power is demonstrated by the

perennial question of whether most-favored-nation status, which is nothing more than

normal access to U.S. markets, should be made conditional on progress in human rights by

countries such as China.

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Finally, increasing interdependence has caused major changes in the economic element of

national power. National economies have become more dependent on international trade and

on financial markets that have become truly global in scope. This in turn makes it more

difficult for a nation to raise short-term interest rates or to coordinate monetary policy with

other international actors. In a similar manner, the ability of nations to use exchange rates to

further their national interests has declined as governments deal more and more with

international capital flows that dwarf the resources available to any nation to defend its

currency. From a security perspective, this type of economic interpenetration is reflected in

the mutual vulnerability of national economies. Moreover, a nation’s economic policy is now

influenced by myriad international governmental organizations such as the International

Monetary Fund (IMF) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), while

multinational corporations stand ready to manipulate the domestic politics of nation-states

to further their transnational interests.

25

2. Military. Military strength is historically the gauge for national power. Defeat in war

has normally signaled the decline if not the end of a nation’s power, while military victory has

usually heralded the ascent of a new power. But military power is more than just the

aggregation of personnel, equipment, and weaponry. Leadership, morale, and discipline also

remain vital factors of military power. Despite rough quantitative parity between the Iraqi

military and the allied coalition, the dismal Iraqi performance in the Gulf War demonstrated

the enduring relevance of those intangibles. That performance also showed how political

interference or the gradual infection of a nation or its military by incompetence, waste, and

corruption can weaken a nation’s armed forces. By contrast, there is the example of the U.S.

military working over the years in tandem with political authorities to move from the hollow

force of the immediate post-Vietnam period to the joint military machine of Desert Storm.

26

The Gulf War also highlights how important power projection and sustainability are in the

modern era for military effectiveness. For a global power like the United States, the focus on

these factors produced not only the unique air and sea lift capability that provided

transportation for a half million troops to the Persian Gulf in 1990-91, but incredible resupply

feats in an environment in which a single division during the 100-hour ground offensive

consumed 2.4 million gallons of fuel, brought forward in 475 5000-gallon tankers.

27

 Allied to

these factors, of course, are readiness considerations ranging from training and maneuver

opportunities to the availability of fuel and repair parts. In a similar manner, a nation’s

potential for rapid mobilization may also play a key role. Israel, for example, has a permanent

force of only 164,000 highly trained and ready soldiers. But that force can be augmented

within 24 hours by almost three times that many combat-ready troops. And Sweden has the

capability to mobilize a force almost overnight that can equal many European standing

armies.

28

The quality of arms technology also has become a vital military factor for all nations in a

period marked by rapid and important scientific breakthroughs. Timely inventions ranging

from the crossbow to the airplane have often been decisive when accompanied by appropriate

changes in military organization and doctrine. When these two components lag technological

change, however, as they did in the American Civil War and World War I, the results can be

horrific diminishment and waste of military power. In addition, new technologies in the
hands of rogue states or non-state actors such as terrorist groups will continue to be an

important consideration for nations in the exercise of military power. Weapons of mass

destruction are and will probably continue to be of primary concern in this regard. But even

relatively cheap, recently developed conventional weapons in the appropriate situation can

be decisive, as was illustrated by the American-built, shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft

missiles that enabled the Afghan mujahedeen guerrillas to neutralize Soviet air power.

Finally, technological advances are a useful reminder once again that military power, like all

elements of national power, is contextual. Technology is not an automatic panacea for

producing quick victories and low casualties, particularly absent clear political direction and

coherent strategy. There comes a time, as Britain’s thin red line discovered under the weight

of the Zulu offensive at Isandhewana, when quantity has a quality all its own.

29

3. Political. This element of power addresses key questions, many of which are related to

the psychological element: What is the form of government, what is the attitude of the

population toward it, how strong do the people want it to be, and how strong and efficient is it?

These questions cannot be answered with simple statistics, yet they may be paramount in any

assessment of national power. If a government is inadequate and cannot bring the nation’s

potential power to bear upon an issue, that power might as well not exist. Nor can an analysis

turn upon the type of government a state claims to have, for even the constitution of a state

may be misleading. The 1936 Soviet Constitution, for example, was a democratic-sounding

organic law that had little in common with the actual operation of the Soviet regime. And the

German Weimar Constitution, a model of democratic devices, did not prevent Hitler from

reaching power and from creating his own “constitutional law” as he proceeded.

What is clear is that the actual forms of government, each with its own strengths and

weaknesses, play a role in the application of national power. An authoritarian system, for

instance, restricts in varying degrees individual freedom and initiative, but permits

formulation of a highly organized state strategy. Democratic systems, by comparison, require

policy formation by consensus-building and persuasion in an open, pluralistic society.

Consequently, it is extremely difficult for democracies to develop and implement a long-range

state strategy or to change policy direction as abruptly as, for example, Nazi Germany and the

USSR did in the ideological volte-face marked by the August 1939 non-aggression treaty. In

addition, the level of political development within a state is also important. This development

involves both the capability, and more particularly the efficiency and effectiveness, of a

national government in using its human and material resources in pursuit of national

interests. Thus, administrative and management skills are crucial if a nation is to realize its

full power potential.

A government also takes the shape and operates the way it does for very complex reasons,

many of which reflect the experience of a people and their attitude toward, and expectations

of, what the government is to do and how strong, as a consequence, it should be. For example,

a fear of too much state power caused the Founding Fathers deliberately to make the United

States government inefficient (in the sense of a quick, smooth operation) by means of “checks

and balances.” In a similar manner, the French fear of a “man on horseback” in the wake of

their second experience with Bonapartism caused a curtailment of executive powers that

resulted in the weakness of the French governments after the Franco-Prussian War. Under

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both the Third and Fourth French Republics, as a result, the French strengthened the

legislative branch to a degree that made strong executive leadership almost impossible. The

French preferred to suffer the executive weakness rather than run the risks entailed in a

strong government. Consequently, while the United States had 14 administrations between

1875 and 1940, and the British 20, France had 102. After World War II, the Fourth French

Republic averaged two regimes a year.

30

4. Psychological. The psychological element of power consists of national will and

morale, national character, and degree of national integration. It is this most ephemeral of

the social power determinants that has repeatedly caused nations with superior economic

and military power to be defeated or have their policies frustrated by less capable actors. Thus

there was Mao’s defeat of Chiang Kai-shek when Chiang at least initially possessed most of

China’s wealth and military capability, the ability of Gandhi to drive the British from India,

and that of Khomeni to undermine the Shah. And it is almost a cliché that any measurement

of U.S. economic and military power vis-à-vis that of the North Vietnam-Vietcong

combination during the late 1960s would have led to the conclusion that US superiority in

these two categories would result in an American victory. Harry Summers recounts a story, in

this regard, that was circulating during the final days of the US retreat from Vietnam:

When the Nixon Ad min is tra tion took over in 1969 all the data on North Viet nam and on the United

States was fed into a Pen ta gon com puter—pop u la tion, gross na tional prod uct, man u fac tur ing ca pa bil -

ity, num ber of tanks, ships, and air craft, size of the armed forces, and the like.

The com puter was then asked, “When will we win?” 

It took only a mo ment to give the an swer: “You won in 1964!”

31

National will and morale are defined as the degree of determination that any actor

manifests in the pursuit of its internal or external objectives. For a given international actor,

however, will and morale need not be identical at all levels of society. During 1916 and early

1917, the Russian nobility continued to plan for new offensive action even as Russian troops

were abandoning their weapons and their battlefield positions. National character has an

equally complex relation to national power inasmuch as that character favors or proscribes

certain policies and strategies. Americans, for example, like to justify their actions. Thus, the

United States did not enter World War I until Wilsonian idealism had to confront the loss of

American ships and American lives. The elevation of “moralism” in the conduct of foreign

policy, in turn, diminishes the ability of the United States to initiate a truly preemptive

action. In the Cuban missile crisis, for example, the choice of a blockade over an air strike was

based in part on the argument that from the standpoint of both morality and tradition, the

United States could not perpetrate a “Pearl Harbor in reverse.”

32 In all such cases, as with will

and morale, it is extremely difficult to identify the constituent parts of and sources behind

national character. Historical experiences and traditional values undoubtedly are important,

as are such factors as geographic location and environment. Russian mistrust of the external

world, for instance, is historically verifiable as part of the national character, whether it is

because of the centuries of Tartar rule, three invasions from Western Europe in little more

than a century, or something else. And Russian stoicism is a character trait, whether the

cause is Russian Orthodox Christianity, communism, or the long Russian winters.

33
Finally, there is the degree of integration, which refers simply to the sense of belonging

and identification of a nation’s people. In many ways, this contributes to both national will

and morale as well as character. In most cases there is a direct correlation between the degree

of perceived integration and the extent of ethnic, religious, linguistic, and cultural

homogeneity, all of which contribute to a sense of belonging, manifested in a sense of

citizenship. On the other hand, despite examples to the contrary (Belgium, Canada, and the

states of the former Yugoslavia), a lack of integration need not necessarily cause a lack of

identity. Swiss unity has continued across the centuries despite low degrees of integration in

ethnicity, language, and religion.

34

5. Informational. The communications revolution, which began over a century ago with

the advent of global transmission of information, has taken on new momentum in recent

decades with the development of fax machines, television satellites, and computer linkages.

As the revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe demonstrated in the fall of 1989, a new fact

of life in the international arena is that it is no longer possible for any nation-state to deny its

citizens knowledge of what is taking place elsewhere. Ideas, in other words, move more freely

around the world than at any other time in the past. This has had particularly fortunate

results for the United States. Even as some other aspects of power have gone into relative

decline, America’s influence as a source of ideas and as a shaper of culture has increased. This

“soft power,” in Joseph Nye’s words, has been a major factor in formulating the U.S. national

security strategic objective of “enlargement.”

35

 So in one sense, information has contributed

to the concept of the world as a global village.

This combination of enhanced communication and dissemination of information,

however, is a two-edged sword that cuts across all the social determinants of power in

national strategy. In the economic realm, for instance, global interdependence has been

enhanced by information-communication improvements. On the other hand, near

instantaneous downturns of major economies are always a possibility with the immediate

transmission of adverse economic news concerning any nation-state or transnational

economic actor. Politically, instantaneous and pervasive communication can enhance the

ability of governmental elites to lead the people in a democracy or to act as a national consoler

in times of tragedy, such as the Challenger explosion or the Oklahoma City bombing. At the

same time, these developments can also aid the demagogues, the great simplifiers always

waiting in the wings to stir fundamental discontents and the dark side of nationalism. In

terms of psychological power, Winston Churchill demonstrated repeatedly that the pervasive

distribution of targeted information can have momentous effects on intangibles such as

national will. Conversely, however, this type of ubiquity has the pernicious potential of

altering in a matter of years basic values and cultural beliefs that take generations to create.

Nowhere is the effect of developments in communications and access to information more

far-reaching than on warfare. In the purely military realm, information dominance can create

operational synergies by allowing those systems that provide battlespace awareness,

enhance command and control, and create precision force to be integrated into the so-called

“system of systems.” One result of all this is to compress the strategic, operational, and

tactical levels of war, previously considered as separate and distinct loci of command and

functional responsibilities. The commander will be faced in the future with the much more

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complex job of recognizing those events occurring simultaneously at all three levels and

integrating them into the calculation that results from the traditional consideration at the

operational level of which tactical battles and engagements to join and which to avoid.

Equally important, shorter time for decisions—occasioned by both the compressed continuum

of war and electronically gathered information—means less time to discover ambiguities or to

analyze those ambiguities that are already apparent.

At the higher level of cyberwar, the two-edged potential of communications and

information is even more evident. In the future, nations will wage offensive information

warfare on another state’s computer systems, targeting assets ranging from

telecommunications and power to safety and banking. Such an onslaught could undermine

the more advanced aspects of an adversary’s economy, interrupt its mobilization of military

power, and by affecting the integrity of highly visible services to the population, create almost

immediate pressure on government at all levels. As activities rely increasingly on information

systems rather than manual processes and procedures, information infrastructures of the

most developed nations, such as the United States, become progressively more vulnerable to

state and non-state actors. Even as there are advances in information security technologies,

hacker tools are becoming more sophisticated and easier to obtain and use. One analyst

concludes in this regard that, for the United States, “the possibility of a digital Pearl Harbor

cannot be dismissed out of hand.”

36

EVAL U A TION.

Evaluation of national power is difficult. The basic problem, as we have seen, is that all

elements of power are interrelated. Where people live will influence what they possess; how

many they are will influence how much they possess; what their historical experience has

been will affect how they look at life; how they look at life will influence how they organize and

govern themselves; and all these elements weighed in relation to the problem of national

security will influence the nature, size, and effectiveness of the armed forces. As a

consequence, not only must each separate element be analyzed, but the effects of those

elements on one another must be considered. These complexities are compounded because

national power is both dynamic and relative. Nation-states and other international actors

change each day in potential and realized power, although the rate of change may vary from

one actor to another. And because these changes go on continually, an estimate of a state’s

national power vis-à-vis the power of another actor is obsolescent even as the estimate is

made. The greater the rate of change in the actors being compared, the greater the

obsolescence of the estimate.

In other words, like all strategic endeavors, more art than science is involved in the

evaluation of where one nation-state stands in relation to the power of other regional and

global actors. This has not deterred one former government official from creating a formula to

develop a rough estimate of “perceived” national power—focused primarily on a state’s

capacity to wage war:

37
Regardless of its prospective contribution in calculating a Pp value, this formula has some

important lessons. The more tangible elements (C, E, M) that can be objectively quantified

also involve varying degrees of subjective qualifications: territory that is vast but covered

with mountain ranges and has few navigable rivers; a population that is large but unskilled

and uneducated; or cases in which, despite qualitative military superiority in technology and

weapons on one side, the opponent is able to prevail through superior intangibles ranging

from leadership to morale. Most important, by demonstrating that national power is a

product—not a sum—of its components, the formula is a reminder of how important the

relational and contextual aspects are. The United States discovered in Vietnam that no

matter how large the sum of the more tangible economic and military capabilities in relation

to an adversary, their utility is determined by the intangibles of strategic purpose(S) and

national will(W). Zero times any number, no matter how large, is still zero.

These considerations are particularly important in evaluating what some might consider

to be irrational acts by states that use force to alter the status quo. In fact, these states may

simply differ from others in the perception of low risks where others perceive high ones,

rather than in the willingness to take risks. There is growing evidence that the 1990 Iraqi

invasion of Kuwait falls into this category. In another era, many of Hitler’s “Saturday

surprises” in the 1930s were considered reckless by those who would eventually have to

redress their consequences. These incidents came about, however, not because the Nazi

leader willingly tolerated a high probability of conflict, but because he was certain that the

other side would back down. When the German military opposed such policies as the

Rhineland coup and the Anschluss with Austria on the basis that they were too dangerous,

Hitler did not argue that the risks were worth the prizes, but that instead, taking the social

determinants of power in Germany and the other countries into consideration, the risks were

negligible. In terms of the concept of gain and risk assessment displayed in the figure below,

Hitler’s analysis of potential opposition came to rest at the MAXIMIN approach of Quadrant

2, not that of MAXIMAX in Quadrant 1.

38

100

 Pp = (C + E + M) x (S + W) in which:

Pp = Perceived power

C = Critical mass: population and territory

E = Economic capability

M= Military capability

S = Strategic purpose

W= Will to pursue national strategy

Risk

High (MAX) Low (MIN)

High

(MAX)

1

(MAXIMAX)

2

(MAXIMIN)

Gain

Low

(MIN)

3

(MINIMAX)

4

(MINIMIN)
101

In the Rhineland episode of March 7, 1936, for example, the military correlation of forces

was quantifiably against Germany, as Hitler was well aware. “We had no army worth

mentioning,” he reflected later; “at that time it would not even have had the fighting strength

to maintain itself against the Poles.”

39

 But unlike his military advisors, who were focused

firmly on French military capabilities, the Nazi leader considered other elements of power,

particularly the lack of political integration and coherency in the French Popular Front

government and the connection to the psychological component of French national will. As a

result, he concluded that France had no intention of responding militarily to the German

military incursion. On 9 March, the Wehrmacht commander received warning of impending

French military countermoves and asked to withdraw troops from major cities in the

Rhineland. Hitler, however, was still taking an essentially MAXIMIN (Quadrant 2) approach

and correctly discounted the possibility of intervention by a French government vacillating

between two incorrect positions: MAXIMAX (Quadrant 1) and MINIMAX (Quadrant 3).

40

THINKING IN THE BOX.

A great deal of lip service has been paid of late to the need for students of strategy to “think

outside the box.” The “box” in this case presumably contains the traditional approaches to

those issues that affect America’s national security. It is natural, of course, in a time of great

change to search for a “Philosopher’s Stone,” or to look for the sword that can, in one clean

stroke, preclude the tedious unraveling of the Gordian knot of post-Cold War strategy. And

perhaps this will all be possible in an extra-box environment of the future. But such

explorations cannot and should not be made until the student of national security has learned

to think inside the box, and that begins with an understanding of concepts like national

power. 

The concept of national power helps to provide an initial organizational focus as students

deal with the deceptively simple thought process that links strategic ends, ways, and means.

National elements of power, however they are described, provide the conceptual foundation

for this process at the national strategic level. An understanding of the characteristics and

the interrelationships of these elements allows the student to expand the process to

comprehend how derivative instruments of power can be combined most effectively as policy

options to achieve national strategic objectives. This is a key step in strategic maturation that

will play an increasingly larger role in the future for military and civilian professionals

concerned with national security strategy.

Military planners already deal with Flexible Deterrent Options, in which military

instruments of power are matched with instruments derived from other elements of power.

Military options in response to a challenge could include an increase in specific

reconnaissance activities, the exercise of certain prepositioned equipment, or the deployment

of small units. Politically, this could mean consultation by executive branch elites with

congressional leaders or initiation of a specific diplomatic demarche. At the same time,

economic options might include, alone or in combination, the enactment of trade sanctions,

the freezing of assets, and the restriction of corporate transactions. In all this, the

effectiveness of small discrete response options depends upon how well the instruments of
power are wielded together. And that will depend to a great deal on how well military

strategists and their civilian counterparts understand the elements of national power from

which those instruments are derived.

41

The focus on these elements of national power as means to national strategic ends also

serves as an organizational link to the overall strategic formulation process. That process

begins by demonstrating how national strategic objectives are derived from national

interests, which in turn owe their articulation and degree of intensity to national values. This

linkage is also a useful reminder that power, the “means” in the strategic equation, ultimately

takes its meaning from the values it serves. Absent the legitimation provided by this

connection to national values, national power may come to be perceived as a resource or

means that invites suspicion and challenge; at worst it could be associated with tyranny and

aggrandizement. Without the bond of popular support and the justification that comes from

an overarching purpose, national power can be quick to erode and ephemeral as a source of

national security.

What takes place within the box in dealing with concepts like national power is an

educational process, a not inconsiderable achievement in an era mesmerized by techno-chic

innovations which tend to confuse training with that process and data collection with

knowledge. 

In the final analysis, the study of national power is a valuable educational objective

because it is so difficult. Aspiring national security strategists must grapple with concepts

that overlap, that are subjective in many cases, that are relative and situational, and that

defy scientific measurement. All this teaches flexible thinking—the sine qua non for a

strategist. In short, it is this very complexity that causes students to mature intellectually, to

understand that within the box there is no such thing as a free strategic lunch. Equally

important, students learn that they cannot escape these limitations by moving outside the

box, a lesson that many futurists need to absorb.

ENDNOTES - CHAP TER 8

1. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958), p. 86.

2. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 4th ed. (New York:

Knopf, 1968), p. 25. Although Morgenthau sees the concept of national interest defined in terms of power, much

of this discussion is under a sub-heading that treats political power “As Means to the Nation’s Ends.” Ibid. 

3. John Spanier and Robert L. Wendzel, Games Nations Play, 9th ed. (Washington: CQ Press, 1996), p. 128.

See also Theodore A. Couloumbis and James H. Wolfe, Introduction to International Relations: Power and

Justice, 2d ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1982), p. 64. Many scholars use this broad interpretation of

influence in their definition of power: “the ability to influence the behavior of others in accordance with one’s own

ends.” A. F. K. Organski, World Politics, 2d ed. (New York: Knopf, 1968), p. 104, and “the ability of an actor to

influence the outcomes of international events to its own satisfaction.” Walter S. Jones, The Logic of

International Relations (Boston: Little, Brown, 1985), p. 245. For arguments against mixing power and

influence, see Robert A. Dahl, Modern Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1976), p. 29;

Daniel S. Papp, Contemporary International Relations: Frameworks for Understanding (New York: Macmillan,

102
103

1984), p. 308; and Michael P. Sullivan, Power in Contemporary Politics (Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina

Press, 1990), p. 98.

4. K. J. Holsti, International Politics: A Framework for Analysis, 5th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice

Hall, 1988), pp. 142, 152-53. On patterns of influence, see Ibid., pp. 154-56. On similar methods or techniques of

exercising power, see Organski, pp. 112-15. Realists, in general, treat power as the “currency of politics.” Just as

economists focus on the definition and variety of currency types, students of international relations define and

distinguish the types of power. See, for example, Klaus Knorr, The Power of Nations: The Political Economy of

International Relations (New York: Basic Books, 1975).

5. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ.

Press, 1976), p. 119.

6. On the context of power, see Spanier and Wendzel, pp. 144-45; Papp, pp. 309-11; and Gordon C.

Schloming, Power and Principle in International Affairs (New York: Harcourt Bruce Jovanovich: 1991), p. 528.

7. Morgenthau, p. 153; Spanier and Wendzel, pp. 128, 131; and Organski, p. 102. In English and German

(Macht), for example, “power” indicates both capacity and the exercise of that capacity. In French, however,

there are two words: puissance, indicating potential or capacity, and pouvoir, indicating the act or the exercise of

power. Dennis H. Wrong,Power: Its Forms, Bases and Uses (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), pp. 9-10. Frederich

Hartmann deals with the distinction between potential and real in his definition of national power as “the

strength or capacity that a sovereign nation-state can use to achieve its national interests.” Emphasis in

original. Frederick H. Hartmann, The Relations of Nations, 5th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1978), p. 43.

8. Organski, pp. 101-02.

9. Ibid., p. 121; Morgenthau, pp. 149-51; Spanier and Wendzel, p. 128; and Eugene J. Kolb, A Framework for

Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1978), pp. 50-52.

10. Organski, p. 110; Kolb, pp. 50-52; Morgenthau, pp. 151-53; and Schloming, p. 527. For the declinist

approach to the dynamic nature of national power, see Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers:

Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500-2000 (New York: Random House, 1987); Mancur Olsen, The

Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities (New Haven, Conn.: Yale

Univ. Press, 1982); Aaron L. Friedberg, The Weary Titan: Great Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline

(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1988).

11. Organski, pp. 108-09; Spanier, p. 128; and Hobbes, p. 106.

12. Emphasis in original. Franz Halder, The Halder Diaries: The Private War Journals of Colonel General

Franz Halder, ed. Arnold Lissance (Boulder, Colo., and Dunn Loring, Va.: Westview Press and T. N. Dupuy

Associates, 1976), I, 8. After the Munich Conference, Mussolini appraised the British leaders as “the tired sons of

a long line of rich men.” Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. I, The Gathering Storm (Boston:

Houghton Mifflin, 1948), p. 341. On the concept of negative power as used in this context, see Holsti, p. 144, and

Dahl, p. 43. On a different view of negative as well as positive power, see Organski, pp. 118-19. See also Robert

Jervis, Richard Ned Lebow, and Janice Gross Stein, Psychology and Deterrence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

Univ. Press, 1985).

13. Papp, p. 311; Spanier and Wendzel, pp. 144-45; Kolb, pp. 49-50.

14. Sullivan, pp. 21-24; and Papp, p. 12.

15. Barry O’Neill, “Power and Satisfaction in the United Nations Security Council,” Journal of Conflict

Resolution, 40 (June 1996), 219-37; and Papp, p. 311.
16. For the distinction between natural and social determinants of power, see Organski, chaps. 7, 8.

Morgenthau, p. 106, breaks the elements down into “those which are relatively stable and those which are

subject to constant change.” See also Couloumbis and Wolfe, pp. 65, 73-78, who break national power into two

categories: tangible (population, territory, natural resources, industrial capacity, agricultural capacity, military

strength and mobility) and intangible (leadership and personality, bureaucratic-organizational efficiency, type

of government, societal cohesiveness, reputation, foreign support and diplomacy, accidents).

17. Raymond Aron, Peace and War (New York: Praeger, 1966), p. 1. See also Derwent Whittlesey,

“Haushofer: The Geopoliticians,” Makers of Modern Strategy, ed. Edward Mead Earle (Princeton, N.J.:

Princeton Univ. Press, 1973), pp. 388-414; Colin S. Gray, The Geopolitics of the Nuclear Era: Heartlands,

Runlands, and the Technological Revolution (New York: Crane, Russak, 1977); Hartmann, pp. 49-52;

Morgenthau, pp. 106-08, 153; Spanier and Wendzel, p. 132; Hughes, p. 91; and Organski, pp. 126-38, who

believes that geography’s effect on national power has been exaggerated.

18. Schloming, p. 530. Hartmann, p. 49, believes climate is the most important geographical factor. Life

magazine listed the air conditioner as one of the most important inventions in world history because it would

enable tropical areas to begin industrialization. The shape of a nation is also important, as witness Israel’s

difficulty in returning to its pre-1967 configuration of long frontiers and very little depth. Spanier and Wendzel,

p. 132. See also Isaiah Berlin, Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas (New York: Viking Press, 1980),

p. 258, who attributes the aggressive nationalism of such leaders as Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin to their

geographical origins on the borderlands of the empires they will later rule.

19. Schloming, p. 531, and Julian L. Simon, Population Matters: People, Resources, Environment, and

Immigration (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1990).

20. Nafis Sadik, “World Population Continues to Rise,” The Brown and Benchmark Reader in International

Relations, 1992, ed. Jeffrey Elliott (Dubuque, Ia.: Wm. C. Brown, 1992), pp. 291-96. See also Spanier and

Wendzel, pp. 135-36; Hartmann, pp. 46-49; Schloming, p. 531; Organski, pp. 153-54, and George D. Moffett,

Global Population Growth: 21st Century Challenges (Ithaca, N.Y.: Foreign Policy Association, 1994).

21. Hartmann, p. 47; Schloming, p. 532; and Peter G. Peterson, “Will America Grow Up Before It Grows

Old?” The Atlantic Monthly, May 1996, pp. 55-92.

22. Spanier and Wendzel, p. 139. See also Schloming, p. 531, and Organski, pp. 138-41.

23. On problems with the most basic of all resources, see Miriam R. Lowi, Water and Power: The Politics of a

Scarce Resource in the Jordan River Basin (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995). See also Organski, p. 142;

Schloming, pp. 533-34; and Morgenthau, pp. 109-12.

24. National Defense University, Institute for National Strategic Studies, Strategic Assessment 96

(Washington: GPO, 1996), p. 49. See also Organski, p. 169. Hartmann, pp. 52-56, includes natural resources in

the economic element of power.

25. Strategic Assessment 96, p. 51, and Schloming, p. 158.

26. For questions concerning the jointness of Desert Storm, see Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor,

The General’s War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf (Boston: Little, Brown, 1994). Stalin’s great purges

of the 1930s are an extreme example of political interference. In addition to the roughly 800,000 party members

who were killed, about half of the army officer corps, some 35,000 in all, were eliminated despite the weakness it

imposed on the USSR in a time of growing foreign danger. Gordon A. Craig, Europe Since 1815 (New York:

Dryden Press, 1974), p. 383.

27. U.S. Department of the Army, FM 100-5, Operations (Washington: GPO, June 1993), p. 12-21. See also

Spanier and Wendzel, p. 143.

104
105

28. Switzerland is another prime example with the capability of mobilizing in excess of a half million troops

in less than two days. Schloming, p. 543.

29. In the subsequent battle of Rourke’s Drift, of course, technology plus an inspired combination of all the

intangibles ranging from leadership to unit cohesion produced a British victory in which 11 Victoria Crosses

were earned. On revolutions in military affairs, see the Strategic Studies Institute monographs from the fifth

annual US Army War College Strategy Conference, April 1994. See also Schloming, p. 540.

30. Papp, p. 316; Hartmann, pp. 59-60; and Morgenthau, pp. 133-35.

31. Emphasis in original. Harry G. Summers, On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Context (Carlisle, Pa.: US

Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 1983), p. 11. See also Papp, p. 378.

32. Graham T. Allison, Essence of a Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missiles Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown,

1971), pp. 123-24. See also Papp, pp. 382-84, and Morgenthau, pp. 122-34.

33. On the Russian national character, see Morgenthau, pp. 125-27, and Papp, p. 383. On the American

character, see Spanier and Wendzel, pp. 186-92.

34. Papp, pp. 386-87.

35. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books,

1990) and “Understanding U.S. Strength,” Foreign Policy, No. 72 (Fall 1988), pp. 105-29.

36. Strategic Assessment 96, p. 197. See also Ibid., pp. 195-96 and chap. 15; Joseph S. Nye, Jr., and William A.

Owens, “America’s Information Edge,” Foreign Affairs, 75 (March-April 1996); and Roger C. Molander, Andrew

S. Riddle, and Peter A. Wilson, Strategic Information Warfare: A New Face of War (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND,

1996). A recent Defense Science Board report on information warfare repeated this warning. Thomas E. Ricks,

“Information Warfare Defense is Urged: Pentagon Panel Warns of `Electronic Pearl Harbor,’” The Wall Street

Journal, 6 January 1997, p. B2.

37. Ray S. Cline, World Power Trends and U.S. Foreign Policy for the 1980s (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press,

1980), p. 13. See also Papp, pp. 308-09; Hartmann, p. 67; and Couloumbis and Wolfe, pp. 66-67. For another

approach to quantifying and ranking the actual and projected capabilities of states, see Karl Deutsch, The

Analysis of International Relations (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1968), pp. 21-39.

38. Robert Jervis, Perceptions and Misperceptions in International Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ.

Press, 1976), p. 52.

39. Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Macmillan, 1970), p.

72. General von Blomberg pointed out after the war that if the French had resisted, the Germans would “have to

have beat a hasty retreat.” And General Keitel confided that “he wouldn’t have been a bit surprised” if three

battalions of French troops had flicked the German forces right off the map. G. M. Gilbert, The Psychology of

Dictatorship (New York: Ronald Press, 1950), p. 211.

40. This did not mean that Hitler was not nervous. “The forty-eight hours after the march,” he stated, “were

the most nerve-wracking in my life.” Allan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (New York: Harper & Row, 1962),

p. 345. For additional measures Hitler took to make the operation as unprovocative as possible, see John

Thomas Emmerson, The Rhineland Crises (Ames: Iowa Univ. Press, 1977), p. 101.

41. For the flexible deterrent options, see The Joint Staff Officer’s Guide 1993 (AFCC Pub 1) (Washington:

GPO, 1993), pp. 6-11 to 6-16. For some reason, JCS currently defines national security strategy in terms of

instruments of power (diplomatic, economic, military, and information) as the means “to achieve objectives that

contribute to national security.” JCS Pub 1-02, pp. 254-55. The same publication, however, defines elements of

national power as “the means that are available for employment in the pursuit of national objectives” (Ibid., p.
130). The use of power elements as the “means” in the definition of national strategy (Ibid., p. 255) is in keeping

with the Goldwater-Nichols terminology concerning power and strategy. Professor Michael Morin, USAWC,

November 21, 1996. See also note 4.

106
107

CHAP TER 9

NATIONAL SECURITY AND THE INTERAGENCY PROCESS:

FORWARD INTO THE 21ST CENTURY

Ga briel Mar cella

Power is the ca pac ity to di rect the de ci sions and ac tions of oth ers. Power de rives from strength and

will. Strength co mes from the trans for ma tion of re sources into ca pa bil i ties. Will in fuses ob jec tives

with re solve. Strat egy mar shals ca pa bil i ties and brings them to bear with pre ci sion. State craft seeks

through strat egy to mag nify the mass, rel e vance, im pact, and irresistibility of power. It guides the

ways the state de ploys and ap plies its power abroad. These ways em brace the arts of war, es pi o nage,

and di plo macy. The prac ti tio ners of these three arts are the pal a dins of state craft.

1

Chas W. Freeman, Jr.

The mil i tary is the ham mer in Amer ica’s for eign pol icy tool box. And it is a very pow er ful ham mer. But

not ev ery prob lem we face is a nail

2

.

General Henry H. Shelton

THE IN TER AGENCY PRO CESS AND PUR POSE FUL AD AP TA TION.

Ambassador Chas. W. Freeman, Jr. speaks to the skillful use of influence and power to

promote the national interests in a competitive world. General Shelton admonishes about the

limits of military power. The effective use of power in all of its variants is a tall order even for

the United States, the only fully equipped, globally deployed, interagency superpower. The

United States is the indispensable anchor of international order and the increasingly

globalized economic system. Nothing quite like it has ever existed. Indeed such great powers

as Rome, Byzantium, China, Spain, England, and France achieved extraordinary

sophistication, enormous institutional and cultural influence, and longevity, but they never

achieved the full articulation of America’s global reach.

Today the United States forward deploys some 250 diplomatic missions in the form of

embassies, consulates, and specialized organizations. It possesses a unified military

command system that covers all regions of the world and even outer space. It is the leader of

an interlocking set of alliances and agreements that promotes peace, open trade, the

principles of democracy, human rights, and protection of the environment. American capital,

technology, and culture influence the globe. American power and influence is pervasive and

multidimensional. All the instruments of national power are deployed. Yet the challenge of

strategic integration, of bringing the instruments into coherent effectiveness, remains.

Presidents and their national security staffs strive to achieve coherence, with varying levels

of success through use of the “interagency process.”
The American interagency decision making process is unique in character, size and

complexity. Given ever expanding responsibilities and declining resources in dollars and

manpower, it is imperative that national security professionals master it in order to work

effectively within it. The complex challenges to national security in the twenty-first century

will require intelligent integration of resources and unity of effort within the government.

The United States first faced the challenge of strategic integration within an embryonic

interagency process during World War II. Mobilizing the nation and the government for war

and winning the peace highlighted the importance of resources and budgets, of integrating

diplomacy with military power, gathering and analyzing enormous quantities of intelligence,

conducting joint and combined military operations, and managing coalition strategies and

balancing competing regional priorities, for example, the European versus the Pacific theater

in national strategy. From the war and the onset of the Cold War emerged a number of

institutional innovations. Among them: the structure of the modern Department of State,

Department of Defense (from the old War Department), a centralized intelligence system, the

Marshall Plan, the unified military command system, the Air Force, the predecessor of the

U.S. Agency for International Development (Point Four), NATO and other alliances, the

military assistance pacts, military advisory groups, and the United States Information

Agency.

There is probably no period in American history like the late 1940s and early 1950s that is

so formative of the kind of national and institutional learning that John P. Lovell calls

“purposeful adaptation.” He defines it as “the need to develop and pursue foreign policy goals

that are sensitive to national needs and aspirations and to the realities of a changing world

environment.”

3

 The evolution of the interagency process parallels America’s purposeful

adaptation to changing global realities of the last five decades. But it is not an orderly

evolution because of serious structural and cultural impediments, such as poor institutional

memory.

4

 Prominent historical markers along this path included such documents as NSC 68,

the intellectual framework for the containment strategy against the Soviet Union. Though a

different type of document, the Weinberger Doctrine articulated criteria for the use of

military power that dramatically influenced the shape of American strategy in the 1980s and

1990s.

In 1945, American statesmen faced three challenges: forging a system of collective

security, promoting decolonization, and building a stable international financial order. These

and four decades of intense threat from the other superpower had a decisive impact on

shaping the interagency process. With the end of bipolar ideological and geopolitical conflict,

the foreign policy and defense agenda is captured by free trade, democratization,

sub-national ethnic and religious conflict, failing states, humanitarian contingencies,

ecological deterioration, terrorism, international organized crime, drug trafficking, and the

proliferation of the technology of weapons of mass destruction. At the dawn of a new era, is the

policy making system developed and refined for the strategic imperatives of the Cold War

adequate to meet a very different set of challenges?

108
109

THE NA TIONAL SE CU RITY COUN CIL:

CO OR DI NA TION VS. POLICYMAKING.

To bring strategic coherence, consensus, and decisiveness to burgeoning global

responsibilities, the National Security Act of 1947 created the National Security Council. Its

functions:

“The func tion of the Coun cil shall be to ad vise the Pres i dent with re spect to the in te gra tion of do mes tic,

for eign, and mil i tary pol i cies re lat ing to the na tional se cu rity so as to en able the mil i tary ser vices and

the other de part ments and agen cies of the Gov ern ment to co op er ate more ef fec tively in mat ters in volv -

ing the na tional se cu rity.”

“...other func tions the Pres i dent may di rect for the pur pose of more ef fec tively co or di nat ing the pol i cies 

and func tions of the de part ments and agen cies of the Gov ern ment re lat ing to the na tions se cu rity...”

“...as sess and ap praise the ob jec tives, com mit ments, and risks of the United States...”

“...con sider pol i cies on mat ters of com mon in ter est to the de part ments and agen cies of the Gov ern ment 

con cerned with the na tional se cu rity...”

The statutory members are the President, the Vice President, Secretaries of State and

Defense. All others present are advisors: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Director

Central Intelligence, and cabinet members. The Council need not convene formally to

function. Indeed, by late 1999 the Clinton NSC had met only once: March 2, 1993. There are

alternatives to formal meetings, such as the ABC luncheons of Secretary of State Madeleine

Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, and Sandy Berger, Assistant to the President

for National Security Affairs, or the Deputies breakfasts and lunches. The “NSC system” of

policy coordination and integration operates 24 hours a day. The Assistant to the President

for National Security Affairs directs the staff. The emergence of the modern “operational

presidency,”

5

 brought to the National Security Council greater authority over the

development and implementation of policy, thus creating a new power center that competes

for jurisdiction with the Departments of State and Defense.

The National Security Council staff, known as the Executive Secretariat, has varied in

size and function. In 1999 the staff comprised about 208 (of which 101 were policy personnel

and 107 administrative and support personnel) professionals covering regional and

functional responsibilities. Staffers are detailed from the diplomatic corps, the intelligence

community, the civil service, the military services (12 in policy positions in September 1999),

academia and the private sector. The staffing procedures are personalized by the President’s

style and comfort level. The structure of the staff, its internal and external functioning, and

the degree of centralized control of policy varies. Carter and Clinton have been very

centralized, Reagan and Bush less so. The first two Presidential Decision Directives of the

Clinton Administration, dated January 20, 1993, set forth the structure and function of the

NSC staff and groups that report to it, as depicted below:
The Principals Committee members are the cabinet level representatives who comprise

the senior forum for national security issues. The Deputies Committee consists of under

secretaries who monitor the work of the interagency policy formulation and articulation

process, do crisis management, and when necessary, push unresolved issues to the Principals

for resolution. Interagency Working Groups (IWGs) are the heart and soul of the process.

They may be ad hoc, standing, regional or functional. They function at a number of levels,

meet regularly to assess routine and crisis issues, frame policy responses, and build

consensus across the government for unified action. The fluid nature of the process means

that IWGs do not always have to come to decisions. The system prefers that issues be decided

at the lowest level possible. If issues are not resolved there, they are elevated to the next level

and when appropriate, to the Deputies Committee. Who chairs the different IWGs and

committees can vary between the NSC director and a senior State Department official.

110

Figure 1. National Security Council System.
The day-to-day policy coordination and integration is done by the National Security

Council Staff, divided into functional and geographic directorates:

111

Figure 2. National Security Council Staff.
112

Policy is often made in different and subtle ways. Anthony Lake, writing in Somoza

Falling: The Nicaraguan Dilemma, A Portrait of Washington At Work, discusses how the

answer to an important letter can help set policy. Hence, the importance of interagency

coordination and the importance of being the one (bureau, office, agency) that drafts it.

“....pol icy flows as much from work on spe cific items – like the let ter from [Ven e zue lan

Pres i dent Carlos Andres] Perez [to Carter] – as it does from the large, for mal in ter -

agency ‘pol icy re views’ that re sult in pres i den tial pro nounce ments.”

6

Each action is precedent for future actions. Speeches, press conferences, VIP visits, and

presidential travels are important. Lake elaborates:

“Pol icy is made on the fly; it emerges from the pat tern of spe cific de ci sions. Its wis dom is de cided

by whether you have some vi sion of what you want, a con cep tual thread as you go along.”

7

The NSC staff does the daily and long-term coordination and integration of foreign policy

and national security matters across the vast government. Specifically, it:

1. Pro vides in for ma tion and pol icy ad vice to the Pres i dent

2. Man ages the pol icy co or di na tion pro cess

3. Mon i tors im ple men ta tion of pres i den tial pol icy de ci sions

4. Man ages the in ter de part men tal di men sions of cri ses

5. Ar tic u lates the Pres i dent’s pol i cies

6. Un der takes long term stra te gic plan ning

7. Con ducts li ai son with Con gress and for eign gov ern ments

8. Co or di nates sum mit meet ings and na tional se cu rity re lated trips

There is a natural tension between the policy coordination function of the NSC and

policymaking. Jimmy Carter’s Director of Latin American Affairs at the NSC, Robert Pastor,

argues that:

“...ten sion be tween NSC and State de rives in part from the for mer’s con trol of the agenda and

the lat ter’s con trol of im ple men ta tion. State De part ment of fi cials tend to be anx ious about the

NSC usurp ing pol icy, and the NSC tends to be con cerned that State ei ther might not im ple ment

the Pres i dent’s de ci sions or might do so in a way that would make de ci sions State dis ap proved of

ap pear in ef fec tive and wrong.”

8

The NSC staff is ideally a coordinating body but it oscillates between the poles, taking

policy control over some issues while allowing the State or Defense to be the lead agency on

most national security and foreign policy issues. On some key issues, such as the Kosovo
crisis of 1998-99, the NSC staff may take over policy control from State. Similarly, policy

towards Cuba and Haiti in 1993-95 was handled directly out of the White House because of

the deeply rooted domestic dimension of those issues. The Oliver North Iran-Contra caper

created an autonomous operational entity within the NSC staff. But this was an aberration

that does not invalidate the general rule. The salient point is that proximity to the President

gives the NSC staff significant policy clout in the interagency process. Such clout must be

used sparingly lest it cause resentment and resistance or overlook the policy wisdom and

skills available elsewhere in the executive departments.

TO WARDS A THEORY OF THE IN TER AGENCY PRO CESS: HOW DOES

THE PRESIDENT MO BI LIZE THE GOV ERN MENT?

The interagency is not a place. It is a process involving human beings and complex

organizations with different cultures, different outlooks on what’s good for the national

interest and the best policy to pursue—all driven by the compulsion to defend and expand

turf. The process is political (therefore conflictual) because at stake is power, personal,

institutional, or party. The “power game” involves the push and pull of negotiation, the

guarding of policy prerogatives, of hammering out compromises, and the normal human and

institutional propensity to resist change.

9

 Regardless of the style of the President and the

structures developed for the management of national security policy, the NSC dominated

interagency process performs the same basic functions: identifies policy issues and questions,

formulates options, raises issues to the appropriate level for decisions, makes decisions where

appropriate, and oversees the implementation of decisions throughout the executive

departments.

It is helpful to view policy at five interrelated levels: conceptualization, articulation,

budgeting, implementation, and post-implementation analysis and feedback.

Conceptualization involves the complex intellectual task of policy development, such as a

Presidential Decision Directive (PDD). Articulation is the public declaration of policy that the

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Source: John P. Lovell, The Challenge of American Foreign Policy: Purpose and Adaptation, p. 26.

Figure 3. The Ideal Foreign Policy Process.
President or subordinates make. It is critical in a democracy in order to engage public

support. Budgeting involves testimony before Congress to justify policy goals and to request

funding. Implementation is the programmed application of resources in the field in order to

achieve the policy objectives. Post-implementation analysis and feedback is a continuous

effort to assess the effectiveness of policy and to make appropriate adjustments.

The ideal system would have perfect goal setting, complete and accurate intelligence,

comprehensive analysis and selection of the best options, clear articulation of policy and its

rationale, effective execution, thorough and continuous assessment of the effects, and perfect

learning from experience and the ability to recall relevant experience and information. Such

perfection is impossible. The reality is:

PO LICY IN PRAC TICE

TASK CAPABILITY

Goal Setting 

National interests are object of competing

claims; goals established through political

struggle

Intelligence

Always incomplete, susceptible to

overload, delays and distortions caused by

biases and ambiguity in interpretation

Option Formulation 

Limited search for options, comparisons

made in general terms according to

predispositions rather than cost-benefit

analysis

Plans, Programs, Decisions

Choices made in accordance with

prevailing mind sets, often influenced by

groupthink and political considerations

Declaratory Policy

Multiple voices, contradictions and

confusion, self-serving concern for personal

image and feeding the appetite of the

media

Execution

Breakdowns in communication, fuzzy lines

of authority, organizational parochialism,

bureaucratic politics, delays

Monitoring and Appraisal

Information gaps, vague standards,

rigidities in adaptation, feedback failures

Memory Storage and Recall Spotty and unreliable, selective learning

and application of lessons

10

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Effective policy requires vision, control, resources, and a system of accountability. The

most compelling challenge for the executive is to retain policy control. Since Presidents don’t

have the time and expertise to oversee policy making in detail (though Jimmy Carter tried),

they delegate responsibility. But “nobody is in charge” is an often-heard refrain of the

interagency process. By delegating responsibility, control becomes more diffused and the

policy effort diluted. Moreover, the quest for resources brings in another stakeholder.

Congress has the constitutional responsibility to scrutinize policy initiatives and vote monies

for foreign affairs and national defense. By then, a literal Pandora’s box of players and

expectations are opened. The numerous congressional committees and their staffs have

enormous impact on national security and foreign policy.

The President begins to mobilize his government immediately upon election. A transition

team works closely with the outgoing administration for the purpose of continuity. He begins

nominating his cabinet, which must then be confirmed by the Senate. Some 6,000

presidential level appointees will fill the subcabinet positions, staff the White House and the

National Security Council, take up ambassadorships (serving ambassadors traditionally

submit their resignation when the occupant of the White House changes), as well as second,

third, and fourth level positions in the executive departments. The purpose of these

nominations is to gain control and establish accountability to the President and his agenda.

In his first administration, Bill Clinton faced the impediment of never finishing staffing his

government.

Thus, there is a high turnover and the injection of new talent, at times inexperienced and

equipped with new predispositions about national security, at the top echelons of American

government every time the part that controls the White House changes. Continuity of

government resides in the nonpartisan professionals (neutral competence) of the federal civil

service, the diplomatic service, the military, and the intelligence community. The transition

to a new administration is a period of great anticipation about the direction of policy.

Consequently, the entire interagency produces transition papers to assist and inform the

newcomers, and to also protect the institutional interests of the various departments from

unfriendly encroachment.

The first months of a new administration are a period of learning. Newly appointed people

must familiarize themselves with the structure and process of policymaking. This necessity

invariably leads to a trial-and-error atmosphere. In anticipation of the passing of the mantle,

think tanks and the foreign policy and defense communities prepare for the transition by

writing papers recommending the rationale for policy. These will inform the new

administration about the central commitments of U.S. policy and provide opportunities for

departments and agencies to define institutional turf and stake a claim to resources. The

administration itself will also mandate policy reviews (Presidential Review Directives) that

eventually produce new guidance for policy.

Making speeches and declaring policy and doctrines is another way. The State of the

Union message is one of the preeminent sources of presidential activism that engages the

interagency. The Congressionally mandated National Security Strategy (NSS) document,

which bears the President’s signature and is supposed to be produced annually, is eagerly

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awaited, though not with equal intensity across departments, as an indicator of an

administration’s direction in national security and foreign policy.

The NSS is eagerly awaited for another reason; it is the best example of “purposeful

adaptation” by the American government to changing global realities and responsibilities. It

expresses strategic vision, what the United States stands for in the world, its priorities, and a

sensing of how the instruments of national power, the diplomatic, economic, and military will

be arrayed. Since it is truly an interagency product, the NSS also serves to provide direction

to the interagency system to understand the President’s agenda and priorities and develops a

common language that gives coherence to policy. It is also more than a strategic document. It

is political because it is designed to enhance presidential authority in order to mobilize the

nation. Finally, the NSS tends to document rather than drive policy initiatives, especially in

election years. (For further insights on these points, see Chapter 10.)

The first NSS in 1987 focused on the Soviet threat. The Bush Administration expanded it

by including more regional strategies, economic policy, arms control, and transnational

issues and the environment. The Clinton document of 1994 proposed “engagement and

enlargement,” promoting democracy, economic prosperity, and security through strength.

The 1995 version added criteria on when and how military forces would be used. By 1997, the

integrating concepts of “shape,” “prepare,” and “respond” for the national military strategy

came into prominence. To the core objectives of enhancing security, promoting prosperity and

democracy were added fighting terrorism, international crime and drug trafficking, along

with managing the international financial crisis. Homeland defense against the threat of

mass casualty attacks and regional strategies completed the agenda.

Another instrument is the Presidential Decision Directive process. Other administrations

have titled these documents differently, such as Bush’s National Security Decision Directive

(NSDD). The two Clinton administrations produced over 70 PDDs by mid 2000. Bush

produced 79 National Security Directives, Reagan 325 National Security Decision Directives,

Carter 63 Presidential Directives, Nixon-Ford 348 National Security Decision Memoranda,

and Kennedy-Johnson 372 National Security Action Memoranda. Each administration will

put its own stamp on national security and foreign policy, though there is great continuity

with previous administrations. Whereas Reagan emphasized restoring the preeminence of

American military power and rolling back the “evil empire,” Clinton focused on strengthening

the American economy, open trade, democratization, conflict resolution, humanitarian

assistance, fighting drug trafficking and consumption, counter-terrorism and

nonproliferation. The most famous Reagan NSDD was 75: “U.S. Relations with the USSR.”

11

PDDs are macro level documents, normally classified, that take much deliberate planning

to develop. They result from intensive interaction among the agencies. The process begins

with a Presidential Review Directive, which tasks the relevant agencies to develop a new

policy based on broad guidance. For example, Clinton’s PDD 14 for counter narcotics, the

“Andean Strategy” of November 1993, emphasized greater balance between supply and

demand strategies. PDD 25, “U.S. Policy on Reforming Multilateral Peace Operations” (May

1994), set down an elaborate set of guidelines for U.S. involvement in peace operations. It

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became so effective that the United Nations adopted it for planning its own peace operations,

an excellent example of the international transfer of American purposeful adaptation.

An instructive example is the Latin American policy PDD 21. Effective on December 27,

1993, it emphasized democracy promotion and free trade. It was addressed to more than

twenty departments and agencies: Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of the

Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of

Labor, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, United States Trade

Representative, Representative of the United States to the United Nations, Chief of Staff to

the President, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Director of Central

Intelligence, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, Assistant to the President for

National Economic Policy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Administrator of the Agency

for International Development, Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,

Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Director of the United States

Information Agency.

The point of listing departments and agencies is to identify the interagency stakeholders

in regional policy, though the size of the stake will vary greatly among them. The

stakeholders are related by functional interdependence; they have different resources,

personnel, and expertise that must be integrated for policy to be effective. It is an iron rule of

the interagency that no national security or international affairs issue can be resolved by one

agency alone. For example, the Department of Defense needs the diplomatic process that the

Department of State masters in order to deploy forces abroad, build coalitions, negotiate

solutions to conflict, conduct noncombatant evacuations (NEO) of American citizens caught

in difficult circumstances abroad, and administer security assistance. The Department of

State in turn depends on the logistical capabilities of Defense to deploy personnel and

materials abroad during crises, conduct coercive diplomacy, support military-to-military

contacts, and give substance to alliances and defense relationships. The Office of National

Drug Control Policy, a new cabinet position, must rely on a range of agencies to reduce the

supply abroad and consumption of drugs at home. Finally, all require intelligence input to

make sound decisions.

Ideally in response to the promulgation of a PDD, all agencies will energize their staffs and

develop the elements that shape the policy programs. But this takes time and seldom creates

optimum results, in part because of competing priorities on policy makers, limited time,

constrained resources, and congressional input. For example, with respect to Latin American

policy, the Haiti crisis of 1992-1994 and congressional passage of the North America Free

Trade Act would consume most of the kinetic energy of the Clinton Administration’s NSC

staff and the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs of the Department of State during 1993-94.

The Central American crisis of the 1980s crowded out the broader agenda for Latin American

policy.

In theory, once the policy elements are put together, they are costed out and submitted to

Congress for approval and funding, without which policy is merely words of hopeful

expectations. The reality, however, is that a PDD is not a permanent guide to the actions of

agencies. Rarely is it fully implemented. It can be overtaken by new priorities, new

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administrations, and by the departure of senior officials who had the stakes, the personal

relationships, know how, and institutional memory to make it work. A senior NSC staffer,

Navy Captain Joseph Bouchard, Director of Defense Policy and Arms Control, remarked in

1999 that one cannot be sure about whether a PDD from a previous administration is still in

force because for security reasons no consolidated list of these documents is maintained.

Moreover, PDDs and other presidential documents are removed to the presidential library

and the archives when a new President takes over. A senior Defense Department official

states that PDDs are rarely referred to after they are final, are usually overtaken by events

soon after publication, and are rarely updated. In this respect the interagency evaluation of

PDD 56’s effectiveness, published in May 1997, is instructive: “PDD 56 no longer has senior

level ownership. The Assistant Secretaries, Deputy Assistant Secretaries, and the NSC

officials who initiated the document have moved on to new positions.”

12

PDD 56: EPHEM ERAL OR PUR POSE FUL AD AP TA TION?

It is useful to examine PDD 56 as an example of an interagency product and as a tool

intended to influence the very process itself. PDDs normally deal with the external world of

foreign policy and national security. PDD 56 is radically different, for it goes beyond that and

attempts to generate a cultural revolution in the way the U.S. Government prepares and

organizes to deal with these issues. PDD 56, The Clinton Administration’s Policy on

Managing Complex Contingency Operations, is perhaps the mother of all modern PDDs. It is

a superb example of codifying lessons of “purposeful adaptation” after fitful efforts by

American civilian and military officials in the aftermath of problematic interventions in

Panama (1989-90), Somalia (1992-1994), and Haiti (1994-1995).

13

 The intent was to

institutionalize interagency coordination mechanisms and planning tools to achieve U.S.

Government unity of effort in complex contingency operations. It tried to institutionalize five

mechanisms and planning tools:

1. An Executive Committee chaired by the Deputies Committee (Assistant Secretaries)

2. An integrated, interagency Political-Military Implementation Plan

3. Interagency Rehearsal

4. Interagency After-Action Review

5. Training

The philosophy behind the document is that interagency planning can make or break an

operation. Moreover, early involvement in planning can accelerate contributions from

civilian agencies that are normally culturally impeded from strategic and operational

planning. An excellent Handbook for Interagency Management of Complex Contingency

Operations issued in August 1998, containing in easy digestible form much wisdom about how

to do it right. PDD 56 was applied extensively and adapted to new contingencies, such as

Eastern Slavonia, Bosnia, Hurricane Mitch in Central America, the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict

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since 1998, and the Kosovo contingency of 1998-99. The March 1999 review commented:

“PDD 56 is intended to be applied as an integrated package of complementary mechanisms

and tools...since its issuance in 1997, PDD 56 has not been applied as intended. Three major

issues must be addressed to improve the utility of PDD 56.” It recommended:

1. Greater authority and leadership to promote PDD 56

2. More flexible and less detailed political-military planning

3. Dedicated training resources and greater outreach

Imbedded in the three recommendations are the recurring problems of the interagency:

the need for decisive authority (“nobody’s in charge”), contrasting approaches and

institutional cultures (particularly diplomatic versus military) with respect to planning, and

the lack of incentives across the government to create professionals expert in interagency

work. PDD 56 is a noble effort to promote greater effectiveness. It may bear fruit if its

philosophy of integrated planning and outreach to the interagency takes root. In late 1999 the

PDD 56 planning requirement became an annex to contingency plans.

THE OP ER A TIONAL LEVEL OF THE IN TER AGENCY PRO CESS: AM BAS -

SA DORS AND RE GIONAL MIL I TARY COM MANDERS.

To this point we have discussed the national strategic level of the interagency process, that

is, what occurs in Washington. Actually, the interagency process spans three levels: the

national strategic, the operational, and the tactical. In the field, policy is implemented by

ambassadors and their country teams, often working with the regional unified commanders.

The embassy country team is a miniature replica of the Washington interagency system, with

which it is in constant communication. Within the country team, the rubber literally meets

the road of interagency implementation. The ambassador is responsible for all US

government programs in the country. Ambassadors and CINCs rely on each other to promote

policies that will enhance American interests in a country and region. CINCs have large

staffs and awesome resources compared to the small staffs and resources of ambassadors.

Moreover, their functions are different. The ambassador cultivates ties and is a conduit for

bilateral communications through the art of diplomatic discourse. He or she promotes

understanding of U.S. foreign policy, and promotes American culture and business, and is

responsible for American citizens in that country. By virtue of distance, both the ambassador

and CINC have a distinct advantage over the other actors within the Washington

interagency: greater cohesion of effort due to better control over their staffs and the policy

agenda. They also share a compelling interest: they are partners in fashioning the web of

relations of America’s defense diplomacy among the nations within their purview.

The ambassador is the President’s personal emissary. The President writes a letter of

instruction that charges the ambassador “to exercise full responsibility for the direction,

coordination, and supervision of all executive branch officers in (name of country), except for

personnel under the command of a U.S. area military commander....” There is enough

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ambiguity in the mandate to require both ambassador and CINC to use common sense and, in

a nonbureaucratic way, work out issues of command and control over U.S. military personnel

in the country. In effect control is shared, the ambassador having policy control and the CINC

control over day-to-day operations, though even here the Ambassador exercises oversight.

Thus, it is prudent that both cooperate to ensure that military operations meet the objectives

of U.S. policy.

This is particularly the case in military operations other than war. Before and during noncombatant evacuation operations (NEO), peace operations, exercises, disaster relief and

humanitarian assistance, such cooperation will be imperative because of the different mixes

of diplomacy, forces, and preparation required. A successful U.S. policy effort requires a

carefully calibrated combination of diplomatic and military pressure, with economic

inducements added. The security assistance officer at the embassy (usually the commander

of the military advisory group) can facilitate communication and bridge the policy and

operational distance between the ambassador and the CINC. So can State’s Political Advisor

to the CINC, a senior foreign service officer whose function is to provide the diplomatic and

foreign policy perspective on military operations.

14

 The personal and professional

relationship between the Political Advisor and the CINC is the key to success.

The CINC represents the coercive capacity of American power through a chain of

command that goes to the President. He and his sizable staff command operational tempo,

deployments, readiness, exercises, and training of divisions, brigades, fleets, and air

wings—resources, language, and culture that complementary the art of statecraft. Since all

military activities have diplomatic impact, it is prudent that both work harmoniously to

achieve common purpose. The Commander of the Military Advisory Group (also called

Military Liaison Office, Office of Defense Coordination) is the military representative on the

country team and a conduit between the ambassador and the CINC.

The relationship between the ambassador and the CINC will change in wartime. As the

environment transitions to war the CINC assumes greater authority and influence. Haiti

1994 is an excellent example of how the handoff from ambassador to CINC takes place. The

American ambassador in Port-au-Prince, William Swing, was in charge of U.S. policy until

General Hugh Shelton and the U.S. military forces arrived in September of that year. Once

the military phase was completed, policy control reverted to Swing, thus restoring the normal

pattern. Thus there is an interruption of ambassadorial authority under some circumstances

followed by return to the status quo ante. In the gray area of operations other than war or in

what is called an “immature” military theater, such as Latin America, disputes can arise

between ambassadors and CINCs about jurisdiction over U.S. military personnel in the

country. The most illustrative was in 1994 between the CINC of the U.S. Southern

Command, General Barry McCaffrey, and the U.S. Ambassadors to Bolivia, Charles R.

Bowers, and Colombia, Morris D. Busby. The dispute had to be adjudicated in Washington by

the Secretaries of State and Defense.

15

 The fact is that ambassador and CINC must work

closely together to coordinate U.S. military activities. There is another distinction: CINCs

have a regional perspective, strategies, and programs while ambassadors are intensely

focused on advancing the interests of the United States in one country.

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The tensions generated by cultural differences and jealousy over turf will always be part of

the interagency process. The diplomatic and the military cultures dominate the national

security system, though there are other cultures and even subcultures. The former uses

words to solve problems while the latter uses force. Cultural differences are large but

121

THE CONTINUING PROBLEMS OF THE INTERAGENCY PROCESS

Comparing Military Officers and Foreign Service Officers

Military Officers Foreign Service Officers

Mission: prepare for and fight war Mission: conduct diplomacy

Training a major activity, important for units and

individuals

Training not a high priority. Not important either for units

or individuals

Extensive training for episodic, undesired events

Little formal training, learning by experience in doing

desired activities (negotiating, reporting)

Uncomfortable with ambiguity Can deal with ambiguity

Plans and planning—both general and detailed—are

important core activities

Plan in general terms to achieve objectives but value

flexibility and innovation

Doctrine: important Doctrine: not important

Focused on military element of foreign policy Focused on all aspects of foreign policy

Focused on discrete events and activities with plans,

objectives, courses of action, endstates

Focused on on-going processes without expectation of an

“endstate”

Infrequent real-world contact with opponents or partners

in active war fighting

Day-to-day real-world contact with partners and opponents

in active diplomacy

Officer corps commands significant numbers of NCOs

and enlisted personnel

Officers supervise only other officers in core (political and

economic) activities, but larger numbers of foreign

nationals

NCOs and enlisted personnel perform many core

functions (war fighting)

Only officers engage in core activity (diplomacy)

Leadership: career professional military officers (with

the military services and in operations)

Leadership: a mix of political appointees and career

Foreign Service professionals at headquarters and in field

All aspects of peace operations, including

civilian/diplomatic, becoming more important

All aspects of peace operations, including military,

becoming more important

Writing and written word less important, physical

actions more important

Writing and written word very important. Used

extensively in conduct of diplomacy

Teamwork and management skills are rewarded,

interpersonal skills important internally

Individual achievement and innovative ideas rewarded,

inter-personal skills important externally

Understand “humma-humma” and “deconflict” Understand “démarches” and non-paper”

Accustomed to large resources, manpower, equipment,

and money

Focus meager resources on essential needs

Adapted from Robert Johnson, Foreign Service Officer, “Teaching Notes,” Department of National

Security and Strategy, U.S. Army War College, 1998.
communicating across them is imperative.

17

 The table on the previous page compares the

cultures of military officers and diplomats.

The principal problem of interagency decision making is lack of decisive authority; there is

no one in charge. As long as personalities are involved who work well together and have

leadership support in the NSC, interagency efforts will prosper, but such congruence is not

predictable. The world situation does not wait for the proper alignment of the planets in

Washington. There is too much diffusion of policy control. It is time to implement and

NSC-centric national security system, with appropriate adjustments that align budget

authority with policy responsibility. It would consolidate in the NSC the functions now

performed by the Policy Planning Staff at State and the strategic planning done at Defense.

Such reorganization recognizes the reality that the White House is where an integrated

approach to national security planning must take place.

Asymmetries in resources are another impediment. The Department of State, which has

the responsibility to conduct foreign affairs, is a veritable pauper. Its diplomats may have the

best words in town, in terms of speaking and writing skills, and superb knowledge of foreign

countries and foreign affairs, but it is a very small organization that has been getting smaller

budget allocations from Congress. The corps of Foreign Service officers of nearly 5,000

equates to an Army brigade (3,600) plus. The Department of State’s technology is primitive

and officer professional development of the kind that the military does is not promoted.

Moreover, unlike the military, State lacks a strong domestic constituency of support. The

military has more money to conduct diplomacy.

18

The resource barons, those with people, money, technical expertise, and equipment reside

in DOD and the military services. Consequently, the military, especially the Army, is

constantly being asked to provide resources out of hide for nation-building purposes, for

example in Haiti and Panama. It is tempting to reach out to it because it is the only

institution with an expeditionary capability, and fungible resources and expertise. It can get

there quickly, show the flag, bring significant resources to bear, stabilize a situation, and

create an environment secure enough for other agencies to operate. On a much smaller scale

the Agency for International Development is a baron, because it has money and technical

expertise to promote development and institution building. Other baronies exist, such as

intelligence, Department of Justice, Commerce, and the Office of National Drug Control

Policy.

Finally, the personnel systems of the various agencies of the U.S. Government do not

promote professionalization and rewards in interagency jobs. What is needed is a systematic

effort to develop civilian and military cadres that are experts in interagency policy

coordination, integration, and operations. Some of this takes place. Military officers are

assigned to various departments. For example, 35 officers from all services work in the

regional and functional bureaus of the Department of State. Diplomats are also allocated to

military and civilian agencies, such as Political Advisors at the regional unified commands,

the Special Operations Command, to peacekeeping and humanitarian missions, various key

positions in the Pentagon, and the war colleges. These programs must be expanded. There

ought to be incentives for national security professionalism, as there are for service and joint.

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For civilians, something akin to the Goldwater-Nichols Act for jointness in the military is

needed to include the Department of State. Promotions should be based not only on

performance at Foggy Bottom and in Embassies abroad, but on mandatory interagency tours

as well. Similarly professional development incentives should apply to civil servants that

work in the national security arena.

Admittedly, mandatory interagency tours would require significant changes in personnel

systems and career tracking. The Report of the National Defense Panel of 1997,

Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21

st

 Century, recommended creating “an

interagency cadre of professionals, including civilian and military officers, whose purpose

would be to staff key positions in the national security structures.

19

 This would build on the

jointness envisioned by the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act. The Report also recommended a

national security curriculum for a mix of civilian, military, and foreign students. The Defense

Leadership and Management Program of the Department of Defense, a Master’s level

initiative in national security studies for civilian personnel, is an important step in this

direction.

IM PLI CA TIONS FOR THE MIL I TARY PRO FES SIONAL.

There are critical implications for the military warrior. The nature of future warfare is

likely to be more operations other than war, requiring more mobile, flexible light forces.

Future war will also require a more intellectual military officer, one who understands the

imperative of having to work with the panoply of civilian agencies, nongovernment

organizations, the national and international media, and with foreign armed forces. It is a

commonplace of strategy that American forces will rarely fight alone again; they will do so in

coalition. Thus, the strategic Clausewitzian trinity of the people, the armed forces, and the

government now encompasses the global community. The implications are clear; the military

officer will have to develop greater diplomatic and negotiating skills, greater understanding

of international affairs, capability in foreign languages, and more than a passing

acquaintance with economics.

Moreover, the warrior will likely work with civilian counterparts across a spectrum of

activities short of war. These include: strategic planning and budgeting, humanitarian

assistance, peace operations, counter narcotics, counter terrorism, security assistance,

environmental security, human rights, democratization, civil-military relations, arms

control, intelligence, war planning and termination strategy, command and control of forces,

continuity of government, post-conflict reconstruction, technology transfer, crisis

management, overseas basing, alliances, noncombatant evacuation operations, and

homeland defense.

Therefore, the future officer will also need greater appreciation of the institutional

diversity and complexity of government, because of the need to advise a diversity of civilians

on the utility of military power in complex contingencies that are neither peace nor war, as

Americans are accustomed to think of them. He or she will have to work in tandem with

civilian agencies and nongovernmental organizations unaccustomed to command systems

123
and deliberate planning, and who often do not understand the limits of military power.

20

Lastly, instruction on the interagency system and process should be mandatory for civilians

and military alike. It must have a sound theoretical foundation in national security

decisionmaking, strategic planning, and organizational behavior, expanded by sophisticated

case studies of relevant historical experiences.

What attributes should the military officer bring? Above all, holistic thinking, the ability

to think in terms of all the instruments of national power and respect for the functions and

cultures of diverse departments and agencies. Communication skills are paramount. The

effective interagency player writes and speaks well. He or she will be bilingual, able to

function in military as well as civilian English. Bureaucratic jargon is the enemy of

interagency communication. The military briefing, an excellent vehicle for quickly

transmitting a lot of information in formatted style, is less appreciated by other cultures. One

must be less conscious of rank because ranks will vary among the representative around a

table. Some one of lower rank may be in charge of a meeting. A sense of humor, patience,

endurance, and tolerance for ambiguity and indecisiveness will help. The ability to “stay in

your box” and articulate the perspective of your department will be respected, though the

temptation to poach on other domains will be there. The ability to anticipate issues, to

consider the second and third order effects from the national level down to the country team

and theater levels, will be invaluable. Finally, the interagency requires diplomatic and

negotiating skills, the ability to network, and mastery of the nuances of bureaucratic politics

and language.

21

The most evolved democracy in the world has the most cumbersome national security

decision-making process. Inefficiency is the price the founding fathers imposed for

democratic accountability. But some of the inefficiency is the result of American strategic

culture, with its multiplicity of players, plentiful but diffused resources, and the propensity to

segment peace and diplomacy from war and military power. Major structural changes must

be made in the interagency system in order to harness human talent and resources

intelligently. It is time to move away from one for 1947 to one for the next century.

ENDNOTES - CHAP TER 9

1. Chas. W. Freeman, Jr. , Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy, Washington: United States Institute of

Peace Press, 1997, p. 3.

2. General Henry H. Shelton, “Force, Diplomacy and National Security: Managing Complex Contingencies 

in a Complex World,” Address to the Secretary of State’s Open Forum, Washington, D.C., June 15, 2000.

3. John P. Lovell, The Challenge of American Foreign Policy: Purpose and Adaptation, New York: Collier

MacMillan, 1985, p. 7.

4. A 1987 report of the National Academy of Public Administration noted: “...the institutional memory of the

United States Government for important national security affairs was worse than that of any other major world

power and had resulted in mistakes and embarrassments in the past which would be bound to recur.”

Strengthening U.S. Government Communications: Report of the National Academy of Public Administration,

Washington, D.S., 1987, p. 227, cited in Margaret Jane Wyszomirski, “Institutional Memory: Improving the

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National Security Advisory Process,” in James Gaston, editor, Grand Strategy and the Decisionmaking Process,

Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 1991, p. 194.

5. Anthony Lake, I.M. Destler, and Leslie Gelb, Our Own Worst Enemy: The Unmaking of American Foreign

Policy, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985.

6. Anthony Lake, Somoza Falling: The Nicaraguan Dilemma, A Portrait of Washington At Work, Boston:

Houghton Mifflin, 1989, p. 32.

7. Lake, p. 114.

8. Robert Pastor, Condemned to Repetition: The United States and Nicaragua, Princeton University Press,

1987, p. 81.

9. Hedrick Smith, The Power Game: How Washington Works, New York: Random House, 1988.

10. Adapted from Lovell, p. 32.

11. The document has been declassified and is now available with commentary by Norman A. Bailey, “The

Strategic Plan that Won the Cold War: National Security Directive 75,” McLean, Virginia: The Potomac

Foundation, 1999. PDDs and their ancestors are available from the National Archives and the respective

Presidential libraries, as well as on line at <http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd/index.html>.

12. Institute of National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, “Improving the Utility of

Presidential Decision Directive 56: A Plan of Action for the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Washington, D.C.: National

Defense University, March 1999, p. 16.

13. For an excellent analysis of lessons learned and prudent policy recommendations from recent U.S.

military interventions, see: John T. Fishel, Civil-Military Operations in the New World, New York: Praeger,

1997; Fishel,The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama, Carlisle Barracks: Strategic

Studies Institute, April 15, 1992. A penetrating analysis of the operational and tactical dimensions of the

interagency process, particularly as they apply to the U.S. Army at the operational and tactical levels, is:

Jennifer Taw Morrison, Interagency Coordination in Military Operations Other than War: Implications for the

U.S. Army, Santa Monica: RAND Arrovo Center, 1997.

14. Excellent advice on how the ambassador and the regional unified commander should work together is

found in: Ted Russell. “The Role of the Ambassador, the Country Team, and Their Relations with Regional

Commanders,” in U.S. Army War College, Course Directive: Regional Strategic Appraisals, AY 97, Carlisle

Barracks, PA, 1997, pp. C1-C9. A Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of State and the

Department of Defense covers the function of the Political Advisor. The MOU “recognizes the valuable role

POLADs render to the Department of Defense and the Department of State in assessing the political

implications of military planning and strategy and in serving as the principal source of counsel on international

issues to their respective Commanders-in-Chief...the deep level of commitment and cooperation acknowledged

by the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense in executing foreign and security policy established by the

President.” For information on the growing role of regional commanders as military diplomats see the series by

Dana Priest: “A Four –Star Foreign Policy?,” “An Engagement in 10 Time Zones,” and “ Standing Up to State

and Congress,” Washington Post, respectively September 28, 2000, p. A1; September 29, 2000, p. A1; September

30, 2000, p. A1.

15. For specifics, see the telegrams: 061358Z June 1994 from USCINCSOUTH, 082221Z June 1994 from

Embassy La Paz, 092106Z June 1994 from Embassy Bogota, 142345Z June 1994 from USCINCSOUTH, and

152152Z January 1997 from the Department of State.

16. The classic study of the role of culture and turf in government is James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What

Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It, New York: Harper Collins, 1989. Pertinent are the excellent

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studies: George T. Raach and Ilana Kass, “National Power and the Interagency Process,” Joint Forces Quarterly, 

Summer 1995, pp. 8-13; Douglas A. Hartwick, “The Culture at State, the Services, and Military Operations:

Bridging the Communication Gap,” Washington, D.C.; National War College, April 12, 1984; Rosemary Hansen

and Rick Rife, “Defense is from Mars and State is from Venus: Improving Communications and Promoting

National Security,” Palo Alto: Stanford University, May 1998. Other impediments to sound decision making

are: groupthink, information overload, insufficient information, lack of time, faulty analogy, insufficient

analysis of options, and the personal predispositions of the decision makers. The interaction of these factors is

explored in the writings of Irving L. Janis, Alexander George, and Graham Allison.

17. Resource problems seriously diminish the quality of American diplomacy. For more information see:

Peter Galbraith, “Reinventing Diplomacy Again,” Foreign Service Journal, February 1999, pp. 20-28; Jane

Perlez, “As Diplomacy Loses Luster, Young Stars Flee State Dept.,” New York Times, September 5, 2000

(nytimes.com/library/world/global/090500us-statedept.html); Richard. N. Gardner, “The One Percent Solution:

Shirking the Cost of World Leadership,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 4 (July-August 2000), pp. 2-11.

18. National Defense Panel, Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21

st

 Century, Arlington,

Virginia: 1997, p. 66.

19. There are indications that even the Department of State, the first among equals of the executive

departments, is beginning to understand the value of strategic planning. See: Secretary’s Office of Resources,

Plans, and Policy, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of State Strategic Plan, Washington, D.C.,

September 2000. Excellent advice on how military culture should interact with the culture of nongovernmental

organizations during humanitarian relief operations, peacekeeping, and stability operations is: Judith Stiehm,

“The Challenge of Civil-Military Cooperation in Peacekeeping,” Airman-Scholar, Vol. IV, No.1 (Winter 1998),

pp. 26-35.

20. Military officers contemplating assignment to the Pentagon or civilians wishing to understand how to

work with counterparts there should read the advice in: Perry Smith, Assignment Pentagon: The Insider’s Guide

to the Potomac Puzzle Palace, second edition, revised, Washington: Brassey’s, 1992.

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CHAP TER 10

THE NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY: 

DOCUMENTING STRATEGIC VISION

Don M. Snider

John A. Nagl

IN TRO DUC TION.

SEC. 603. ANNUAL REPORT ON NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY

. . . Sec. 104. (a)(1) The President shall transmit to Congress each year a comprehensive

report on the national security strategy of the United States ...

(2) The national security strategy report for any year shall be transmitted on the date on

which the President submits to Congress the budget for the next fiscal year under section

1105 of Title 31, United States Code.

(b) Each national security strategy report shall set forth the national security strategy of

the United States and shall include a comprehensive description and discussion of the

following:

(1) The worldwide interests, goals, and objectives of the United States that are vital to the

national security of the United States.

(2) The foreign policy, worldwide commitments, and national defense capabilities of the

United States necessary to deter aggression and to implement the national security strategy

of the United States.

(3) The proposed short-term and long-term uses of the political, economic, military, and

other elements of national power of the United States to protect or promote the interests and

achieve the goals and objectives referred to in paragraph (1).

(4) The adequacy of the capabilities of the United States to carry out the national security

strategy of the United States, including an evaluation of the balance among the capabilities of

all elements of national power of the United States to support the implementation of the

national security strategy.

(5) Such other measures as may be helpful to inform Congress on matters relating to the

national security strategy of the United States.
(c) Each national security strategy report shall be transmitted in both a classified and an

unclassified form.

1

By the above language, a small section of a much larger reform package known as the

Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, the Congress

amended the National Security Act of 1947 to require annually a written articulation of grand

strategy from each succeeding President. In so doing, Congress was attempting to legislate a

solution to what it, and many observers, believed to be a legitimate and significant problem of

long standing in our governmental processes. The Executive Branch has more often than not

failed to formulate, in an integrated and coherent manner judiciously using resources drawn

from all elements of national power, a mid- and long-term strategy necessary to defend and

further those interests vital to the nation’s security.

Few in the Congress at that time doubted that there existed a grand strategy. The nation

had been following “containment” in one form or another for over 40 years. What they

doubted, or disagreed with, was its focus in terms of values, interests and objectives; its

coherence in terms of relating means to ends; its integration in terms of the elements of power;

and its time horizon. In theory, at least to the reformers, a clearly written strategy would

serve to inform the Congress better on the needs for resources to execute the strategy, thus

facilitating the annual authorization and appropriation processes, particularly for the

Department of Defense.

There have now been several such reports published. In this essay we will review eight of

them: two from the second Reagan administration (1987 and 1988), three from the Bush

administration (1990, 1991 and 1993), and three from the two Clinton administrations (1994,

1997, 1998).

This monograph, co-authored by the individual responsible for the preparation of the 1988

report, in cooperation with the officials responsible for drafting the 1990, 1991, 1993, and

1994 reports,

2

 and by a military scholar who has both executed the strategy and taught it to

future generations of officers, draws on their experiences to provide insights into the process

as well as the individual products.

THE PO LIT I CAL CON TEXT.

Before discussing the individual reports, we must understand the larger context in which

these reports are produced, beyond that in the National Security Council and its staff where

they are initially drafted and ultimately approved. First, it should be understood that the

requirement for the report did not originate solely, or even mainly, from within the Congress.

In fact, the Congress was, at the time of the Goldwater-Nichols legislation, much more

interested in reforming the Department of Defense; what was reformed east of the Potomac

was of much less interest.

3

Like most pieces of legislation, the idea for a Presidential statement of grand strategy had

been percolating for several years in many locations—in think tanks, from public-minded

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citizens, from former government officials, from professional associations, from the academic

literature, and from specific interest groups formed for the express purpose of fostering the

requirement for such a report. As expected from an open, pluralistic process, each proponent

had its own purposes for desiring such a statement, resulting in differing expectations of what

the structure, content and use of the final report would be. In retrospect, it is clear that

inclusion of the requirement for such a report in the final Goldwater-Nichols bill followed one

of the better known maxims of the policy community— “if we can agree on what we want, let’s

not try to agree on why we want it.”

Secondly, in this particular topic there is always the issue of imprecise language. Just

what is national security strategy, as opposed to grand strategy, or defense strategy, or even

national military strategy? And what are the distinguishable elements of power of the United

States, and the boundaries between them? How can national security strategy subsume

foreign policy as the Act seems to imply by its language? Obviously, there was, and is, no real

consensus on this language either in academia, where the public servants in Washington

earlier took their training, or in Washington where they practice their arts.

But, as we all know, language does make a difference, particularly within the Executive

Branch where authorities and responsibilities represent power. Even more so, within the

interagency arena, where responsibilities for the preparation for this particular report are

viewed as direct access to the President’s overall agenda, and thus highly desirable, there

initially exists little consensus as to the components of a national security strategy and what

represents coherence. This imprecision in the language of the strategic art compounds the

problem even among those who want a quality product.

The flip side of this positive, “I want to be part of the process,” view is the recognition

within the Executive Branch that this is not the only, or the principal, or even the most

desirable means for the President to articulate publicly his strategic vision. What President

in a fast-paced, media-oriented world wants to articulate once a year, in a static, written

report a detailed statement of his forward-looking strategic vision? If ever there is a surefire

means of insuring that one’s boss will be “hoisted on his own petard,” this is it to many of the

President’s closest political advisors. To influence public opinion and resource allocations it is

considered far better to depend on current, personal testimonies by administration officials

before the Congress, supported by Presidential and cabinet-level media interventions, to

create a coherent and wide-spread campaign of public diplomacy to the electorate of America.

Unfortunately, this view relegates the content of the National Security Strategy Report

(NSSR) to mushy “globaloney” to be fed to Congress.

We must also provide, for context, a feel for the political atmosphere within which the 1987

and 1988 reports were prepared. Dr. Snider’s tenure on the staff of the National Security

Council began just after the Iran-Contra fiasco and during the implementation of the Tower

Commission recommendations.

4

 To say that White House/congressional relations were at

absolute gridlock would be true, but would also vastly understate the passionate hostile

intensity and hyper-legalistic approach being taken by both sides on most every item of the

mutual agenda. Whether it be war powers, strategic modernization, strategic defenses, or
regional foreign and defense policies, there was a pervasive modus vivendi of little quarter

being asked, and only rarely any given.

During the Bush administration the atmosphere improved significantly for the first two

years, but thereafter “gridlock” again prevailed. Similarly, after the first year of the Clinton

administration relations between the Executive and Congress deteriorated appreciably,

particularly on matters of foreign policy; the spirit of cooperation between the legislative and

executive branches was not fostered by the impeachment proceedings of 1999. Thus in every

case the operating atmosphere in which the strategy report was prepared was one of intense,

adversarial politics. It was clear from the beginning of each cycle that this report was not to be

a neutral planning document as many academics and even some in uniform think it to be.

Rather it was, and still is in our judgement, intended to serve five primary purposes.

First, the central, external purpose of the report beyond the Executive Branch is to

communicate strategic vision to Congress, and thus legitimize a rationale for the allocation of

resources. The stated intent of the Goldwater-Nichols legislation is broadly accepted as valid

for effective political discourse on issues affecting the nation’s security; the Congress and the

Executive need a common understanding of the strategic environment and the

administration’s intent as a starting point for future dialogue. That said, however, it is

understood that in the adversarial environment that prevails, this report can only provide a

beginning point for the dialogue necessary to reach such a “common” understanding.

The second purpose is to communicate the same vision to a number of other quite different

constituencies. Many of these are foreign, and extensive distributions through the United

States Information Agency have proven most effective at communicating changing U.S.

intentions to the governments of many nations not on our summit agendas.

The third purpose is to communicate to selected domestic audiences, often political

supporters of the President who want to see their particular issue prominently displayed

under Presidential signature. Others, less political and more public-minded, want to see

coherence and farsightedness in the security policies of their government: a strategy they

could, as citizens, fully support.

Fourth, there is the internal constituency of those in the Executive Branch to whom the

process of creating the document is recognized to be of immense substantive value. This is so

because the process of creating the report also creates internal consensus on foreign and

defense policies. This point cannot be overemphasized. Every new and second-term

administration faces this challenge as it transitions from campaign to governance,

particularly if foreign policy has not been a major issue in the campaign. The fact is, it is

simply impossible to document a strategy where none exists! Few things educate new political

appointees faster as to their own strategic sensings or to the qualities and competencies of the

“permanent” government they lead within executive bureaucracies, than to have to commit in

writing to the President their plans for the future and how they can be integrated, coordinated

and otherwise shared with other agencies and departments. The ability to forge consensus

among these competing views on direction, priorities and pace, and getting “on board”

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important players three political levels down from the President is recognized as an

invaluable, if not totally daunting, opportunity for a new or re-newed administration.

5

And lastly, any Presidential document, regardless of originating requirement, always

must be viewed in the context of how it contributes, both in terms of substance and

presentation, to the overall agenda of the President. Unfortunately, Congress unwittingly

insured that the document would usually be submitted in a low-profile manner since it is

required early in January with the budget submission—just before one of the President’s

premier communication events of the year, the State of the Union address. Well coordinated,

the two activities can be mutually supportive, but more normal to date is, appropriately, the

dominance of the State of the Union address.

Thus, with these five purposes in mind, all legitimate and necessary but understood to

require difficult trade-offs in their completion, someone on the NSC staff sets out in the name

of the President to task the Cabinet officials and their strategy-minded deputies to articulate

the preferred national security strategy for the United States. What follows is an iterative,

interagency process of some months (or years in the case of the Clinton administration),

culminating in multiple drafts and several high level meetings, including the NSC, to resolve

differences and ultimately approve the final document.

THE 1987 AND 1988 NA TIONAL SE CU RITY STRAT EGY RE PORTS.

Since the Goldwater-Nichols legislation was approved late in 1986, the 1987 report was

prepared in a very limited period of time and reflected the intent to document only current

strategic thinking. In its two major sections, one each on foreign policy and defense policy, the

document reflected the Reagan administration’s strong orientation toward Cabinet

government and a strong emphasis on military instruments of power, almost to the exclusion

of the others. Taken as a whole, of course, the document portrayed a comprehensive strategic

approach toward the Soviet Union. The section on integrating elements of power referred to

the “NSC system” as the integrator, rather than documenting current strategies toward

regions or subregions. The NSC system in the Reagan administrations had produced by then

over 250 classified national security decision directives (NSDD). It was believed that these

represented at any point a set of substrategies “effective in promoting the integrated

employment of the broad and diverse range of tools available for achieving our national

security objectives.”

6

Two major changes from the 1987 strategy were introduced in the 1988 report. With the

twin deficits of the federal budget and the balance of trade prominent on the political agenda

the first change was to emphasize all the elements of national power in an integrated

strategy, particularly the economic element which scarcely had been discussed in the

previous report. This logically led to the second adjustment, which was to present separate

strategies for each region while integrating the various instruments of power. Both efforts

probably rate an “A” for idea and effort, and no more than a “C” for results as seen on the

printed page or implemented by the administration. Behind the printed page, however, we

are confident that those who participated in this interagency process were subsequently
much more inclined to appreciate and to seek the use of integrated policy instruments toward

the resolution of U.S. security challenges in a region or subregion.

THE 1990 NA TIONAL SE CU RITY STRAT EGY RE PORT.

The 1990 report was prepared in a vortex of global change. The Bush administration

began with a detailed interagency review of security strategy in the spring of 1989. This

effort—and the natural turbulence of a new administration shaking out its personnel and

procedures, notably the Tower nomination—had pushed the preparation of the 1989 report

into the early fall. Then events in Eastern Europe promptly made sections of the report, as

well as the underlying policy, obsolete. The original Goldwater-Nichols legislation had

implicitly assumed a fairly steady state in the international environment, with the annual

report articulating incremental changes to both perceptions of and responses to that

environment. The pace of change throughout the last half of 1989 pushed the publication of

the next report into March 1990.

In content the 1990 report attempted to embrace fully the reality of change in the Soviet

Union and, especially, in Eastern Europe. The response to that change as discussed in the

report, however, was admittedly cautious. At least one critic described the document as

schizophrenic, with the reading of the environment in the front at significant variance with

the prescribed response in the back. This demonstrates once again how much easier it is in a

rather open, pluralistic process to gain consensus on what is being observed, as opposed to

how the nation should respond to that observed change. The process in 1989-90 did show,

however, the potential of the statutory requirement for a documented strategy to force public

assessments of events and developments that might otherwise have been avoided, either

because of their difficulty or their political sensitivity.

THE 1991 NA TIONAL SE CU RITY STRAT EGY RE PORT.

The quickening pace of world change-and a deepening crisis leading, ultimately, to war in

the Middle East—served again to delay the 1991 report. Key decision makers focused on

multiple, demanding developments. After August 2nd at least, the foreground of their view

was filled with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, coalition building and military actions. In the

background, and occasionally intruding to the fore, were fundamental changes in the

U.S.-Soviet relationship, major treaties on strategic and conventional weaponry, and the

final dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. There was little room in anyone’s focus, particularly

within the NSC staff, to develop, coordinate and publish a comprehensive and definitive

Presidential statement of strategy. Although its major elements had been drafted by

February, the 1991 report was not published until August.

Like its predecessors, events forced the focus of the 1991 report to the U.S.-Soviet

relationship as the departure point for any discussion of future American strategy. More than

preceding reports, however, this one attempted to broaden the definition of national security.

In purely military terms, it proclaimed regional conflict as the organizing focus for American

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military capabilities, and suggested that new terms of reference for nuclear deterrence would

shortly be needed. Politically, it attempted to turn the compass on arms control from

east-west to north-south for a much expanded discussion of policy to retard proliferation.

Even more than the previous reports, the document attempted to communicate the idea that

American economic well-being was included in the definition of national security, even

though discussions of specific programs to improve competitiveness or to combat trade and

budget deficits were generally lacking.

THE 1993 NA TIONAL SE CU RITY STRAT EGY RE PORT.

The last of the three strategy reports of the Bush administration was published in

January 1993, just before the inauguration of President-elect Bill Clinton. A draft had been

prepared in early 1992, but several summits and the press of the unsuccessful 1992 campaign

precluded its completion. Another contributing factor was the content of that campaign,

which focused almost exclusively on the domestic economy, obviating the political usefulness

of a new statement of security strategy.

Unlike the previous reports in both the Reagan and Bush administrations, this one was

intended quite clearly to document the accomplishments of the past rather than to point to

the way ahead. The Republicans were leaving the White House after 12 years of stewardship

of the nation’s foreign and defense policies, including in their minds a remarkably successful

conclusion to, and transition out of, the Cold War. As the titles of two of the report’s sections

attest—“Security through Strength: Legacy and Mandate,” and “The World as It Can Be, If

We Lead and Attempt to Shape It as Only America Can”—they wanted to document their

accomplishments in strategic terms, as well as to put down markers by which the Clinton

administration’s foreign policy could be judged.

In terms of strategic content, however, there was little change between this report and the

1991 version. Both emphasize a steady, deliberate transition from a grand strategy of

containment to one of “collective engagement” on a regional basis. Militarily, both contain the

same defense strategy of four pillars as developed earlier by the Cheney-Powell team.

7

 What

differences exist can be found in the 1993 report’s heavy emphasis on a broad goal of

“democratic peace” and the absolute necessity of American leadership in attaining it, even if

only to a limited degree, in a world of increasing interdependencies.

THE CLINTON AD MIN IS TRA TION.

In June 1994, the Clinton administration published its first NSSR containing that

administration’s strategy of “engagement and enlargement.” A number of reasons were

offered as to why it was a year and a half into the first term before a comprehensive statement

of strategy was finished: “the President was elected to focus on, and is focusing on, difficult

and time-consuming issues of domestic policy”; “it has taken longer than anticipated to

recruit political appointees such that the government ‘reflects America’”; “we have announced
our strategy through a series of speeches, and will get to the congressional report later”; and

so forth.

In fact, the lack of a published strategy reflected the lack of an initial consensus within the

administration, and the difficulty that caused in formulating a new grand strategy. This is

not to imply that the administration, or at least parts of it, had not given much thought and

discussion to various aspects of an overall security strategy—the report of the Department of

Defense’s Bottom-Up Review documenting one such effort.

8

 But, by one official’s personal

count, the first Clinton NSSR went through 21 drafts between early 1993 and publication in

July 1994. The odyssey of the drafts portrays a lack of guidance and attention, shifting

priorities among too many goals, a series of bureaucratic battles between the principal

protagonists—the Departments of Defense and State-several restarts, and constant

intrusions from the realities of foreign affairs beyond the anticipation of the administration.

This portrayal is, however, superficial in many ways. There are more fundamental

reasons for the lengthy and arduous process through which the Clinton administration

persevered to produce its view of the world and America’s role in it. First, it took a long time

for the administration to settle on a set of principles from which to design and implement a

consistent foreign policy. Second, the process by which they set about formulating their

strategy was, to say the least, undisciplined.

The Clinton administration created a national security structure within the Executive

Branch that provided each major point of view on security policy an institutional power base

just short of the President, with no other office capable of integrating them. The important

viewpoints and their organizational bases were particularly relevant to crisis management

but also applicable to formulating strategy for a NSSR. They were: the military options for

security and stability in the Department of Defense; bilateral relations and transnational

issues with a regional focus in the Department of State and on the White House staff;

considerations of economic security, particularly as they influence the domestic economy, in

the new National Economic Council supported by very strong Treasury and Commerce

Departments and the U.S. Trade Representative; and issues of environmental security in the

Office of the Vice President. When working as the National Security Council, opinions of

cabinet-level representatives of this structure could only be melded together by the President

himself, not by the National Security Advisor or the White House Chief of Staff.

9

Finally, there was the political situation of the President, who won only 43 percent of the

popular vote running as a “New Democrat” in 1992. In addition to dealing with a Republican

majority in Congress, he had to create consensus within the Democratic party, since he was

largely opposed in a unified manner by the Republicans except on issues of international

trade. After the first six months, and particularly after the congressionally mandated

withdrawal from Somalia and the subsequent dismissal of his Secretary of Defense, the

President’s foreign policy record also became a major issue for his opponents. This was even

more so in June and July 1994 when the President’s polls on foreign policy were the worst

ever, showing no boost whatsoever for his participation in the G-7 summit and his subsequent

European tour. The concern of one White House staffer was revealing: “To publish a detailed

report of national security strategy now would just provide chum for the sharks.”

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THE 1994 NA TIONAL SE CU RITY STRAT EGY RE PORT.

This turned out, however, not to be the case. As published, the 1994 Clinton National

Security Strategy Report contains a remarkably different vision of how to provide for

America’s “security” in the future. First, the conception of security is much more broad than

that used by earlier administrations. Given the new environment with apparently no military

threats to the nation’s physical security, the administration has defined security as

“protecting our people, our territory, and our way of life.” The addition of the last clause

underlines the recognition that the strategy must be designed as much, if not more, for

exploiting “the opportunities to make the nation more safe and prosperous,” as it is for

protecting it from a new class of “dangers” to its security. When contrasted to the necessities

and burdens of the Cold War, this seizing of the historical opportunity based on a vision of

improving the lot of America’s domestic life as well as promoting its democratic and economic

aspects overseas is a refreshingly positive and attractive approach.

Further, there is a simple elegance in using only three national security goals—enhancing

our security, promoting prosperity at home, and promoting democracy-under which to

integrate all of the government’s efforts to advance U.S. interests. This makes the many ways

in which various means contribute to these ends and the interrelationships involved more

readily apparent, as are the trade-offs between them (to the consternation of some who have

for decades seen their particular contribution to national security as their undeniable claim

on resources!) As conceived and published, the strategy, for instance, makes clear that the

contribution of various means to provide for “environmental security” contributes to the first

goal—“enhancing our security”—in much the same way as does “maintaining a strong

defense capability.”

But, even with this truly post-Cold War conception of U.S. security coupled with a much

more sweeping array of policy instruments for its preservation—from population control, to

environmental security, to nonproliferation initiatives—one is left with the impression that

some of the more traditional, but vitally effective, means of providing for our national security

were inadequately addressed in the strategy. Nuclear deterrence is only the most obvious

example. Equally noticeable by their absence in this globalist approach were the priorities

necessary to make this strategy operative. While the “engagement” of the United States in the

future is “to be selective,” dependent on the intensity of the interest involved, there is little

discussion of how U.S. leadership—“Never has American leadership been more essential”—is

to be effective without direct engagement of our national capabilities, and the specific causes

or regions in which that must be done are not made clear. In fact, the foreign policy record of

the first Clinton administration demonstrates this to be one of the strategy’s major

shortcomings.

THE 1997 AND 1998 NA TIONAL SE CU RITY STRAT EGY RE PORTS.

Issued in May 1997, the first National Security Strategy Report of the second Clinton

administration bore the title “A National Security Strategy for a New Century.” Its goals were

the same as those of the 1994 report: to enhance American security, to bolster America’s
economic prosperity, and to promote democracy abroad. However, perhaps in response to

criticisms like the ones enumerated above of both the written and implemented foreign

policies of the first Clinton administration, there was a new focus on enumerating priorities

for America abroad.

The list of priorities began with the fostering of a peaceful, undivided, democratic Europe,

reflecting the substantial investment in NATO expansion and in resolving the war in Bosnia

of the previous four years. The second priority was the creation of a stable and prosperous

Asian-Pacific community, again unsurprising in light of the Asian financial crisis at the time

of writing. Non-regional priorities included expanding open markets and advancing the rule

of law; serving as an “unrelenting” force for peace; countering transnational threats; and

preserving a strong and ready military and diplomatic corps. Unobjectionable in themselves,

the Administration could still be accused of a reach which exceeded its grasp, and it was also

criticized for its low priority on military readiness at a time when cracks in the Department of

Defense began to be more apparent.

10

 Stung by criticism of its inaction in Rwanda and

heartened by apparent success in Bosnia, the 1997 Report also put priority on what it called

“The Imperative of Engagement,” arguing that “American leadership and engagement in the

world are vital for our security.”

The other notable change from the 1994 Report was a new focus on strategy

implementation, built around the concepts of shaping the international environment,

responding to international crises, and preparing now for an uncertain future. A range of

policy tools were noted as effective in each of these areas. “Shaping” could be performed

through diplomacy, international assistance, arms control, nonproliferation initiatives and

military activities; to the extent that shaping the international environment in America’s

interest was successful, it would become less necessary to respond to crises, from

transnational threats to major theater warfare. Interestingly, national interests conceivably

necessitating American responses were categorized as vital, important, or humanitarian.

Finally, the task of “Preparing Now for an Uncertain Future” was given an increased

emphasis in light of the increasing recognition that what some called a “defense budget train

wreck” was brewing as a result of failures to replace equipment purchased during the Reagan

defense buildup.

11

The 1997 Report concluded with a listing of “Integrated Regional Approaches” for Europe

and Eurasia; East Asia and the Pacific; the Western Hemisphere; the Middle East, Southwest

and Southeast Asia; and Africa, the last of which was promised increased emphasis in years

to come.

The 1998 National Security Strategy Report, issued in October, shared both a title and

much substance with the 1997 report. Differences were of emphasis and degree, highlighted

by a deeper recognition of increased global economic interdependence as a result of the

long-term effects of the Asian financial crisis. The 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review, with its

pointed conclusions about the need to rebuild aging weapons platforms and concurrent

stresses on military forces as a result of the deployments to Bosnia and Iraq, also played a

hand in the revisions.

12

 So, too, did an increasing awareness of the challenges presented by

domestic terrorism, resulting in two Presidential Decision Directives (PDD 62 and 63) which

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created structures to respond to domestic terrorism and to protect better a national

infrastructure which was recognized to be vulnerable to both conventional and cyber attacks.

The 1998 report also demonstrated a more integrated regional focus than did the 1997 report,

with the three missions of enhancing security, promoting prosperity, and promoting

democracy in each region separately highlighted.

The 2000 National Security Strategy Report, not yet released as of this paper’s writing,

can be expected to differ little from the 1998 report. If past trends are followed, it will become

more a codification of the foreign policy accomplishments of the two Clinton administrations

than a statement of true strategic principles. Like earlier reports issued in the twilight of

administrations, it will play to the historical constituency of President Clinton and will

attempt to provide a springboard for his chosen successor in the 2000 elections.

Our assessment of the Clinton Administrations’ successes in foreign policy reveals a

decidedly mixed record. Foreign policy issues seemed to be dealt with as they arose, too often

with much more concern for how they would play at home than for their longer term impact

abroad. This was not true in every case, and the Clinton administration had some notable

successes: agreement on GATT and NAFTA trade accords; de-nuclearization in Russia and

Ukraine; extension of security assurances, even if somewhat weak, eastward into Central

Europe by the Partners for Peace program in NATO; and, an agreement with North Korea on

plutonium production were among the first administration’s successes. In other important

instances-abandonment of the original policy of “assertive multilateralism” after a tactical

reversal in Somalia and several failed policy initiatives in Bosnia; a brief attempt to

de-nuclearize South Asia; and, before finally acting, an extended vacillation over what to do

about an illegal regime in Haiti—the process sought more often a quick resolution and

“victory” for the President than it did to define and fulfill the longer term roles and interests of

the United States in a very disorderly world.

Similar comments and compliments could be made about the second Clinton

administration. It appeared to recognize the important role of force in foreign policy with the

summer 1995 airstrikes in Bosnia leading to the Dayton Agreement, but did not internalize

the right lessons from that success. The lessons of the 1999 campaign in Kosovo have not yet

been clearly drawn although pundits have already proclaimed a new “Clinton Doctrine” for

the use of force: the United States will intervene in humanitarian emergencies when the

expected costs are low and there is minimal risk to U.S. forces; when there is a real chance of

doing long-term good as a result of the intervention; and when national interests as

traditionally defined are involved or threatened. The inclusion of Poland, the Czech Republic,

and Hungary into NATO can also be seen as a success for the administration, but at least as

much credit is probably owed to the Congress, which largely played to domestic constituencies

in approving expansion of America’s most important alliance. Similarly, perhaps more credit

is owed to the Senators responsible for the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction

Program as to the administration; certainly, blame for the failure of Senate ratification for the

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty should be distributed between both branches of government.

In the months and years ahead the issue of the effectiveness of American leadership may

well be the linchpin of any strategic formulation for advancing America’s interests in the
world. There are several reason for this. First, allies and friends no longer need our assistance

with their security, or so they perceive and act. As a result, the leverage that extended

deterrence and other strategic arrangements of the Cold War accrued to our leadership has

withered. Second, the economic aspects of Clinton’s foreign policy may be perceived as

intrusive from the perspective of a nation whose markets we want to be opened to our exports.

This has already caused several former allies and friends to distance themselves from what

they see as economic nationalism, and a leadership that is fostering it. Third, America’s

problems at home, particularly faltering education, unrelenting cultural wars and rising

racial divisions, have dimmed the message America sends to promote the spread of

democracy abroad. If these are the result of our form of democracy, as many rising industrial

nations believe, we are promoting a form of cultural imperialism that they can do without.

CON CLU SIONS.

Several conclusions about the formulation of American national security strategy can be

drawn from the experiences of these eight reports, conclusions of process and substance that,

perhaps, are arrived at uniquely from the perspective of the National Security Council.

The first is obvious from the earlier discussions, but so deeply pervades all else that it

should be stated explicitly—there is no operative consensus today as to the appropriate grand

strategy for the United States. More importantly, this lack of consensus is due far less to any

type of constraint on strategic thinking than it is to the fundamental value differences in our

electorate, and the resulting legacy of federal government divided between the political

parties and buffeted by the myriad of factions that effectively cross party lines on separate

issues. It is easy to agree with those academics concerned that the dysfunction of “divided

government” and “demosclerosis”

13

 increasingly preclude coherent strategic behavior on the

part of our nation.

14

After all, grand strategy is really the idea of allocating resources to create in both the

short- and long-term various instruments of power, instruments with which the nation then

provides for its defense and the furtherance of its aims in the world. True, there have been

extraordinary changes in the external environment, and we won the Cold War. But to many,

including those working to formulate security strategy through these decades of intense

change, the erosion of consensus on foreign policy was apparent far earlier. One need look no

further than the foreign and economic assistance allocations from roughly 1984 onward, or

the endless clashes on modernization of strategic defenses, or the constant tug of war on war

powers and treaty obligations, or the Reagan administration’s attempts to buttress

“aggressive unilateralism” and the Clinton administration’s short-lived attempt to pursue

“assertive multilateralism.” And, as the Iran-Contra fiasco showed to all, without a modicum

of consensus there can be no effective security strategy or policy.

This conclusion is stated first because it conditions those that follow, and because it

conditions one’s expectations for the specific mode of formulating national security strategy

that is discussed in this monograph. A Presidential strategy report can never be more than it

really is: a statement of preference from the Executive Branch as to current, and perhaps

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future, grand strategy. Given our government of shared powers, it remains for a

constructively adversarial process with the Congress to refine that preferential strategy into

one that has any chance of being effective—one around which there can be created domestic

political consensus, and thus an allocation of resources effective in creating instruments of

national power.

The second conclusion focuses on the function of long-range planning, or strategic

planning, which is the base from which security strategy formulation must be built. Simply

stated, in our experience the Executive Branch does not do long-range planning in a

substantive or systematic manner. (We make a sharp distinction between planning and

programming.) To be sure, there are pockets of planning activity within the “permanent”

government of many departments and agencies, particularly Defense and State. Some of this

is good, comprehensive planning from the perspective of that particular agency. But it is

devoid of the political dynamic which can be provided only by the participation of those who

have won elections, which under our system of government provides the authority to set

future directions and pace in security policy and strategy. Taken as a whole then, particularly

given the number of departments and agencies within which there is little planning activity,

we are comfortable stating this conclusion in a stark form.

This paucity of strategic planning is well documented in academic writings, particularly

the memoirs of former officials. The causes are well known to political scientists;

15

 two stand

out. The first is the limit of what is physically possible for elected officials to do in any given

amount of time. Long-range planning and strategy formulation will always run a poor second

to the pressing combination of crisis management and near-term policy planning and

implementation. There is seldom a week in which the NSC staff and the planning staffs of the

principal Cabinet officers are not fully involved in either preparation for or clean-up after a

presidential trip, a summit, a visit by a head of state (or government), or a major negotiation.

And this is as it should be; the maxim is true in diplomatic and political activity at this

level—if today is not cared for, tomorrow will not arrive in a manageable form. Secondly, the

pernicious effects of divided government, manifest in micromanaging and punitive legislation

on the one hand and intractable stonewalling and relentless drives for efficiency on the other,

preclude resources for permanent, long-range planning staffs that could institutionalize such

a process.

In place of a systematic approach to long-range or strategic planning, what the Executive

Branch does do, and in some cases rather well, is episodic planning for particular events. This

is how we describe the creation of each of the published strategy reports—a focused,

comprehensive effort of some 4-6 months involving political leadership and the permanent

bureaucracies in the development of common vision and purpose for the near-term future.

The often cited NSC-68 and PRM-10 reviews are historic examples of other successful, but

episodic, strategic planning events.

16

 Recent examples are the lkle-Wohlstetter Commission

of 1988

17

 and the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) of 1997.

18

 To be sure, in most cases

these were incremental responses made by administrations, often new, who were stewards of

an evolving grand strategy. The fact that the changes were incremental has much more to do,

in our view, with the nature of divided government than it does with the quality of the review

process itself; in most cases a reasonable range of alternatives were, in fact, presented to
civilian decision makers. Even if they chose narrowly, these episodic events did produce

in-depth reviews across the range of interests and instruments of national power, and

resulted in much more than rhetorical change to the overall strategy.

The relevant question now, it seems, given the inherent constraints to systematic,

long-range planning noted above, is whether it is wise in the future to attempt anything more

than broad, but episodic, planning exercises for the formulation of grand strategy. More

specifically, should the Executive attempt a new statement of grand strategy every year as

the current legislation requires? We conclude that comprehensive strategy reviews should

only be executed twice during an administration’s tenure, during the first and third years to be

presented early to each two-year session of the Congress. Further, if the pace of change in

external events subsides, a valid case could probably be made to conduct such a review only

once, during the first year of a new administration, in preparation for the QDR.

Beyond the problems of finding the time to work on strategy, we believe that there is

another shortcoming of a different nature in the current process. The art of formulating

strategy is that of combining the various elements of power and relating them to the desired

end—the key is integration. This belief is derived as much from experience in crisis

management as in strategy formulation. Too often, after a crisis erupts, it is clear that there

had been little prior coordination or integration of policy instruments focused on a particular

region or country before the crisis. Too often the only effective instruments for immediate

leverage are military. In retrospect it was clear that if the administration had been pursuing a

well-documented and integrated strategic approach toward the region or country in question,

one in which the current policy instruments drew from all elements of power, the ability for

more effective responses would have been greatly enhanced.

Increasingly in this post-Cold War era, those ends toward which we are developing a

strategic approach are being defined at the regional and subregional level. Even strategies for

such transnational issues as cyberwar, environmental security, terrorism and narcotics

trafficking focus on implementation at the subregional level or even that of an individual

nation. But planning for the effective integration of policy instruments for the various regions

and subregions remains problematic.

Lastly, we conclude, contrary to some of what might be taken from this monograph, that

we should not concentrate exclusively on institutions and processes when discussing the

development of national security strategy. As we have seen so often, it is people who really

define the character of the institutions and who make the processes what they are. Almost

uniformly we have observed people of intelligence and goodwill respond to the need to place

national interests above those of organization or person. This is not to conclude, however, that

all is well and we can count on such people consistently overcoming the real constraints on

strategic thinking and behavior in our government. Rather, it is to conclude that it is much too

early for a cynical approach to the on-going reformulation of America’s role in the world.

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ENDNOTES - CHAP TER 10

1. 50 U.S.C. 402, (Title I of the National Security Act of 1947).

2. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of then Colonel, now Lieutanant General Michael

Hayden, USAF, in providing insights on the preparation of the 1990 and 1991 reports, Colonel Jeff Jones, USA,

on the 1993 report, and Dr. Peter Feaver on the 1994 report of the Clinton administration. All judgements in this

paper remain, of course, solely the responsibility of the authors.

3. Even though much of the reform literature, such as the 1985 Report of the Senate Armed Services

Committee, “Organization of the Department of Defense—The Need for Change,” discusses needed reforms in

both the executive and legislative branches, Congress chose only to pursue reform within DOD. Since Congress

was not reforming itself, it was not in a position to lean directly on the Executive Office of the President for

reforms.

4. Report of the President’s Special Review Board, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1987, also available as

The Tower Commission Report by several publishers. Of particular interest to the context of this paper are Part

II, “Organizing for National Security,” and Part V, “Recommendations.”

5. For an example of the benefits to the new Bush administration as the political appointees executed a

strategic review, see Don M. Snider, Strategy, Force, and Budgets: Dominant Influences in Executive

Decision—making, Post-Cold War, 1989-1991 (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 1993), pp.

18-20.

6. National Security Strategy of the United States (January 1987), p. 40.

7. For a case study on the development of security strategy within the Bush administration, see Snider, op

cit.

8. Les Aspin, Report of the Bottom-Up Review, Department of Defense (October 1993).

9. For excellent insights into decisionmaking within the first Clinton administration see Elizabeth Drew, On 

the Edge: The Clinton Presidency (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995).

10. National Defense Panel, Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st Century (Washington, DC:

National Defense Panel, December 1997).

11. Don M. Snider, “The Coming Defense Train Wreck,” The Washington Quarterly 19, 1 (Winter 1996), pp.

89-102.

12. William S. Cohen, Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review (Washington, DC: Department of Defense,

May 1997).

13. Jonathan Rauch, Demosclerosis: The Silent Killer of American Government (New York: Random House,

1994).

14. For example, see Aaron Friedberg, “Is the United States Capable of Acting Strategically?” The

Washington Quarterly 14, 1 (Winter 1991), pp. 15-20.

15. David C. Kozak, “The Bureaucratic Politics Approach: The Evolution of the Paradigm,” in Bureaucratic

Politics and National Security, David Kozak and James Keagle, eds. (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers,

1988), pp. 3-15.

16. John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 89-127;

and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle, (New York: McGraw Hill, 1983), pp. 51-52.
17. Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy, Discriminate Deterrence (Washington, DC: U.S.

Government Printing Office, 1989).

18. William S. Cohen, Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review (Washington, DC: Department of Defense,

May 1997).

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CHAP TER 11

WHY IS STRATEGY DIFFICULT?

Da vid Jablonsky

Colonel (Ret.) Arthur Lykke has taught an entire generation of U.S. Army War College

students that strategy at any level consists of ends or objectives, ways or concepts, and means

or resources. This three-element framework is nothing more than a reworking of the

traditional definition of strategy as the calculated relationship of ends and means. Yet the

student response is always overwhelmingly favorable, with Lykke’s framework invariably

forming the structure for subsequent seminar problems on subjects ranging from the U.S.

Civil War to nuclear strategy. This is due, in part, to the fact that students weaned on the

structural certitude of the five-paragraph field order and the Commander’s Estimate

naturally find such structure comforting in dealing with the complexities of strategy. But

those students also know from their experience in the field that there are limits to the

scientific approach when dealing with human endeavors. As a consequence, they can also

appreciate the art of mixing ends, ways, and means, using for each element the part

subjective, part objective criteria of suitability, feasibility, and applicability-the essence of

strategic calculation.

1

The ends-ways-means paradigm also provides a structure at all levels of strategy to avoid

confusing the scientific product with the scientific process. The former involves production

propositions that are logically related and valid across time and space. The search for these

immutable principles over the centuries by students of war failed because they looked on

classical strategy as something like physical science that could produce verities in accordance

with certain regularities. This was further compounded by military thinkers who made

claims for scientific products without subjecting those products to a scientific process. Both

Jomini and Mahan, for instance, ignored evidence in cases that did not fit their theories or

principles of strategy.

2

 The strategic paradigm, then, serves as a lowest common denominator

reminder that a true scientific product is not possible from the study of strategy. At the same

time, however, that paradigm provides a framework for the systematic treatment of facts and

evidence-the very essence of the scientific process. In this regard, Admiral Wylie has pointed

out:

I do not claim that strat egy is or can be a “sci ence” in the sense of the phys i cal sci ences. It can and

should be an in tel lec tual dis ci pline of the high est or der, and the strat e gist should pre pare him self to

man age ideas with pre ci sion and clar ity and imag i na tion. . . . Thus, while strat egy it self may not be a

sci ence, stra te gic judg ment can be sci en tific to the ex tent that it is or derly, ra tio nal, ob jec tive, in clu -

sive, dis crim i na tory, and per cep tive.

3

All that notwithstanding, the limitations of the strategic paradigm bring the focus full

circle back to the art involved in producing the optimal mix of ends, ways, and means.

Strategy, of course, does depend on the general regularities of that paradigm. But strategy

does not always obey the logic of that framework, remaining, as the German Army
Regulations Truppenfuhrung of 1936 described it, “a free creative activity resting upon

scientific foundations.”

4

 The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate why, despite

increasingly scientific approaches to formulation and implementation, strategy remains

principally an art rather than a science, and why within that art the “creative activity” of

blending the elements in the strategic paradigm has become progressively more difficult over

the centuries.

FROM REV O LU TIONS TO TO TAL WAR.

In the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, there was a growing recognition of the increased

complexity of strategy, summarized in Carl von Clausewitz’s warning that “there can be no

question of a purely military evaluation of a great strategic issue, nor of a purely military

scheme to solve it.”

5

 At the tactical level, the Prussian philosopher wrote, “the means are

fighting forces trained for combat; the end is victory.” For the strategic, however, Clausewitz

concluded that military victories were meaningless unless they were the means to obtain a

political end, “those objects which lead directly to peace.”

6

 Thus, strategy was “the linking

together (Verbindung) of separate battle engagements into a single whole, for the final object

of the war.”

7

 And only the political or policy level could determine that objective. “To bring a

war, or any one of its campaigns to a successful close requires a thorough grasp of national

policy,” he pointed out. “On that level strategy and policy coalesce.”

8

 For Clausewitz, this

vertical continuum (see Figure 1) was best exemplified by Frederick the Great, who embodied

both policy and strategy and whose Silesian conquests of 1741 he considered to be the classic

example of strategic art by demonstrating “an element of restrained strength, . . . ready to

adjust to the smallest shift in the political situation.”

9

144

Figure 1. The Policy Continuum.
145

With his deceptively simple description of the vertical continuum of war, Clausewitz set

the stage for the equivalent of a Copernican shift in the strategic ends-ways-means paradigm.

Now that paradigm was more complex, operating on both the military and policy levels with

the totality of the ends, ways, and means at the lower levels interconnected with the political

application at the policy level of those same strategic elements. This connection was the

essence of Clausewitz’s description of war as a continuation of political intercourse (Verkehr)

with the addition of other means. He explained that:

We de lib er ately use the phrase “with the ad di tion of other means” be cause we also want to make it

clear that war in it self does not sus pend po lit i cal in ter course or change it into some thing en tirely differ ent. . . . The main lines along which mil i tary events prog ress, and to which they are re stricted, are

po lit i cal lines that con tinue through out the war into the sub se quent peace. . . . War can not be di vorced

from po lit i cal life; and when ever this oc curs in our think ing about war, the many links that con nect the

two el e ments are de stroyed and we are left with some thing point less and de void of sense.

10

THE IN DUS TRIAL AND FRENCH REV O LU TIONS.

This growing complexity in dealing with the strategic paradigm was compounded by two

upheavals. Clausewitz was profoundly aware of one, the French Revolution; he was totally

ignorant of the other, the industrial/technological revolution. Prior to the French Revolution,

eighteenth-century rulers had acquired such effective political and economic control over

their people that they were able to create their war machines as separate and distinct from

the rest of society. The Revolution changed all that with the appearance of a force “that

beggared all imagination” as Clausewitz described it,

Sud denly, war again be came the busi ness of the peo ple-a peo ple of thirty mil lions, all of whom con sid -

ered them selves to be cit i zens. There seemed no end to the re sources mo bi lized; all lim its dis ap peared

in the vigor and en thu si asm shown by gov ern ments and their sub jects.... War, un tram melled by any,

con ven tional re straints, had bro ken loose in all its el e men tal fury. This was due to the peo ples’ new

share in these great af fairs of state; and their par tic i pa tion, in its turn, re sulted partly from the im pact

that the Rev o lu tion had on the in ter nal con di tions of ev ery state and partly from the dan ger that

France posed to ev ery one.

11

For Clausewitz, the people greatly complicated the formulation and implementation of

strategy by adding “primordial violence, hatred and enmity, which are to be regarded as a

blind natural force” to form with the army and the government what he termed the

remarkable trinity (see Figure 2). The army he saw as a “creative spirit” roaming freely

within “the play of chance and probability,” but always bound to the government, the third

element, in “subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to reason

alone.”

12

It was the complex totality of this trinity that, Clausewitz realized, had altered and

complicated strategy so completely.

Clearly the tre men dous ef fects of the French Rev o lu tion . . . were caused not so much by new mil i tary

meth ods and con cepts as by rad i cal changes in pol i cies and ad min is tra tion, by the new char ac ter of

gov ern ment, al tered con di tions of the French peo ple, and the like. . . . It fol lows that the trans for ma tion 

of the art of war re sulted from the trans for ma tion of pol i tics.

13
But while that transformation had made it absolutely essential to consider the elements of

the Clausewitzian trinity within the strategic paradigm, the variations possible in the

interplay of those elements moved strategy even farther from the realm of scientific certitude.

“A theory that ignores any one of them or seeks to fix an arbitrary relationship between

them,” Clausewitz warned in this regard, “would conflict with reality to such an extent that

for this reason alone it would be totally useless.”

14

Like most of his contemporaries, Clausewitz had no idea that he was living on the eve of a

technological transformation born of the Industrial Revolution. But that transformation, as it

gathered momentum throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century, fundamentally

altered the interplay of elements within the Clausewitzian trinity, further complicating the

formulation and application process within the strategic paradigm (see Figure 3).

146

Figure 3. The Impact of Technology.

Figure 2. The Remarkable Trinity.
147

In terms of the military element, technology would change the basic nature of weapons

and modes of transportation, the former stable for a hundred years, the latter for a thousand.

Within a decade of Clausewitz’s death in 1831, that process would begin in armaments with

the introduction of breech-loading firearms and in transportation with the development of the

railroads.

15

Technology had a more gradual effect on the role of the people. There were, for example,

the great European population increases of the 19th century as the Industrial Revolution

moved on to the continent from Great Britain. This trend led, in turn, to urbanization: the

mass movement of people from the extended families of rural life to the “atomized,”

impersonal life of the city. There, the urge to belong, to find a familial substitute, led to a more

focused allegiance to the nation-state manifested in a new, more blatant and aggressive

nationalism.

This nationalism was fueled by the progressive side effects of the Industrial Revolution,

particularly in the area of public education, which meant, in turn, mass literacy throughout

Europe by the end of the nineteenth century. One result was that an increasingly literate

public could be manipulated by governments as technology spawned more sophisticated

methods of mass communications. On the other hand, those same developments also helped

democratize societies, which then demanded a greater share in government, particularly over

strategic questions involving war and peace. In Clausewitz’s time, strategic decisions dealing

with such matters were rationally based on Realpolitik considerations to further state

interests, not on domestic issues. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Rankeian Primat

der Aussenpolitik was increasingly challenged throughout Europe by the need of

governments for domestic consensus-a development with far-reaching implications for the

conduct of strategy at the national level within the basic ends-ways-means paradigm.

16

During much of that century, as the social and ideological upheavals unleashed by the

French Revolution developed, military leaders in Europe generally attempted to distance

their armed forces from their people. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Prussian

cum German military, where the leaders worked hard over the years to prevent the

adulteration of their forces by liberal ideas. “The army is now our fatherland,” General von

Roon wrote to his wife during the 1848 revolutions, “for there alone have the unclean and

violent elements who put everything into turmoil failed to penetrate.”

17

 The revolutions in

industry and technology, however, rendered this ideal unattainable. To begin with, the

so-called Technisierung of warfare meant the mass production of more complex weapons and

forever-larger, standing military forces. The key ingredients for these forces were the great

population increases and the rise of nationalism as well as improved communications and

governmental efficiency-the latter directed at general conscription of national manhood,

which, thanks to progress in railroad development, could be brought to the battlefield in

unlimited numbers.

At the same time, this increased interaction between the government/military and the

people was also tied to other aspects of the impact of technology on the Clausewitzian trinity.

Technological innovations in weaponry during this period, for example, were not always

followed by an understanding of their implications, societal as well as military. Certainly,
there was the inability on the part of all European powers to perceive the growing advantage

of defensive over offensive weapons demonstrated in the Boer and Russo-Japanese wars.

That inability was tied in with a trend in Europe at the time to combine elan with a military

focus on moral force, bloodshed, and decisive battles. The result was that the military leaders

of France, Germany, and Russia all adopted offensive military doctrines in some form.

18

The fact that these doctrines led to the self-defeating offensive strategies of World War I

ultimately had to do with the transformation of civil-military relations within the

Clausewitzian trinity in their countries. In France, as an example, the officer corps distrusted

the trend by the leaders of the Third Republic toward shorter terms of military service, which

it believed threatened the army’s professional character and tradition. Adopting an offensive

doctrine and elevating it to the highest level was a means to combat this trend, since there

was general agreement that an army consisting primarily of reservists and short-term

conscripts could only be used in the defense. “Reserves are so much eyewash,” one French

general wrote at the time, “and take in only, short-sighted mathematicians who equate the

value of armies with the size of their effectives, without considering their moral value.

19

Although these were setbacks for those who shared this sentiment in the wake of the Dreyfus

Affair and the consequent military reforms, it only required the harsher international climate

after the Agadir crisis of 1911 for General Joffre and his young Turks to gain the ascendancy.

Their philosophy was summed up by their leader, who explained that in planning for the next

war he had “no preconceived idea other than a full determination to take the offensive with all

my forces assembled.”

20

Under these circumstances, French offensive doctrine became increasingly unhinged

from strategic reality as it responded to the more immediate demands of domestic and

intragovernmental politics. The result was France’s ill-conceived strategic lunge in 1914

toward its former possessions in the East, a lunge that almost provided sufficient margin of

assistance for Germany’s Schlieffen Plan, another result of military operational doctrine

driving policy. In the end, only the miracle of the Marne prevented a victory for the Germans

as rapid and complete as that of 1870.

21

There were other equally significant results as the full brunt of technological change

continued to alter the relationship between the elements of the Clausewitzian trinity in all

the European powers. The larger, more complex armies resulted in the growing specialization

and compartmentalization of the military-a trend that culminated in the emulation of the

German General Staff system by most of the European powers. It is significant that

Clausewitz had ignored Carnot, the “organizer of victory” for Napoleon, when considering

military genius. Now with the increase in military branches as well as combat service and

combat service support organizations, the age of the “military-organizational” genius had

arrived. All this in turn affected the relationship in all countries between the military and the

government. For the very increase in professional knowledge and skill caused by technology’s

advance in military affairs undermined the ability of political leaders to understand and

control the military, just as technology was making that control more important than ever by

extending strategy from the battlefield to the civilian rear, thus blurring the difference

between combatant and noncombatant.

22

148
149

At the same time, the military expansion in the peacetime preparation for war began to

enlarge the economic dimensions of conflict beyond the simple financial support of

Clausewitz’s era. As Europe entered the twentieth century, new areas of concern began to

emerge ranging from industrial capacity and the availability and distribution of raw

materials to research and development of weapons and equipment. All this, in turn, increased

the size and role of the European governments prior to World War I—with the result, as

William James perceptively noted, that:

the in tensely sharp com pet i tive prep a ra tion for war by the na tion is the real war, per ma nently in creas -

ing, so that the bat tles are only a sort of pub lic ver i fi ca tion of mas tery gained dur ing the “peace: in ter -

vals.

23

Nevertheless, the full impact of the government’s strategic role in terms of national

instruments of power beyond that of the military was generally not perceived in Europe,

despite some of the more salient lessons of the American Civil War. In that conflict, the South

lost because its strategic means did not match its strategic ends and ways. Consequently, no

amount of operational finesse on the part of the South’s great captains could compensate for

the superior industrial strength and manpower that the North could deploy. Ultimately, this

meant for the North, as Michael Howard has pointed out, “that the operational skills of their

adversaries were rendered almost irrelevant.”

24

The Civil War also illustrated another aspect

of the changes within the strategic paradigm: the growing importance of the national will of

the people in achieving political as well as military strategic objectives. That social dimension

of strategy on the part of the Union was what prevented the early southern operational

victories from being strategically decisive and what ultimately allowed the enormous

industrial-logistical potential north of the Potomac to be realized.

THE REV O LU TIONS JOINED: THE AGE OF TO TAL WARS.

Strategy changed irrevocably with the full confluence in World War I of the trends set in

train by the Industrial and French revolutions. In particular, the technology in that war

provided, as Hanson Baldwin has pointed out, “a preview of the Pandora’s box of evils that the

linkage of science with industry in the service of war was to mean.”

25

 How unexpected the

results of that linkage could be was illustrated by, a young British subaltern’s report to his

commanding general after one of the first British attacks in Flanders. “Sorry sir,” he

concluded. “We didn’t know it would be like that. We’ll do better next time.”

26

But of course there was no doing better next time, not by British and French commanders

in Flanders, not by Austrian troops on the Drina and Galician fronts in 1914, not by the

Russian officers on the Gorlice-Tarnow line in 1915. The frustration at this turn of events was

captured by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his novel August 1914. “How disastrously the

conditions of warfare had changed,” he wrote,

mak ing a com mander as im po tent as a rag doll! Where now was the bat tle field . . ., across which he

could gal lop over to a fal ter ing com mander and sum mon him to his side?

27
It was this milieu that demonstrated the inadequacy of classical strategy to deal with the

intricacies of modern warfare. Napoleon had defined that strategy, as the “art of making use

of time and space.”

28

 But the dimensions of these two variables had been stretched and

rendered more complex by the interaction of technology with the elements of Clausewitz’s

trinity. And that very complexity, augmented by the lack of decisiveness at the tactical level,

impeded the vertical continuum of war outlined in Clausewitz’s definition of strategy as the

use of engagements to achieve policy objectives.

Only when the continuum was enlarged, as the Great War demonstrated, was it possible

to restore warfighting coherence to modern combat. And that, in turn, required the classical

concept of strategy, to be positioned at a midpoint, an operational level, designed to

orchestrate individual tactical engagements and battles in order to achieve strategic results

(see Figure 4). Now, a military strategy level, operating within the ends-ways-means

paradigm on its own horizontal plane, was added as another way station on the vertical road

to the fulfillment of policy objectives. This left the concept of strategy, as it had been

understood since the time of Clausewitz, transformed into:

the level of war at which cam paigns and ma jor op er a tions are planned, con ducted and sus tained

to ac com plish stra te gic ob jec tives. . . . Ac tiv ities at this level link tac tics and strategy. . . . These

ac tiv i ties im ply a broader di men sion of time or space than do tac tics; they pro vide the means by

which tac ti cal suc cesses are ex ploited to achieve stra te gic ob jec tives.

29

At the same time, the full impact of technology on the Clausewitzian trinity in each of the

combatant states during World War I substituted the infinitely more complex concept of

national strategy for that of policy. To begin with, the growing sophistication and quantity of

150

Figure 4. The Continuum of War.
151

arms and munitions, as well as the vast demands of equipment and supply made by the

armies, involved the national resources of industry, science, and agriculture-variables with

which the military leaders were not prepared to deal. To cope with these variables,

governments were soon forced to transform the national lives of their states in order to

provide the sinews of total war.

Looking back over 50 years later on the totality of this change in what Clausewitz had

termed policy, Admiral Eccles defined the concept of national strategy that emerged in World

War I as “the comprehensive direction of all the elements of national power to achieve the

national objectives.”

30

 The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is more explicit, defining the

new level of strategy that emerged at the national level after 1914 as the “art and science of

developing and using the political, economic, and psychological powers of a nation, together

with its armed forces during peace and war, to secure national objectives.”

31

National strategy, then, involves all the elements of national power. Those elements, in

turn, can be conveniently broken down on a horizontal plane into the categories described in

the DoD definition of national strategy: political, economic, psychological, and military (see

Figure 5).

The linchpin in this horizontal design is the military instrument of power at the national

strategic level-the apex, as we have seen emerging in World War 1, of the vertical continuum

of war (see Figure 6).

Thus, the mix of ends, ways, and means at the national military strategic level will directly

affect (and be affected by) the same paradigm operating at each level of the vertical

continuum. Adding to the complexity is the interplay on the horizontal plane of national

Figure 5. National Strategy: The Horizontal Plane.
military strategy with the other strategies derived from the elements of national power, each

operating within its own strategic paradigm and all contributing to the grand design of

national strategy, as that strategy evolves within its own overall mix of ends, ways, and

means. That this horizontal and vertical interplay has rendered the formulation and

implementation of strategy at every level more difficult has become increasingly obvious.

“Because these various elements of power cannot be precisely defined, compartmented, or

divided,” Admiral Eccles concluded about the “fog” of strategy, “it is normal to expect areas of

ambiguity, overlap, and contention about authority among the various elements and

members of any government.”

32

CON CLU SION.

The United States is in an era in which the strategic landscape has changed and is

continuing to change. Nevertheless, the core problems that make strategy so difficult for a

global power remain essentially the same as they did for earlier powers ranging from Rome to

Great Britain. To begin with, there are challenges to U.S. interests throughout the globe. In a

constantly changing strategic environment, however, it is difficult in many cases to

distinguish which of those interests are vital, not to mention the nature of the challenge or

threat to them. In any case, there are never enough armed forces to reduce the risk

everywhere; strategic priorities have to be established.

In addition, like the leaders of earlier great powers, U.S. governmental elites have to

grapple with the paradox of preparing for war, even in peace-time, if they wish to maintain

the peace. The dilemma in the paradox that makes strategy in any era so difficult is that to

overdo such preparations may weaken the economic, psychological, and political elements of

152

Figure 6. National Strategy and the Vertical Continuum of War.
153

power in the long run. The solution is to so balance the total ends, ways, and means that the

natural tension in national security affairs between domestic and foreign policy is kept to a

minimum while still securing the nation’s vital interests with a minimum of risk. This

solution, as the leaders of the great global powers of the past would assuredly agree, is not

easy to achieve. In an ever more interdependent world in which variables for the strategist

within the ends-ways-means paradigm have increased exponentially, strategists are no

nearer to a “Philosopher’s Stone” than they ever were. Strategy remains the most difficult of

all art.

33

ENDNOTES - CHAP TER 11

1. Arthur F. Lykke, “Defining Military Strategy,” Military Review 69, No. 5 (May 1989), pp. 2-8; and his

testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, National Security Strategy, hearings before the

Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, One Hundredth Congress, First Session (Washington,

DC: USGPO, 1987), pp. 140-145. See also Sound Military Decision (Newport, RI: Naval War College, 1942), pp.

32, 34, 164, 165; and Henry E. Eccles, Military Power in a Free Society (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press,

1979), p. 73.

2. John Shy, “Jomini,” pp. 173-175; and Philip Crowl, “Mahan,” p. 454, both in Makers of Modern Strategy,

ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986). See also Stephen M. Walt, “The Search for a

Science of Strategy,” International Security 12, No. I (Summer 1987), pp. 144-145; and John I. Alger, The Quest

for Victory (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982); Admiral J. C. Wylie, Military Strategy: A General Theory of

Power Control (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980), p. 20.

3. Wylie, Military Strategy, p. 10.

4. Martin van Creveld, “Eternal Clausewitz,” in Clausewitz and Modern Strategy, ed. Michael L. Handel

(London: Frank Cass, 1986), p. 41. “The formulation of strategy is the creative act of choosing a means, an end, a

way to relate a means to an end.” Carl H. Builder, The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and

Analysis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), p. 50.

5. Original emphasis. Carl von Clausewitz,Two Letters on Strategy, ed./trans. Peter Paret and Daniel Moran

(Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1984), p. 9.

6. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 1976), pp. 142-143.

7. Michael Howard, Clausewitz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 16; Clausewitz, On War, pp.

127-132.

8. Clausewitz, On War, p. 111. “In the highest realms of strategy . . . there is little or no difference between

strategy, policy and statesmanship.” Ibid., p. 178. Winston Churchill relearned these lessons in World War I.

“The distinction between politics and strategy,” he wrote at that time, “diminishes as the point of view is raised.

At the Summit true politics and strategy are one.” Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1915 (New York:

Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1929), p. 6.

9. Clausewitz, On War, p. 179.

10. Ibid., p. 605.

11. Ibid., pp. 592-593.
12. Ibid., p. 89.

13. Ibid., pp. 609-610.

14. Ibid., p. 89.

15. Michael I. Handel, War, Strategy and Intelligence (London: Frank Cass, 1989), p. 63; Howard,

Clausewitz, pp. 3-4; and van Creveld, “Eternal Clausewitz,” p. 36.

16. Handel, War, p. 82. See also Dennis E. Showalter, “Total War for Limited Objectives: An Interpretation

of German Grand Strategy,” in Grand Strategies in War and Peace, ed. Paul Kennedy (New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press, 1991), pp. 110-111.

17. Gordon A. Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army 1640-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press,

1956), p. 107; Michael Howard, “The Armed Forces as a Political Problem,” in Soldiers and Governments, ed.

Michael Howard (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978), p. 16.

18. Martin van Creveld, “Caesar’s Ghost: Military History and the Wars of the Future,” The Washington

Quarterly, Winter 1980, p. 81. See also Michael Howard, “Men against Fire: The Doctrine of the Offensive in

1914,” in Makers of Modern Strategy, p. 521; and Handel, War, pp. 21, 64-68.

19. Howard, “Armed Forces as a Political Problem,” p. 17. See also Jack Snyder, “Civil Military Relations and

the Cult of the Offensive, 1914-1984,” International Security, Summer 1984, p. 109.

20. Theodore Ropp, War in the Modern World (New York: Collier Books, 1962), p. 229. Snyder, “Civil Military

Relations,” pp. 110-111, 130, 132-133.

21. The French military elite made a mirror image of their disdain for reservists in their estimates of

German strength. The German General Staff made extensive use of German reservists, however, and instead of

the 68 German divisions that had been expected in the implementation of French Plan XVII, there were 83.

Howard, “Armed Forces as a Political Problem,” p. 17. Joffre’s failure to use French reservists more fully in 1914

proved to be, as Douglas Porch has pointed out, “like going to war without your trousers on.” See Porch, “Arms

and Alliances: French Grand Strategy and Policy in 1914 and 1940,” in Grand Strategies in War and Peace, p.

142. See also Snyder, “Civil Military Relations,” pp. 108, 133. It is true, of course, that had the French Army

remained on the defensive instead of plunging into Alsace, it could have brought its full weight to bear on the

German Army at the French frontier. Stephen Van Evera, “The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First

World War,” International Security, Summer 1984, p. 89. It is also true, however, that the French offensive

ultimately caused Moltke to weaken the right flank that was supposed to “brush the channel with its sleeve.”

Moreover, as Michael Howard has pointed out, the general concept behind Plan XVII—that France should take

the strategic initiative rather than passively await the German offensive—did provide the flexibility that

enabled General Joffre to recover rapidly from his opening reverses and redeploy his forces for the battle of the

Marne. Howard, “Men against Fire,” pp. 522-523.

22. Handel, War, pp. 60, 79. “The interchangeability between the statesman and the soldier," General

Wavell stated later in summarizing these developments,

passed for ever . . . in the last cen tury. The Ger mans professionalized the trade of war, and modern in ven tions, by in creas ing its tech ni cal i ties, have spe cial ized it.

Archibald Wavell, Generals and Generalship (London: Macmillan, 1941), pp. 33-34.

23. Handel, War, p. 58.

24. Michael Howard, “The Forgotten Dimensions of Strategy,” Foreign Affairs, Summer 1979, p. 977. See

also Gordon A. Craig, “Delbruck: The Military Historian,” in Makers of Modern Strategy, p. 345.

154
155

25. Hanson W. Baldwin, World War I: An Outline History (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), p. 159.

26. Gordon A. Craig, War, Politics and Diplomacy (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966), p. 197.

27. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, August 1914 (New York: Bantam Books, 1974), pp. 330-331.

28. David G. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (New York: Macmillan, 1966), p. 161.

29. JCS Pub 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Washington, DC:

USGPO, December 1, 1989), p. 264.

30. Henry E. Eccles, Military Power in a Free Society (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 1979), p. 70.

31. JCS Pub 1-02, p. 244. This is what Andre Beaufre long ago termed total strategy: “the manner in which

all-political, economic, diplomatic, and military-should be woven together.” Andre Beaufre, An Introduction to

Strategy (New York: Praeger, 1965), p. 30.

32. Eccles, Military Power, p. 70.

33. Kennedy, “Grand Strategy in War and Peace: Toward a Broader Definition,” p. 7. During the Roman

Republic, for example, Roman foreign policy was affected by the distrust and fear felt by the ruling patricians for

the plebians of Rome on the domestic front. Barr, Consulting the Romans, p. 6.
157

CHAP TER 12

FORCE PLANNING AND U.S. DEFENSE POLICY

John F. Troxell

You can not make de ci sions sim ply by ask ing your self whether some thing might be nice to have. You

have to make a judge ment on how much is enough.

Robert S. McNamara

April 20, 1963

As the preceding chapters of this book argue, strategy formulation begins with an

understanding of the nation’s security goals and objectives. To complete the process of

developing a coherent military strategy, and perhaps the most difficult step, is to plan the

forces needed to implement the strategy. It is clear that declaratory policy must come first,

but then follows the complex task of force planning, best defined as the attempt to create a

military force structure of the right size and right composition to achieve the nation’s security

goals.

1

 Force planning involves an evaluation of the threats to the national interests, the

establishment of military requirements within given constraints, and finally an assessment

of the risk of failure. The risks in the ends-ways-means strategy formulation process can be

manifested as an ends-means mismatch, or a ways–means mismatch. Strategists and force

planners consequently find themselves engaged in an iterative process of minimizing the

mismatches by either modifying the ends, adjusting the ways, or changing the means to

maximize the ability to protect and further the national goals.

2

 The process of risk

management will be covered in more detail in the next chapter.

Ever since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been struggling to gain

consensus on an appropriate force planning methodology and answer the question “how much

is enough” concerning the size of its military establishment. This was the principal topic of the

first Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and the National Defense Panel’s (NDP)

Alternative Force Structure Assessment, and remains an important task for the U.S.

Commission on National Security/21st Century and, most likely, future QDRs.

Most defense analysts would claim that during the Cold War the force planning task was

relatively straightforward. The threat posed by the Soviet Union required the fielding of

forces capable of conducting a global war, with priority placed on defending Western Europe.

This situation served as the agreed scenario around which to design and develop forces and

measure risks if specific force goals were not met. Force modernization programs were also

directly linked to maintaining a qualitative advantage over projected improvements in Soviet

capabilities. In addition, the Cold War force was so large that all other military requirements,

such as forces for forward presence, smaller scale interventions, and humanitarian

operations, could be met as lesser-included requirements. One author has described this

process as the “classic” force planning approach.

3
During the post-Cold War period, the sizing function that replaced the global war scenario

has been the requirement to be able to prosecute major theater war (MTW). This requirement

evolved during the last years of the Bush administration as the rationale for the Base Force.

The first act of the new Clinton administration was to study the issue, producing the Bottom

Up Review (BUR) Force. The Base Force and the BUR Force were both sized against the

requirement to fight two MTWs. This force-sizing requirement was revalidated in the 1997

Quadrennial Defense Review but continues to generate a great deal of controversy.

Depending on the point of view, the force structure associated with this posture is attacked for

being over-stuffed, unaffordable, or totally inadequate.

4

 The purpose of this chapter is to

examine force-planning techniques used to determine the appropriate means to successfully

execute U.S. defense and military strategy, and to suggest some options and adjustments that

force planners can apply in the future.

FORCE PLANNING METH OD OL OGIES.

In designing forces to protect U.S. national interests, military planners must accomplish

three tasks: determine how much force is required to protect those interests with a certain

degree of assured success or a minimum degree of acceptable risk; determine how to posture

that force; and finally convince Congress and the public that the solutions for the first two

tasks are reasonably correct.

5

 The issue of creating well-reasoned force structure

requirements and convincing cost conscious politicians is not an inconsequential matter.

Since the advent of the Cold War, military planners have used two very different

force-planning methodologies.

6

 The easiest to conceptualize is threat-based planning. This

methodology is preeminent when threats to U.S. interests are easily recognized and

identified. The task for the planner is to postulate a reasonable scenario, or a specific military

contingency, then determine the amount of force needed to prevail in that scenario. This

approach lends itself to dynamic and static modeling and provides a quantifiable rationale for

the recommended force structure, and answers the question: Can the United States defeat

the opponent or prevail in the postulated contingencies? The logic of this approach is very

compelling and greatly facilitates accomplishing the planner’s third task—convincing the

public and Congress.

The second major methodology is generally referred to as capabilities-based planning.

Somewhat harder to conceptualize, analysts have proposed several variants of the same basic

theme. Capabilities-based planning is most in vogue when threats to U.S. interests are

multifaceted and uncertain, and do not lend themselves to single point scenario-based

analysis. Instead of focusing on one or more specific opponents, the planner applies a liberal

dose of military judgment to determine the appropriate mix of required military capabilities.

Capabilities-based planners claim to focus on objectives rather than scenarios. Forces are

sized either by a resource constraint emphasis (budget driven), or by focusing on generic

military missions required to protect U.S. interests. A major problem planners have with this

approach is convincing Congress that military judgment has established the proper linkage

between this uncertain future environment and the specific force levels requested.

7

 The

general characteristics of these two methodologies are summarized in Figure 1.

158
159

FORCE PLANNING IN THE COLD WAR.

Threat-based planning was the principal method employed to size U.S. forces during the

Cold War. With the acceptance by the National Security Council of NSC 68 on April 7, 1950,

the Soviet threat was clearly recognized. In the words of Secretary of State Acheson, the

Soviet Union confronted the United States with a “threat [which] combined the ideology of

communist doctrine and the power of the Russian state into an aggressive expansionist

drive.”

8

 The first task for military planners was to develop a strategic nuclear deterrent, both

to protect survival interests and to extend this deterrent to protect vital interests represented

by regional alliances, the most important of which was NATO. Military planners also

addressed the need for conventional forces. In accordance with the threat-based methodology,

war in central Europe became the dominant scenario. NATO developed a series of force goals

designed to counter a predetermined level of Soviet forces. In the Lisbon Agreement of

February 1952, for instance, the NATO ministers set a goal for 1954 of 9,000 aircraft and 90

divisions.

9

 President Eisenhower, however, desired “security with solvency” and had as one of

his administration’s principal goals, the cutting of the federal budget. To stabilize defense

spending, the “New Look” defense program de-emphasized conventional forces and stressed

the deterrent and war-fighting potential of nuclear weapons. The risk associated with

conventional force shortfalls was ameliorated by U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons. Limited

war capabilities however, were not completely discounted. General Maxwell Taylor, while

Army Chief of Staff, established the requirement for the Army to be able “to close a corps of

three divisions in an overseas theater in two months,” with the necessary logistical backup to

fight those forces.

10

 Force planning in the fifties, although firmly grounded in threat-based

analysis, also contained important elements based on resource (Ike’s New Look) and mission

based capabilities analysis (Taylor’s corps).

The Kennedy administration discarded the “New Look” and adopted the concept of

“Flexible Response” as the foundation of its defense policy. At the center of “flexible response”

theory was the assumption that deterring and fighting with nonnuclear forces would reduce

Threat

based

Capabilities

based:

Purpose Road to War Force Determinants Total Force

Requirement

Defeat the

enemy

Scenarios

(point-estimates of

likely contingencies)

Wargaming

(static and dynamic

modeling)

Force sized to

prevail in desired

number of

contingencies

Optimize based

on cost

Multifaceted and

uncertain threats

Military Judgement

(focus on inputs)

Adequate and

affordable mix

of capabilities

Accomplish

required military

objectives

Generic military

missions

Military Judgement

(focus on outputs)

Size force to

carry out

missions

Resource

focus

Mission

focus

Figure 1. Force Planning Methodologies.
the likelihood of nuclear escalation. Secretary of Defense McNamara argued that the U.S.

needed a “two-and-one-half-war” conventional war capability sufficient to: mount a defense of

Western Europe against a Soviet attack; defend either Southeast Asia or Korea against a

Chinese attack; and still meet a contingency elsewhere.

11

 McNamara recognized the

challenges of conducting defense planning under uncertainty, notably the need for defense

programs to provide capabilities that would eventually be used in unforeseen contingencies.

From this arose the concept of rationalizing force structure in terms of the most stressing

threats (the Soviet Union and China), but training and equipping the forces for flexibility.

12

Army Chief of Staff, General Earle Wheeler, claimed:

. . .we have cre ated ver sa tile, and flex i ble gen eral pur pose forces which can be tai lored to the require ments of emer gency sit u a tions. For these pur poses, the rel a tively new United States

Strike Com mand (STRICOM), has been pro vided eight com bat-ready Army di vi sions, a commen su rate amount of Tac ti cal Air com bat power, and the nec es sary air lift to cope with a num ber

of lim ited war sit u a tions.

13

STRICOM’s mission was to provide a general reserve of combat ready forces to reinforce

other unified commands, and plan and conduct contingency operations. McNamara used

contingency planning to hedge against uncertainty and reasoned that if U.S. forces could cope

with the most threatening contingencies, they should suffice to deal with the other,

unexpected challenges that might arise.

14

 Once again, force planners combined elements

from threat and capabilities based planning.

The Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations chose a less conservative strategy. As

National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger launched a reexamination of the assumptions of

the 2 1⁄2- war strategy. The collapse of the Sino-Soviet bloc and recognition that the United

States had never generated the forces required for the 2 1⁄2-war strategy, led to the adoption of

the 1 1⁄2-war strategy. President Nixon outlined the rationale in his report to Congress in

February 1970:

In the ef fort to har mo nize doc trine and ca pa bil ity, we chose what is best de scribed as the “1

1⁄2-war” strat egy. Un der it we will main tain in peace time gen eral pur pose forces ad e quate for simul ta neously meet ing a ma jor Com mu nist at tack in ei ther Eu rope or Asia, . . . and con tend ing

with a con tin gency else where.

15

Within this more conservative framework, planning under uncertainty was always a theme.

In 1976, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger employed multiple planning scenarios in his

guidance to the military departments, similar to the Illustrative Planning Scenarios of today.

The DoD Annual Report two years later noted that U.S. general purpose forces “must be

trained, equipped, and supplied so that they can deploy and fight in a wide variety of

environments against a range of possible foes.”

16

Flexibility in force planning was advanced further during the Carter administration. The

issue of regional contingencies was raised with a particular focus on the Persian Gulf. A 1979

DoD study identified a variety of threats and contingencies and proposed programs to provide

broad capabilities for the region without focusing on a single threat or scenario. This

capabilities-based effort eventually led to the formation of the Rapid Deployment Joint Task

160
161

Force and still later U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). After the Soviet invasion of

Afghanistan in December 1979, however, military planners turned almost exclusively to the

Soviet threat to Iran as the likely scenario for action in the Persian Gulf.

17

During the Reagan years military planning was much more clearly grounded in a

threat-based approach focused on possible global war with the Soviet Union. The Soviet

Union appeared to be capable of aggression in several theaters, and U.S. planning had to

consider the possibility of simultaneous wars in Southwest Asia and Central Europe. The

Office of the Secretary of Defense adopted a force sizing-scenario that postulated a Soviet

invasion of Iran as the initial event in such a global war. This scenario raised the possibility of

war with the Soviet Union on several fronts, either because of Soviet aggression in multiple

theaters or because the U.S. might escalate “horizontally” by conducting offensives in regions

of Soviet weakness.

18

 Despite this possibility of multifront operations however, it was clear

that the defense of central Europe was the dominant case for defining military requirements.

Nevertheless, the rapid deployment force (RDF) made continued progress during the Reagan

buildup. That the purpose and framework of this force were anchored in capabilities-based

planning was illustrated in the 1984 DoD Annual Report:

. . . we need a “rapid de ploy ment ca pa bil ity” pri mar ily for those ar eas of the world in which the U.S. has

lit tle or no nearby mil i tary in fra struc ture or, in some cases, main tains no pres ence at all. There are

many lo ca tions where we might need to pro ject force, not only in SWA and the Mid dle East, but also in

Af rica, Cen tral Amer ica, South Amer ica, the Ca rib bean, and else where. Each of these ar eas has special re quire ments, but it would be too costly to try to tai lor a unique force for each. There fore we must

set pri or i ties . . . and, at the same time, build flex i ble ca pa bil i ties that can serve our needs in more than

one re gion.

19

Eisenhower

1950s

Kennedy/

Johnson

1960s

Strategy Scenario Leading Supporting

(focus) Methodology Effort

New Look

(nuclear warfighting)

Capabilities-based

(resource variant)

Flexible Response

(2 and 1/2 wars)

Threat-based

Specialized capabilities

for

intervention

operations

1 and 1/2 wars

•War in Central Europe

•Lesser contingency

Threat-based

Rapid deployment

capabilities

(RDJTF)

Strategic nuclear war

with the

Soviet Union

•Central Europe against

Soviet Union

•Asia against China

•Lesser contingency

Monolithic Communist

threat

Nixon/Ford/

Carter

1970s

Reagan

1980s

Horizontal escalation

•Global war with Soviet Union

•Possibly triggered

by Soviet invasion of Iran

Threat-based

Continued development

of rapid

deployment capabilities

Figure 2. Cold War Force Planning.
Force planning during the Reagan years, and indeed for all administrations during the

Cold War, was threat-based, but not to the exclusion of important contributions derived from

the capabilities-based approach. “Threat analysis was an important variable in the strategy

development process,” one RAND analyst concludes in this regard, “but it was far from the

only factor, or even the most important.”

20

 During the entire period, Secretaries of Defense

were consistently concerned with planning under uncertain conditions and thus made

regional distinctions and considered contingencies other than the standard Soviet attack on

Central Europe.

21

 In addition, U.S. Cold War force structure was generally large and diverse

enough to respond to numerous lesser-included contingencies.

22

 In the end, the combination

of force planning methods worked well for the U.S. in the Cold War. But, as Figure 2

demonstrates, it was the threat-based foundation that primarily contributed to the

widespread political support for decades of high defense spending.

POST-COLD WAR FORCE PLANNING.

“Uncertainty is not a mere nuisance requiring a bit of sensitivity analysis,” Paul Davis

points out; “it is a dominant characteristic of serious planning.”

23

 The U.S. military is well

aware of this fact, but has had difficulty during the current transition in selling it to Congress

and the public. The principal problem is the lack of the all-consuming threat that focused the

nation’s attention on the problem of containing the USSR for over four decades. This force

planning framework has evaporated in the post-Cold War era, leaving little agreement on

appropriate threats, contingencies, or required capabilities against which to focus the defense

establishment. 

THE BASE FORCE.

In an effort to demonstrate military responsiveness to changes in the strategic and

budgetary environments, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell,

developed the Base Force in the early 1990s. This force was considered the minimum force

that would still allow the armed forces to meet mission requirements with acceptable risk.

The Base Force was developed through a close-hold process by the Program and Budget

Analysis Division (PBAD) of the Force Structure, Resource, and Assessment Directorate (J-8)

of the Joint Staff, with little analytical support, or formal input from the Services or the

CINCs. The suspension of the Joint Strategic Review (JSR) process and the development of

the Base Force are manifestations of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, and dramatically

demonstrated the shifting focus of the force planning process from the services to the Joint

Staff.

24

The Base Force straddled both the Soviet revolutions of 1988 and 1991, causing the

justification and rationale behind the chosen force levels to evolve over time. The initial focus

of the Base Force was on a capabilities-based approach to defense planning, driven largely by

resource constraints. As a result, the J5 strategists were given the task of determining:

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163

. . . whether J-8’s re source-driven force struc ture and the Chair man’s rec om mended force pos ture provided the ca pa bil ity to pur sue US ob jec tives. Thus he was to val i date from a stra te gic per spec tive the

force struc ture that the J-8 had al ready val i dated from a pro gram ming and bud get ary per spec tive.

25

The threat was very ill-defined at this point. “I’m running out of demons,” General Powell

commented in April 1991, “I’m running out of villains. . . . I’m down to Castro and Kim Il

Sung.”

26

 In such an environment, Powell stressed, there were some very real limitations to

threat-oriented contingency analysis. The resource-constrained force, he concluded, should

instead focus on the combat capabilities needed to ensure that a sufficient array of assets

would be present to perform the multiple missions demanded on the modern battlefield.

27

 The

mission-focused aspect of the Base Force was evident in the three conceptual conventional

force packages that eventually became part of the 1992 National Military Strategy (NMS)

(Figure 3). Forces for the Atlantic would include forward-based and forward deployed units

committed to Europe, and heavy reinforcing forces for Europe, the Middle East, and the

Persian Gulf based in the United States. The Pacific Forces differed from the Atlantic

package, reflecting the maritime character of the area. Contingency Forces would consist of

U.S. based ground, air, and naval forces capable of worldwide deployment as needed.

28

Unfortunately, the advent of and ensuing focus on Operations Desert Shield and Desert

Storm precluded the Pentagon’s strategic planners from completing the analytical construct

behind the Base Force, a task that then-Representative Les Aspin was more than willing to

undertake. In the first of two national security papers, Aspin attacked capabilities-based

force planning, charging that decisions concerning what capabilities were required of U.S.

forces could not be done in a vacuum. Instead, he concluded, “. . . it is critical to identify threats 

to U.S. interests that are sufficiently important that Americans would consider the use of

force to secure them.”

29

 Shortly thereafter, Aspin outlined in a second paper his concept of the

“Iraqi equivalent” as the generic threat measure for regional aggressors and the “Desert

ATLANTIC

FORCES

PACIFIC

FORCES

CONTINGENCY

FORCES

ARMY NAVY USMC USAF

FWD

Deployed

CONUS

FWD

Deployed

CONUS

CONUS

2 DIV 1 CVBG 3 FWE

3 DIV 5 CVBG 1 MEF 2 FWE

6 RC DIV 11 RC FWE

2 DIV 1 CVBG 1 MEF 3 FWE

5 CVBG

5 DIV Tailored 1 MEF 7 FWE

Mix

TOTAL (AC): 12 DIVs 12 CVBGs 3 MEFs 15 FWEs

CVBG: Carrier Battle Group MEF: Marine Expeditionary Force FWE: Fighter Wing Equivalent

Source: 1992 NMS

Figure 3. Base Force.
Storm equivalent” as the most robust building block for U.S. forces. The purpose was to

establish a clear linkage between the force structure and the sorts of threats the forces could

be expected to deal with. Aspin also envisioned his “threat-driven” methodology to be flexible

enough to include aspects of a typical capabilities-based approach. The building blocks for the

methodology, he pointed out, were generic capabilities.

Al though each is in formed by a care ful re view of per ti nent his tor i cal cases, I am not suggest ing

we ac quire forces which would be suited only to a few places and pre ce dents. I’m sug gest ing instead ge neric mil i tary ca pa bil i ties which should be ef fec tive against the full spec trum of cat e gor -

i cal threats in the un cer tain fu ture.

30

At the same time, within the Pentagon, the rationale for the Base Force evolved into a

combined capabilities-based and threat-based approach and became firmly anchored to the

two-MTW requirement. In late 1992, General Powell began promoting the Base Force as both

capabilities oriented as well as threat oriented. In a few cases such as Korea and Southwest

Asia, he pointed out, it was possible to identify particular threats with some degree of

certainty.

31

 These developments had no effect on the regional focus of the force. In 1992,

Secretary of Defense, Richard Cheney reported that, “the ability to respond to regional and

local crises is a key element of our new strategy.”

32

 The “Base Force” National Military

Strategy of 1992 concluded that U.S. “plans and resources are primarily focused on deterring

and fighting regional rather than global wars.”

33

 Although neither of these documents

specified a two-MTW requirement, the sizing function for this requirement continued to

evolve behind the scenes. Both the 1991 and 1992 Joint Military Net Assessments (JMNAs)

focused on the warfighting analysis for Major Regional Contingency-East

(MRC-East)—Southwest Asia, and MRC-West—Korea. According to Army force planners,

the principal focus of US operational planning was “regional crisis response—to include a

capability to respond to multiple concurrent major regional contingencies.”

34

 In his

autobiography General Powell clearly states what his National Military Strategy did not:

“The Base Force strategy called for armed forces capable of fighting two major regional

conflicts ‘nearly simultaneously.’”

35

THE BOT TOM UP RE VIEW FORCE.

With a new administration, the Base Force title was jettisoned; but the underpinnings of

U.S. force structure remained largely intact. Upon assuming office, Secretary of Defense Les

Aspin initiated a comprehensive review of the nation’s defense strategy and force structure

and published the Report of the Bottom Up Review (BUR) in October 1993. The methodology

for the BUR combined all threat-based and capabilities-based aspects of the force-planning

methodologies. To begin with, there was the traditional assessment of threats and

opportunities, the formulation of a strategy to protect and advance U.S. interests, and the

determination of the forces needed to implement the strategy. At the same time, there was an

evaluation of military missions that included fighting MTWs, conducting smaller scale

operations, maintaining overseas presence, and deterring attacks with weapons of mass

destruction. The ultimate force-sizing criterion was to “maintain sufficient military power to

be able to win two major regional conflicts that occur nearly simultaneously.” The planning

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165

and assessment for these MTWs were based on two illustrative scenarios viewed as

representative yardsticks with which to assess in “gross terms the capabilities of U.S.

forces.”

36

 From this perspective, the BUR continued the dual focus on both threat and

capabilities that had evolved in the Base Force. “The Clinton defense policy,” noted RAND

analyst Richard L. Kugler points out,

rep re sents con ti nu ity rather than a rev o lu tion ary de par ture, for the changes it makes are rel a tively

small. . . . The chief dif fer ence lies in the new pol icy’s call for a smaller con ven tional pos ture, but only

10-15 per cent smaller than the Bush ad min is tra tion’s Base Force.

37

QUA DREN NIAL DE FENSE RE VIEW (QDR) AND THE NA TIONAL

DE FENSE PANEL (NDP).

Despite a degree of continuity and general agreement within the nation’s defense

establishment concerning the overall framework for the size and posture of U.S. military

forces, planners continued to have difficulty with their third task—convincing Congress and

the public. The greatest difficulty was persuading Congress that the Pentagon was

sufficiently focused on the 21st century and preparing the military to execute the most likely

conflicts. As a result, in 1996 Congress passed legislation directing the Secretary of Defense

and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to conduct a review of the U.S. defense program

and provide a report in 1997. Their review was directed to include

a com pre hen sive ex am i na tion of the de fense strat egy, force struc ture, force mod ern iza tion plans, infra struc ture, bud get plan and other el e ments of the de fense pro gram . . .

38

Congress also provided for an independent body of defense experts, designated the National

Defense Panel, to both review and comment on the QDR, as well as look slightly further into

the future.

The QDR was designed as a strategy-driven review and upon its completion to serve as the

overall strategic planning document for the Defense Department. From a force planner’s

perspective the key features of the QDR were the newly articulated defense strategy of

“shape, respond and prepare,” and several refinements to force sizing and planning

considerations. However, the bottom-line remained an overall requirement “that U.S. forces

must be capable of fighting and winning two major theater wars nearly simultaneously.”

39

The shape-respond-prepare strategy recognized the requirements for U.S. military forces

to operate in support of U.S. interests across the entire spectrum of operations, from

peacetime to wartime. Military forces assist in shaping the international environment

through overseas presence, rotational deployments, and various military-to-military

programs. Shaping requirements have normally been viewed as a lesser-included capability

provided by a larger war-time focused structure. The QDR, however, specifically indicated

that the overseas presence mission plays a significant role in determining the size of U.S.

naval forces.

40

 Responding to the full spectrum of crises, to include major theater wars,

remained the most stressing requirement. Although the QDR revalidated the centrality of a

2-MTW force structure, it also placed increased emphasis on capabilities needed for smaller
scale contingencies (SSC). These contingencies are viewed as the most likely challenge for

U.S. forces, and the QDR noted a requirement to be able to conduct multiple concurrent

smaller-scale contingency operations.

41

 One of the difficulties in using this approach as a

force structure determinant, however, is that while the military is relatively confident that it

knows the types and quantity of forces needed to fight an MTW, it is much less certain of what

is needed for SSCs that have a wide variety of objectives and occur in diverse regions of the

world.

42

 The Joint staff sponsored the Dynamic Commitment wargame series that attempted

to identify and quantify a list of military capabilities for smaller scale contingencies. These

capabilities, however, are still viewed as a lesser-included subset of the MTW force.

The QDR’s analysis continued to represent a blend of threat-based and capabilities-based

planning. The principal scenarios remain focused on the threat posed by regional aggressors

on the scale of Iraq or North Korea. A slightly expanded scenario set was used to examine

threat use of asymmetric strategies, differences in warning time, U.S. force size, and the

degree of commitment to ongoing SSCs. The QDR also tested projected capabilities against a

range of more challenging threats—a postulated major regional power in the 2014 timeframe.

In addition, generic scenarios used a threat force based on the projected capabilities of nations

not currently allied with the United States. As the report concludes, “this analysis enabled us

to test our projected capabilities against a range of more challenging threats.”

43

The report of the National Defense Panel highlighted another dilemma faced by force

planners—building forces for the present or focusing on future requirements. Concerning the

present, the NDP acknowledged that the United States cannot afford to ignore near-term

threats and that “the two-theater construct has been a useful mechanism for determining

what forces to retain as the Cold War came to a close, [and] to some degree, it remains a useful

mechanism today.”

44

 But the panel also argued that today’s threats are not necessarily the

ones the U.S. will face in the future, expressing concern that the two MTW construct is

becoming an inhibitor to achieving the capabilities needed in the 2010-2020 time frame. The

panel suggested a fundamental change: “The United States needs a transformation strategy

that enables us to meet a range of security challenges in 2010-2020 without taking undue risk

in the interim.”

45

Before leaving this brief look at recent force structure reviews, one additional effort

deserves mention as a significant capabilities-based force design effort. At the same time that

the United states was engaged in the QDR and NDP, the United Kingdom was also trying to

determine the appropriate size and posture for its military forces to respond to the changing

environment of the 21st Century. Their effort was called the Strategic Defence Review (SDR).

Although the QDR and SDR followed similar processes, the report of the SDR is valuable

because it is much more detailed and transparent. Beginning with a policy review that

identified national interests and commitments, the SDR focused on specific missions and

military tasks and assessed the forces and capabilities needed to conduct those tasks. The

capabilities assessments relied primarily on a concept called “scale of effort.” Scales of effort

are planning tools that postulate a projected size of an operation, for example, a medium scale

operation is a brigade size deployment similar to Bosnia, and a large scale operation is a

division size deployment similar to the contribution to the Persian Gulf war. Planners

determined the force elements required for each military task given assumptions about the

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167

scale of effort. This approach is similar to the Dynamic Commitment wargame mentioned

above, however, in this case, the force elements for each task—the lesser-included

requirements—are clearly delineated in attached tables. The detailed capabilities

assessment was validated by scenario-based analysis of medium and large scale force

projection operations. The overall force sizing construct was a requirement to conduct two

concurrent medium scale operations or one full scale operation. The SDR concluded that “not

to be able to conduct two medium scale operations at the same time would be an unacceptable

constraint on our ability to discharge Britain’s commitments and responsibilities.”

46

 The

SDR is probably the closest model available of a detailed capabilities-based planning effort,

and yet it also relied on scenario-based analysis for validation.

TWO-MTW RA TIO NALE.

In examining the rationale for the two-MTW requirement, it is important to remember

that the requirement is not a strategy, but represents the sizing function for the Clinton

administration’s defense program—the principal determinant of the size and composition of

U.S. conventional forces. The nature of this sizing function was clearly articulated by Defense

Secretary William Perry in 1996:

Pre vi ously, our force struc ture was planned to de ter a global war with the So viet Un ion, which we consid ered a threat to our very sur vival as a na tion. All other threats, in clud ing re gional threats, were

considered lesser-but-included cases . . . Today, the threat of global conflict is greatly diminished, but

the danger of regional conflict is neither lesser nor included and has therefore required us to take this

danger explicitly into account in structuring our forces.

47

The current version of the two-MTW requirement states that the principal determinant of the

size and composition of U.S. conventional forces is the capability

pref er a bly in con cert with al lies, . . . to de ter and, if de ter rence fails, de feat large-scale, cross-border aggres sion in two dis tant the aters in over lap ping timeframes.

48

Inherent in the acceptance of the 2-MTW force-sizing requirement is the recognition that the

U.S. will not be able to conduct sizable contingency operations at the same time it is fighting

in two major theaters.

49

Three principal reasons for this sizing function have emerged during the post-Cold War

period. First, as a nation with global interests, the U.S. needs to field a military capability to

avoid a situation in which it lacks the forces to deter aggression in one region while fighting in

another. “With this capability,” the BUR points out,

we will be con fi dent, and our al lies as well as po ten tial en e mies will know, that a sin gle re gional con flict 

will not leave our in ter ests and al lies in other re gions at risk.

50

The historical evidence in support of the 2-MTW requirement is much stronger than

detractors are willing to acknowledge. There have been, for instance, 22 nearly simultaneous
crises requiring the deployment and use of military force from 1946 to 1991.

52

 The likelihood

of such occurrences has increased in the absence of the Cold War superpower restraints.

A second reason is that a force capable of defeating two regional adversaries should

provide the basic wherewithal to support a defense against a larger-than-expected threat

from, as examples, continental-scale adversaries such as Russia or China, or a coalition of

regional opponents.

53

 Although a peer competitor is not envisioned in the near term, the

possibility of confrontations with a larger than MTW threat must be guarded against. This

hedge against uncertainty is also required as a practical matter because of the time needed to

reconstitute a larger force. “If we were to discard half of this two-MTW capability or allow it to

decay,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shalikashvili, concluded a few

years back, “it would take many years to rebuild a force of comparable excellence. In today’s

turbulent international environment, where the future posture of so many powerful nations

remains precarious, we could find ourselves with too little, too late.”

54

Finally, the 2-MTW sizing function recognizes the increased operational deployment of

American forces and allows the U.S. to deter latent threats from regional adversaries when

portions of the force are committed to important smaller-scale contingencies and engagement

activities in other theaters.

55

 Although U.S. participation in smaller-scale contingency

operations should not be viewed as a given, if the National Command Authorities (NCA)

decide to commit U.S. forces to such operations, the strategy and force structure, as sized by

the 2-MTW requirement, could adequately support that commitment.

FORCE PLANNING INTO THE 21st CEN TURY.

Force planning in the 21st century is destined to be as controversial and thus as difficult as

it has been in the 1990s. A clear understanding of two issues should make the job easier:

mission, and the use of scenarios. The strategy formulation process around which the

chapters of this book are built clearly emphasizes interest-based, and in turn strategy-driven

analysis. 

MIS SION.

Without an agreement on the mission or strategy, force planning will continue to

disappoint. Unfortunately, at the present juncture there is little agreement concerning the

mission of the armed forces. The on-going debate has two dimensions: shaping and

peacekeeping versus warfighting; and current versus future focus. Numerous politicians,

defense analysts and several senior military leaders have concluded that the two-MTW

requirement should be adjusted to specifically include force-sizing for peace operations. This

argument is based on the experiences of the first decade of the post-Cold War period. During

that time the operational commitment of U.S. military forces has increased 300 percent, and

the vast majority of those deployments have been at the low end of the spectrum of

conflict—shaping activities and smaller scale contingencies, not MTWs. Jeffrey Record

argues that the 2-MTW force has little relevance in a world in which a “modern-day version of

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169

imperial policing is likely to consume much of U.S. military effort.”

56

 The most recent

articulation of this position was contained in the Phase II report of the U.S. Commission on

National Security/21st Century, entitled “Seeking a National Strategy: A Concept for

Preserving Security and Promoting Freedom.” The report claims that:

the “two ma jor the ater wars” yard stick for siz ing U.S. forces is not pro duc ing the ca pa bil i ties needed

for the var ied and com plex con tin gen cies now oc cur ring and likely to in crease in the years ahead. 

It calls for a portion of U.S. force structure to be specifically tailored to humanitarian relief

and constabulary missions.

57

 Two noted RAND analysts have proposed replacing the

two-MTW criteria with three simultaneous sizing criteria: force needs for environment

shaping; force needs for one tough MRC plus stability operations in other theaters; and force

needs for two “moderately difficult MRCs.”

58

 Even the Defense Department has begun to

waver on the issue slightly. The most recent edition of the DoD Annual Report, in addressing

the use of military force in support of primarily humanitarian interests, has removed the

previous qualifier that “the U.S. military is generally not the best means of addressing a

crisis.”

59

 This shift in emphasis is further supported by a focus on peacetime military

engagement (PME) activities as the “best way” of reducing the sources of conflict and shaping

the international environment.

60

Strong voices, however, remain on the other side of the issue. General Shelton, Chairman

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated that the U.S. military should not carve out a portion of its 

force structure exclusively to handle peacekeeping missions because those operations could

quickly escalate into situations that only trained warfighters could handle.

61

 Chairman of the

House Armed Services Committee, Floyd Spence, in rejecting the Commission on National

Security’s call to abandon the two-MTW yardstick, indicated that he fundamentally disgreed

“with those who advocate shifting the composition of our armed forces toward peacekeeping

and humanitarian operations at the expense of warfighting capabilities."

62

 The need for a

versatile and flexible force capable of responding and executing a wide range of missions is

clearly recognized. The disagreement concerns where on the operational spectrum should

risk be assumed—high end (major theater war) or low end (peacekeeping or humanitarian

operations)—or how to posture the force to minimize risk. Force planners will have a hard

time developing an acceptable force structure in the absence of consensus on this issue.

Force planners also must resolve the issue of whether to focus their efforts on the current

threat or future threats. According to the NDP:

. . . we must an tic i pate that fu ture ad ver sar ies will learn from the past and con front us in very dif fer ent

ways. Thus we must be will ing to change as well or risk hav ing forces ill-suited to pro tect our se cu rity

twenty years in the fu ture. The United States needs to launch a trans for ma tion strat egy now that will

en able it to meet a range of se cu rity chal lenges in 2010 to 2020.

63

Proponents of this view contend that the “revolution in military affairs” (RMA) will have

profound effects on the way wars are fought. This model would replace the 2-MTW force with

a “silicon-based” superior force that would be smaller and more flexible, emphasizing

mobility, speed and agility. Warfighters would benefit from technological achievements in

stealth, precision weapons, surveillance, and dominant battlefield awareness. Most RMA
proponents also contend that at present the U.S. has a threat deficit and therefore can afford

to cut force structure and focus on research and development of new “sunrise systems,”

experimentation and innovation.

64

 Critics claim that both the QDR and NDP failed to propose

innovative and long-term changes in the defense program. General Shalikashvili’s response

to such criticism brings the issue full circle back to risk assessment and how that risk should

be allocated over time:

My ad mo ni tion was that we need to do what we need to do to re main ca pa ble of de fend ing our

coun try and win ning our na tion’s wars. I did n’t want to get an award for in no va tion’s sake. I

didn’t want any one gam bling with our na tion’s se cu rity just so we could be called great in no va -

tors.

65

PLANNING SCE NARIOS FOR MA JOR THE ATER WAR.

It is clear that elements of both the threat-based and capabilities-based approaches must

be applied to force planning. This is even more the case in periods of increased uncertainty, as

demonstrated by the Base Force and the BUR. Scenarios are extremely useful to the force

planner as a yardstick against which to measure the capabilities of the force. Because they

reflect key aspects of future challenges the U.S. might face, well-chosen scenarios help to

ensure that the yardstick used has some relationship to reality. It is also important to keep in

mind that no single scenario (or pair of scenarios) will ever be completely adequate to assess

force capabilities.

Does the use of scenarios, as assessment tools constitute “threat-based planning?” That

common question can best be answered by posing another: “Is it possible to do serious force

planning without reference, either explicitly or implicitly, to some scenarios?” The answer to

the second question is clearly no. Any force structure must ultimately be judged against some

expected set of operational requirements—those things that the force is expected to be able to

do. This is simply another way of saying “scenarios.”

66

 Nevertheless, just because scenarios

are used, the label “scenario-based” or “threat-based” planning should not be accepted.

Critics of the 2-MTW framework claim that the use of canonical scenarios (one in

Southwest Asia and one in Korea) suppress uncertainty and do not satisfactorily measure the

adequacy of U.S. force posture. Proposals include using an expanded scenario set, to include

nonstandard scenarios, and examining the “scenario-space” within that set of scenarios to

determine capability envelopes.

67

 Scenario-space implies the iteration of numerous scenario

characteristics, such as alternative force levels (threat and friendly), buildup rates, military

strategies and warning time—thereby generating a range of required capabilities.

Nonetheless, the canonical scenarios—Korea and the Persian Gulf—are clearly the most

stressful and dangerous near-term contingencies, and have served the U.S. well by creating a

requirement for high-mobility forces and a diverse posture.

68

 But if fine-tuning military

capabilities requires a broader look, it may be appropriate to expand the scenario set and use

a scenario-space concept to examine all relevant factors.

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171

Reassessing the scenarios must also include relooking the threats used in the planning

scenarios. The Iraq and North Korean scenarios remain the most demanding, but in each case

threat capability is declining.

69

 In addition, the potential for opponents’ adopting

asymmetrical strategies could pose different security challenges than those currently

contained in the MTW planning scenarios. Iran’s purchase of Kilo-class submarines and its

improved anti-ship missiles is one example. Finally, the near-term transformation of China

into a “peer competitor” remains a concern that should be assessed in future planning

scenarios. 

These factors highlight the dynamic nature and the importance of continuing to reassess

potential threats to U.S. interests. Adopting the scenario-space concept should account for

dynamic threat assessments and provide a more robust planning tool with which to examine

force requirements.

CON CLU SION.

Force planning has been and always will be a very dynamic process. Consequently, as the

strategic environment changes or as the understanding of its uncertainties matures, and as

both threat and friendly military capabilities evolve, there should be adjustments to the

defense program.

Force planning, particularly when it is done correctly, represents the purest application of

the strategic art—calculating a variable mix of ends, ways, and means. In a world

characterized by uncertainty and regional instability, in which the United States has security

interests that are truly global in scope, the ends are fairly clear although difficult to achieve.

As the United States enters the 21st Century, the ways and means to achieve those strategic

ends continue to be expressed by the 2-MTW framework. That framework is founded on a

logical integration of threat and capabilities-based planning. Planners need to adapt that

framework as necessary to accommodate appropriate adjustments. New approaches to

planning scenarios offer the potential for such adjustment concerning the “ways” of the

strategic paradigm, while force thinning and modernization are two important categories for

adjusting the affordability of the strategic “means.”

The experience of more than 40 years of force planning indicates that elements of both

threat-based and capabilities-based planning must be applied. Figure 4 summarizes the force

planning process and illustrates the integration of threat-based and capabilities-based

planning.

Drawing on the logic of threat-based planning, the force planner needs realistic scenarios

as a yardstick against which to measure the capabilities of a force. Adjusting the existing

canonical-MTW scenarios by adopting a scenario-space approach can better ensure that all

relative factors and resultant requirements are considered. As shown in the center of Figure 4

and reiterated in the NSS and NMS, the focus of force planning should remain on the

evaluation of the major theater planning cases. The vast majority of force requirements are

derived from these primary cases. However, it is also necessary to examine the full range of
missions directed by the National Security Strategy, such as smaller scale contingencies and

overseas presence missions in order to ensure that all unique force elements have been

identified. Most of the U.S. forces forward deployed constitute a deterrent posture

safeguarding areas of vital interest. Thus, in those areas, these forces represent the initial

crisis response portion of the MTW force. Likewise, most of the force structure elements

required to execute and sustain SSCs are derived from the 2-MTW force. Nevertheless, in

both cases there may be unique requirements or higher demands for certain assets not

otherwise identified. Finally, resource constraints must be applied to examine the internal

characteristics of the force posture and to build an affordable defense program.

The central role played by objectives in planning has been clearly demonstrated. At every

level, from the President’s National Security Strategy down to an individual Service’s

assessment of priorities, the first step in planning is to state explicitly what is to be

accomplished. In addition, any useful defense planning exercise must be completed within

the context of the anticipated budgetary resources available for defense. In the end, as

Richard Kugler points out, integration of threat-based planning with the two types of

capability-based planning ensures a process that operates in positive symbiosis:

172

Identify national

interests

Assess threats

to interests

Develop illustrative

planning scenarios

(scenario space)

Evaluate principal

planning cases

(MTWs)

Evaluate lesserincluded cases

(SSCs)

Evaluate overseas

presence

Force requirements

Requirements

Unique

Capabilties

Defense Program

•Force structure

•Posture

•Modernization

•Infrastructure

Assess cost

and risk

Unique

Capabilities

Iterate as

necessary

•strategy

•objectives

•scenarios

threat-based

capabilities-based

both

Legend:

Primacy of methodology

Determine:

•National Security Strategy

•National Military Strategy

Identify national

interests

Assess threats

to interests

Develop illustrative

planning scenarios

(scenario space)

Evaluate principal

planning cases

(MTWs)

Evaluate lesserincluded cases

(SSCs)

Evaluate overseas

presence

Force requirements

Requirements

Unique

Capabilties

Defense Program

•Force structure

•Posture

•Modernization

•Infrastructure

Assess cost

and risk

Unique

Capabilities

Iterate as

necessary

•strategy

•objectives

•scenarios

threat-based

capabilities-based

both

Legend:

Primacy of methodology

Determine:

•National Security Strategy

•National Military Strategy

Identify national

interests

Assess threats

to interests

Develop illustrative

planning scenarios

(scenario space)

Evaluate principal

planning cases

(MTWs)

Evaluate lesserincluded cases

(SSCs)

Evaluate overseas

presence

Force requirements

Requirements

Unique

Capabilties

Defense Program

•Force structure

•Posture

•Modernization

•Infrastructure

Assess cost

and risk

Unique

Capabilities

Iterate as

necessary

•strategy

•objectives

•scenarios

threat-based

capabilities-based

both

Legend:

Primacy of methodology

Determine:

•National Security Strategy

•National Military Strategy

Figure 4. Force Planning.
173

The cen tral ar gu ment ad vanced here is that mis sion-based ca pa bil ity anal y sis can help gauge re quire -

ments for the U.S. con ven tional pos ture, and help build pub lic un der stand ing of why siz able forces are

needed in an era when threats to U.S. in ter ests are un clear. This is not to im ply, how ever, that this

meth od ol ogy should en tirely re place the other two ap proaches. Threat-based con tin gency anal y sis will

still be needed to ex am ine spe cific con flicts to which U.S. forces might be com mit ted, and resource-based ca pa bil ity anal y sis will be needed to ex am ine the in ter nal char ac ter is tics of the force posture. The three meth od ol o gies thus are best used in tan dem, as a pack age of tech niques that can work

to gether to shed il lu mi nat ing light on con ven tional force needs.

70

Force planners and strategists must rely on an appropriate mix of threat and

capability-based planning that will allow the United States to achieve its strategic objectives

and provide the U.S. political leadership with the answer to the question, “how much is

enough?” 

ENDNOTES - CHAP TER 12

1. Mackubin T. Owens, “The QDR and Future U.S. Security,” Strategic Review, Summer 1997, p. 3.

2. Henry C. Bartlett, G. Paul Holman, Jr., and Timothy E. Somes, “The Art of Strategy and Force Planning,”

Naval War College Review, Spring 1995, p. 114.

3. Paul K. Davis, “Planning Under Uncertainty Then and Now: Paradigms Lost and Paradigms

Reemerging,” in New Challenges for Defense Planning: Rethinking How Much is Enough, ed. by Paul K. Davis,

(Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1994), p. 16.

4. Certain proponents of the Revoultion in Military Affairs argue that the currrent force is too large and

should be cut to afford a greater emphasis on experimentation and modernization. See: Andrew F. Krepinevich,

Jr., “Keeping Pace with the Military-Technological Revolution,” Science and Technology, Summer 1994, pp.

23-29; and James R. Blaker, “The American RMA Force: An Alternative to the QDR,” Strategic Review, Vol. 25

(Summer 1997), pp. 21-30. For an earlier argument on the unaffordability of the force see: Don M. Snider, “The

Coming Defense Train Wreck . . .,”The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter 1996). Michael O’Hanlon, in

his book How to Be a Cheap Hawk: The 1999 and 2000 Defense Budgets (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution

Press, 1998), notes an annual shortfall in the defense budget of between $10 and $20 billion in the next decade.

Most recently, Daniel Goure and Jeffrey Ranney argue that the defense department faces an annual shortfall of

$100 billion; in Averting the Defense Train Wreck in the New Millennium (Washington, DC: The CSIS Press,

1999). Finally, see Harry G. Summers, Jr.,The New World Strategy: A Military Policy for America’s Future (New

York: Touchstone Books, 1995), for the argument that the force is totally inadequate.

5. Harlan Ullman, In Irons: U.S. Military Might in the New Century, (Washington, DC: National Defense

University, 1995), p. 111, identifies three related “vital” questions for force planners: “What forces are needed

strategically and operationally?; What level of capability and what types of force structure are politically and

economically sustainable and justifiable . . .?; and “How do we safely, sensibly, and affordably get from today’s

force structure and capability to that of tomorrow and properly balance the threat strategy, force structure,

budget, and infrastructure relationships?”

6. The Rand Corporation happens to be the principal depository for detailed exposition on force planning

methodologies. Among the most recent works on this subject, refer to the following: James A. Winnefeld, The

Post-Cold War Force-Sizing Debate: Paradigms, Metaphors, and Disconnects, (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1992);

Richard L. Kugler, U.S. Military Strategy and Force Posture for the 21st Century: Capabilities and

Requirements, (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1994); and Paul K. Davis, ed., New Challenges for Defense Planning:

Rethinking How Much is Enough, (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1994). In this last work, refer particularly to “Part
Two: Principles for Defense Planning,” pp. 15-132. Finally, Zalmay M. Khalilzad and David A. Ochmanek, ed.,

Strategy and Defense Planning for the 21st Century (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1997).

7. Winnefeld, p. 8.

8. Quoted in Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and

Policy, (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1973), p. 380.

9. Millet and Maslowski, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America, (New

York: The Free Press, 1984), p. 496.

10. Ibid., pp. 511-512. See also, Kaufmann, Planning Conventional Forces 1950-80, (Washington, DC: The

Brookings Institution, 1982), p. 3. This requirement is very similar to the Army’s Strategic Mobility Plan, first

announced in 1991 as the Army’s goal for the Mobility Requirements Study. The recently promulgated Army

Vision statement has upped the ante with an objective of 5 Army divisions deployed within 30 days. Eric K.

Shinseki and Louis Caldera, “The Army Vision Statement,” available from http://www.army.mil/-

armyvision/vision.htm. Internet. 

11. For the Common Defense, pp. 530-535; and Henry Kissinger, White House Years, (Boston: Little, Brown

and Company, 1979), p. 220.

12. Paul K. Davis, “Planning Under Uncertainty Then and Now: Paradigms Lost and Paradigms Emerging,” 

in Paul Davis, ed., New Challenges for Defense Planning: Rethinking How Much is Enough, (Santa Monica, CA:

Rand, 1994), pp. 16-18. Also refer to Paul Davis and Lou Finch, Defense Planning for the Post-Cold War Era,

(Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1993), pp. 157-160, for a review of this period. The referenced portion of the DPG

guidance for conventional forces employed in contingency operations reads like it comes from the last two NMS

documents.

13. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., The Army and Vietnam, (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University

Press, 1986), p. 117.

14. William Kaufmann, Assessing the Base Force: How Much is too Much?, (Washington, DC: The Brookings

Institution, 1992), p. 29.

15. Kissinger, p. 222.

16. DoD Annual Report 1976, (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1976), p. 114.

17. Davis, ed., New Challenges for Defense Planning, pp. 26-27. Defense planning for Southwest Asia

illustrates how interconnected threat—and capabilities-based planning are. Various threats to a vital national

interest (free flow of oil) are recognized and the U.S. decides to develop capabilities to protectthat interest. Some

analysts consider this to be a prime example of capabilities-based planning. However, those capabilities are

specifically sized and postured against a range of fairly precise threatening capabilities. Because it is a range of

threats (somewhat uncertain, but then again most planners recognize that even very specific scenarios are not

predictive) this is viewed as capabilities-based planning. This points out the very thin line between the two

planning methodologies, particularly when it comes to actually building the force, in this case the RDJTF.

18. Ibid., pp. 27-28. See also, Lorna S. Jaffe,The Development of the Base Force 1989-1992, (Washington, DC:

Joint History Office (OCJCS), July 1993), p. 4. For a discussion of multifront conflicts refer to Harold Brown,

Thinking About National Security, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983), pp. 178-182. Brown indicated that it

would be advantageous for the Soviets to conduct diversionary operations in secondary theaters to complicate

U.S. and Allied planning. Such operations would divert forces from the critical front—Central Europe. U.S.

recognition of this problem resulted in a continuing focus on Europe.

174
175

19. DoD Annual Report to Congress 1984, (Washington, DC: USGPO, February 1, 1983), p. 191. This section

of the report details the plans and issues related to the development of the RDF and CENTCOM. The planning

force consisted of 4-2/3 division equivalents (Army and Marines) and seven tactical fighter wings. The present

day MTW building block has a longer history than most people realize.

20. Kugler, p. 19.

21. Davis, “Planning Under Uncertainty,” pp. 28-29, and Davis and Finch, Defense Planning for the

Post-Cold War Era, pp. 163-164. William Kaufmann offers a similar conclusion in his Planning Conventional

Forces 1950-80, p. 24:

Do these dif fi cul ties mean that con ven tional force plan ning has been off on a wild goose chase for the

last twenty years? . . . In fact, no one has yet de vised a se ri ous plan ning sub sti tute for (a) the de vel op -

ment and anal y sis of plau si ble but hy po thet i cal cam paigns in spe cific the aters, (b) for the de ter mi na -

tion of the forces needed to bring about the de sired mil i tary out comes in those spe cific the aters, and (c)

dif fi cult judg ments about the num ber of con tin gen cies for which U.S. con ven tional forces should be

pre pared.

22. According to William Kaufmann and John Steinbruner, Decisions for Defense: Prospects for a New World

Order, (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1991), p. 6:

. . . most pres i dents, . . . have been will ing to bet that if the forces to cover the most threat en ing con tin -

gen cies could be ac quired and main tained at ac cept able cost, they could di vert enough of these forces to

han dle lesser cases with out un due risk.

23. Paul K. Davis, “Institutionalizing Planning for Adaptiveness,” New Challenges for Defense Planning, p.

81.

24. As mentioned in the text this was a close-hold process, at least initially until the structure and critical

decisions were in place. Only afterwards did the details of the deliberations leading to the Base Force become

public. By far the single best source is Jaffe, The Development of the Base Force: 1989-1992.

25. Jaffe, p. 25. General Powell reveals in his autobiography, My American Journey, an interesting incident

related to the budgetary implications of his desired force. Based on an interview he had given, The Washington

Post reported on May 7, 1990, that “the nation’s top military officer predicted a restructured military could lead

to a 25 percent lower defense budget.” Powell goes on to relate that, at the time Secretary Cheney had publicly

proposed cutting the Pentagon budget, but by only 2 percent a year over the next 6 years. Powell and Cheney’s

frank discussion closes out this story. Colin Powell, My American Journey, (New York: Ballentine Books, 1995),

pp. 441-442.

26. Quoted in Kaufmann, Decisions for Defense, p. 45.

27. Kugler, U.S. Military Strategy and Force Posture, p. 35. General Powell defined those missions very

broadly: “We no longer have the luxury of having a threat to plan for. What we plan for is that we’re a

superpower. We are the major player on the world stage with responsibilities [and] interests around the world.”

Quoted in Kaufmann, Decisions for Defense, p. 47.

28. Report of the Secretary of Defense to the President and the Congress, (Washington, DC: USGPO,

January 1991), p. 4; and National Military Strategy of the United States,(Washington, DC: USGPO, January

1992), pp. 19-24, hereafter referred to as the NMS 92.

29. Les Aspin, National Security in the 1990s: Defining a New Basis for U.S. Military Forces, before the

Atlantic Council of the United States, January 6, 1992, pp. 5-6.
30. Les Aspin, An Approach to Sizing American Conventional Forces For the Post-Soviet Era, February 25,

1992. 

31. Colin L. Powell, “U.S. Forces: Challenges Ahead,” Foreign Affairs, Winter 1992/93, Vol. 71, No. 5, p. 41.

See also Powell, My American Journey, p. 438.

32. Dick Cheney, Annual Report to the President and the Congress, Washington, DC: GPO, February 1992, p.

8.

33. NMS 92, p. 11.

34. “The Army Base Force—Not a Smaller Cold War Army,” Discussion Paper from the Department of the

Army’s War Plans Division, dated February 1992. See also Kaufmann and Steinbruner, Decisions for Defense, p.

27. The authors make the following point:

How many con tin gen cies might oc cur si mul ta neously, and in how many sep a rate the aters the

United States should be pre pared to be come en gaged at any one time, was not made clear. However, the as sump tion ap pears to be that the Pen ta gon should have the ca pa bil ity to deal with at

least two ma jor re gional con tin gen cies . . .

35. Powell, My American Journey, p. 564. Although the supporting analysis behind the Base Force included

wargaming the two “canonical-scenarios”—MRC-East and MRC-West, the 1992 National Military Strategy

presented the force, as discussed above, as a capabilities-based force. The closest the NMS comes to recognizing a

2-MTW requirement is the following from the Crisis Response section:

Our strat egy also rec og nizes that when the United States is re spond ing to one sub stan tial regional cri sis, po ten tial ag gres sors in other ar eas may be tempted to take ad van tage of our pre oc -

cu pa tion. Thus, we can not re duce forces to a level which would leave us or our al lies vul ner a ble

else where.

NMS 1992, p. 7. Using the same rationale, 1 year later with the publication of the Bottom Up Review (BUR), the

two-MTW requirement was officially unveiled.

36. Les Aspin, Report of the Bottom Up Review (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, October

1993). BUR: methodology—p. 4; missions—p. 13; force sizing—p. 7. No other administration has provided the

degree of transparency in its force planning deliberations as represented by the BUR. The detailed wargaming

analysis done by J8 is not presented for obvious reasons in an unclassified publication. Nonetheless, contrast

this with the history of the Base Force (Jaffe), which was not published until at least 2 years after the fact.

37. Richard Kugler, Toward a Dangerous World (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1995), pp. 212-213. According to

General Powell:

It took us 9 months to fin ish the BUR, and we ended up again with a de fense based on the need to

fight two re gional wars, the Bush strat egy, but with Clinton cam paign cuts.

Amer i can Jour ney, p. 564.

38. George C. Wilson, This War Really Matters: Inside the Fight for Defense Dollars (Washington, DC: CQ

Press, 2000), p. 15.

39. Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, May 1997), p. v.

Although sticking with the same basic force requirement, the QDR did provide a small degree of innovation in

redefining this requirement from 2-MRC’s to 2-MTWs. The MRC concept, as first defined in the Bush

administration, referred to major regional contingencies. The BUR adjusted the term to major regional conflicts,

176
177

obviously retaining the same acronym. The QDR accepted the requirement but changed the name to major

theater war (MTW).

40. Ibid., p. 23.

41. Ibid., p. 12.

42. Elaine M. Grossman, “Defense Officials Eye Small-Scale Ops as Organizing Yardstick,” Inside the

Pentagon, March 30, 2000, p. 2.

43. QDR, p. 24.

44. Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st Century, Report of the National Defense Panel,

December 1997, p. 23.

45. Ibid., p. 1.

46. Strategic Defence Review, July 1998; available from http://www.mod.uk/policy/sdr.html; Internet;

accessed March 16, 2000. A detailed discussion of the SDR process is found in Supporting Essay One: The

Strategic Defence Review Process, and the details of the capabilities assessment are included in Supporting

Essay Six: Future Military Capabilities, with tables.

47. DoD Annual Report 96, pp. vii-viii. All of the arguments supporting a 2-MTW force posture were

reiterated in the QDR, pp. 12-13.

48. A National Security Strategy for a New Century, (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office,

December 1999), p. 19.

49. DoD Annual Report 96, p. 14.

50. BUR, p. 7. This point is also made in NSS 96, p. 14, and in the DoD Annual Report 96, p. 5. General Colin

Powell’s 1992 NMS presents the same rationale:

Our strat egy also rec og nizes that when the United States is re spond ing to one sub stan tial re gional crisis, po ten tial ag gres sors in other ar eas may be tempted to take ad van tage of our pre oc cu pa tion. Thus,

we can not re duce forces to a level which would leave us or our al lies vul ner a ble else where.

NMS 92.

51. Winnefeld, p. 18.

52. This point is made in both the NSS 98, p. 22, where it refers to the “two theater” force, and in the DoD

Annual Report 96, 5. The BUR refers to this argument as a hedge against an uncertain future:

. . . it is dif fi cult to pre dict pre cisely what threats we will con front ten to twenty years from now. In this

dy namic and un pre dict able post-Cold War world, we must main tain the mil i tary ca pa bil i ties that are

flex i ble and suf fi cient to cope with un fore seen threats.

BUR, p. 19.

53. General John M. Shalikashvili, CJCS Written Statement to Congress, March 1996, p. 18.

54. NSS 98, p. 22.
55. Jeffrey Record, The Creeping Irrelevance of U.S. Force Planning (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies

Institute, May 19, 1998), p. 1.

56. The United States Commission on National Security/21st Century, “Seeking a National Strategy: A

Concept for Preserving Security and Promoting Freedom,” April 15, 2000, pp. 14-15.

57. Paul K. Davis and Richard L. Kugler, “New Principles for Force Sizing,” in Strategy and Defense

Planning for the 21st Century, ed. by Zalmay M. Khalilzad and David A. Ochmanek (Santa Monica, CA: Rand,

1997), pp. 103-104.

58. William S. Cohen, Annual Report to the President and the Congress, (Washington, DC: GPO, 1999), p. 4;

and Annual Report to the President and the Congress, (Washington, DC: GPO, 2000), p. 4. The 1999 version

contains the qualifier quoted above as well as other potential constraints on the use of force in support of

humanitarian operations. The 2000 version has removed most, but not all of those constraints.

59. General Henry H. Shelton, Posture Statement before the 106th Congress, House Armed Services

Committee, February 8, 2000. Available from http://www.dtic.mil/jcs/core/Posture00.html, Internet.

60. “Shelton Rejects Idea of Separate Peacekeeping Force,” European Stars and Stripes, April 27, 2000, p. 8.

61. Floyd D. Spence, “Statement of Chairman Spence on the Release of the Commission on National

Security/21st Century Phase II Report,” Press Release, April 19, 2000.

62. NDP, p. i.

63. See Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., “Keeping Pace with the Military-Technological Revolution,” Science and

Technology, Summer 1994, pp. 23-29.

64. Quoted in Wilson, p. 72.

65. David Ochmanek, “Planning Under Uncertainty: A User’s Guide to the Post-Cold War World,”

Rand—unpublished paper, September 19, 1995, p. 15.

66. Davis, “Institutionalizing Planning for Adaptiveness,” New Challenges for Defense Planning, 81-84. See

also: Davis and Finch, Defense Planning for the Post Cold-War Era, pp. 43-52; Kugler, Toward a Dangerous

World, p. 270; and Paul K. Davis, David Gompert and Richard Kugler, Adaptiveness in National Defense: The

Basis of a New Framework, Issue Paper, National Defense Research Institute, August 1996.

67. Kugler, Toward a Dangerous World, p. 258.

68. Anthony Cordesman, author of a recent study on Iraqi military capabilities, states that, “The Iraqi

military is in an accelerating decline that has picked up since 1994.” “Sanctions, Not Missiles, Sap Iraq,,”

Defense News, Vol. 11, No. 36 (September 9-15, 1996), p. 4. Concerning Korea, The Washington Times reports:

“North Korea’s military forces have suffered a steady decline in capability that has shifted the balance of power

in favor of South Korea.” “North Korea’s Slide Ends Military Edge,” Washington Times, December 13, 1996, p.

18. In addition refer to “Dim Prospects Seen for N. Korean Regime,” Washington Post, August 10, 1996, p. A24;

and “N. Korea Called Top U.S. Threat,” Washington Times, February 6, 1997, p. 6.

69. Kugler, U.S. Military Strategy and Force Posture, p. 185.

178
179

CHAP TER 13

TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF MILITARY STRATEGY

Ar thur F. Lykke, Jr.

What is military strategy? In ancient Greece, it was the “art of the general.” In its Glossary

of Military Terms, the U.S. Army War College lists eight definitions of military strategy. This

highlights the first of many problems in the study of this important but complex subject.

There is no universal definition, nor even the approximation of a consensus. Today the term

strategy is used altogether too loosely. Some consider a strategy to be lines drawn on a map

while others believe a laundry list of national objectives represents a strategy. The problem is

not just semantics; it is one of using competently, one of the most essential tools of the military

profession. In trying to decide between alternative strategies, we are often faced with a

comparison of apples and oranges, because the choices do not address the same factors. Only

with a mutual understanding of what comprises military strategy can we hope to improve our

strategic dialogue. There needs to be general agreement on a conceptual approach to military

strategy: a definition; a description of the basic elements that make up military strategy; and

an analysis of how they are related. For the purpose of this discussion, we will use the

definition approved by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff:

The art and sci ence of em ploy ing the armed forces of a na tion to se cure the ob jec tives of na tional pol icy

by the ap pli ca tion of force, or the threat of force.

1

During a visit to the U. S. Army War College in 1981, General Maxwell D. Taylor

characterized strategy as consisting of objectives, ways and means. We can express this

concept as an equation:

This general concept can be used as a basis for the formulation of any type strategy—military,

political, economic, etc., depending upon the element of national power employed. We should

not confuse military strategy with national (grand) strategy, which is:

The art and sci ence of de vel op ing and us ing the po lit i cal, eco nomic, and psy cho log i cal pow ers of a nation, to gether with its armed forces, dur ing peace and war, to se cure na tional ob jec tives.

2

Strategy = Ends + Ways + Means.

Component Definition

Ends

Objectives towards which one

strives

Ways Course of action

Means

Instruments by which some end can

be achieved
Military strategy is one part of this all-encompassing national strategy. The military

component of our national strategy is sometimes referred to as national military

strategy—military strategy at its highest level, and differentiated from operational

strategies used as the basis for military planning and operations. Military strategy must

support national strategy and comply with national policy—a broad course of action or

statements of guidance adopted by the government at the national level in pursuit of national

objectives.

3

 In turn, national policy is influenced by the capabilities and limitations of

military strategy.

With our general concept of strategy as a guide, Strategy = Ends + Ways + Means, we can

develop an approach to military strategy. “Ends” can be expressed as military objectives and

“Ways” are concerned with the various methods of applying military force. In essence, this

becomes an examination of courses of action (termed military strategic concepts) that are

designed to achieve the military objective. “Means” refers to the military resources

(manpower, material, money, forces, logistics, etc.) required to accomplish the mission. This

leads us to the conclusion that:

Military Strategy = Military Objectives + Military

Strategic Concepts + Military Resources.

This conceptual approach is applicable to all three levels of war: strategic, operational,

and tactical. It also reveals the fundamental similarities among national military strategy,

operational art, and tactics. Strategists, planners, corps commanders and squad leaders are

all concerned with ways to employ means to achieve ends.

Some readers may question this idea, thinking that while military resources are

necessary to support a strategy, they are not a component of that strategy. They would limit

military strategy to a consideration of military objectives and military strategic concepts.

However, in discussing the importance of superiority of numbers, Clausewitz states that the

size of military forces “is indeed a vital part of strategy.”

4

 And Bernard Brodie points out the

“Strategy in peacetime is expressed largely in choices among weapons systems...”

5

 By

considering military resources as a basic element of military strategy, we may also alleviate

the problem of disregarding the importance of military objectives and strategic concepts while

concentrating mainly on force structure issues.

There are two levels of military strategy: operational and force developmental. Strategies

based on existing military capabilities are operational strategies and are used as a foundation

for the formulation of specific plans for action in the short-range time period. This level of

strategy has also been referred to as higher or grand tactics and operational art.

Longer-range strategies may be based on estimates of future threats, objectives, and

requirements, and are therefore not as constrained by current force posture. Military

strategies can be regional as well as global, concerning themselves with specific threat

scenarios. These longer-range strategies are more often global in nature, and may require

improvements in military capabilities.

180
181

Military objectives and military strategic concepts of a military strategy establish

requirements for resources, and are in turn influenced by the availability of resources. If we

fail to consider military resources as an element of military strategy, we may be faced with

what has been called a strategy-capabilities mismatch. This is the usual case when we are

developing a long-range strategy requiring improved military force structure capabilities.

However, it may be disastrous if we are concerned with an operational strategy upon which

contingency plans and military operations will be based. That is why operational strategies

must be based on capabilities.

Let’s discuss the first basic element of any military strategy—a military objective. It is

defined as a specific mission or task to which military efforts and resources are applied.

Several examples come to mind:

1. Deter aggression,

2. Protect lines of communication,

3. Defend the homeland,

4. Restore lost territory, and

5. Defeat an opponent.

The objectives should be military in nature. While Clausewitz, Lenin, and Mao have all

emphasized the integral relationship of war and politics, military forces must be given

appropriate missions within their capabilities. Liddell Hart stresses that:

In dis cuss ing the sub ject of “the ob jec tive” in war it is es sen tial to be clear about, and to keep clear in

our minds, the dis tinc tion be tween the po lit i cal and the mil i tary ob jec tive. The two are dif fer ent but

not sep a rate. For na tions do not wage war for war’s sake, but the pur su ance of pol icy. The mil i tary objec tive is only the means to a po lit i cal end. Hence the mil i tary ob jec tive should be gov erned by the po lit -

i cal ob jec tive, sub ject to the ba sic con di tion that pol icy does not de mand what is mil i tarily—that, is

prac ti cally—im pos si ble.

6

In our definition of military strategy, the ultimate objectives are those of national policy.

Sometimes policy guidance is unclear, ambiguous or difficult to find. National policy also

concerns itself with all the basic elements of national power: political, economic,

socio-pyschological, and military. To make things even more interesting, national policies in

these various fields are often overlapping, and may even be contradictory. There are seldom

“purely military” or “purely political” objectives. National leaders may choose to use the

military instrument of power in pursuit of national policy objectives that are primarily

political or economic in nature. This can cause problems because sometimes-military force is

not the appropriate tool. Military commanders may then have difficulty in deriving feasible

military objectives from the objectives of national policy.

Now for an examination of a military strategic concept. It can be defined as the course of

action accepted as the result of the estimate of the strategic situation.

7 Military strategic
concepts may combine a wide range of options, such as: forward defense (forward basing

and/or forward deployment, strategic reserves, reinforcements, show of force, prepositioned

stocks, collective security, and security assistance. These are a few of the ways military forces

can be used either unilaterally or in concert with allies. The determination of strategic

concepts is of major importance. However, one should not make the mistake of calling a

strategic concept a strategy. Strategic concepts must always be considered in relation to

military objectives and resources.

Finally, we should study the “Means” portion—the military resources that determine

capabilities of our military strategy equation. These may include conventional

general-purpose forces, strategic and tactical nuclear forces, defensive and offensive forces,

active and reserve forces, war materiel and weapons systems as well as manpower. We should

also take into consideration the roles and potential contributions of our allies and friends. The

total force package must be well rounded with combat, combat support, and combat service

support elements that are adequately equipped and sustained. Depending upon the type of

strategy we are developing, the forces we consider employing may or may not currently exist.

In short-range operational strategies, the forces must exist. In longer-range force

developmental strategies, the strategic concepts determine the type of forces that should

exist and the way they are employed.

Now that we have looked at the basic elements of military strategy, let’s try to put them

together is some meaningful way. Figure 1 shows one possible model. National Security, our

most vital interest, is supported on a three-legged stool entitled Military Strategy. The three

legs of the stool are labeled Objectives, Concepts, and Resources. This simple analogy leads to

the observation that the legs must be balanced, or national security may be in jeopardy

(Figure 2). If military resources are not compatible with strategic concepts or commitments

182

Figure 1. A Model for Military Strategy.
183

and/or are not matched by military capabilities, we may be in trouble. The angle of tilt

represents risk, further defined as the possibility of loss or damage, or of not achieving an

objective. It is, of course, the duty of the military to determine if there is risk associated with a

strategy and the degree of risk. It is also the duty of the military to bring it clearly and

forcefully to the attention of civilian leaders.To ensure national security, the three “legs” of

military strategy must not only exist, they must be balanced.

Let us test our model with an example to see if it is useful in explaining military strategy.

The Carter Doctrine was a statement of national policy:

Let our po si tion be ab so lutely clear. An at tempt by any out side force to gain con trol of the Per sian Gulf

Re gion will be re garded as an as sault on the vi tal in ter ests of the United States of Amer ica. Such an assault will be re pelled by any means nec es sary, in clud ing mil i tary force.

Let’s devise a military strategy to carry out this policy. One implied objective is securing

access to our Persian Gulf oil supplies. This economic/political objective must first be

translated into military objectives, such as maintaining freedom of passage through the

Strait of Hormuz and defending key oil fields, refineries, and ports. The strategic concept

might be by means of a rapid deployment force from our strategic reserves. But do we have

sufficient strategic mobility and power projection capabilities in place today to keep the stool

level? Which leg needs to be adjusted? Military resources? It may take years to program and

produce the required airlift and sealift forces. In order to have a feasible short-range

operational strategy, it may be wiser to change the strategic concept to that of forward defense

and station or deploy more U. S. military forces in the region.

Perhaps we have examined the subject of military strategy in sufficient depth to arrive at

some initial conclusions on its nature. First, it is not the title of a strategy that is important;

Figure 2. Unbalanced Military Objectives, Concepts, and Resources

May Jeopardize National Security.
it’s the content that counts. The names are often changed for cosmetic reasons reflecting little

substantive alteration. A study of history shows that military strategies have been identified

by a wide variety of labels such as: the “Massive Retaliation” of the Eisenhower

Administration, the “Flexible Response" of the Kennedy Administration, and the more recent

“Realistic Deterrence”. We had the “2 1⁄2-war strategy” of the Johnson Administration

changing to a “1 1⁄2-war strategy” following the Sino-Soviet split and the realization that

buying a military force in time of peace that could fight 2 1⁄2 wars simultaneously was just too

costly. These latter examples of strategic statements describe procurement guidelines for a

force structure rather than military strategies. Other names for strategies over the years

have been attrition, annihilation, counter value, counter force, deterrence, warfighting,

direct and indirect approach, search and destroy, oil spot, assured destruction, containment,

and countervailing.

One should remember that under ideal circumstances military objectives and strategic

concepts determine force structure and worldwide deployments of military forces. However,

the capabilities and limitations of the military forces in being necessarily affect military

objectives and strategic concepts. Military strategy may be declaratory or actual. In other

words, as stated by our leaders, it may or may not be our real strategy. U.S. military strategy

has seldom been clearly expressed, and infrequently described in sufficient detail for all to

understand. Some say that it is unwise, impossible, or even dangerous to enunciate openly a

military strategy. This very act may limit our options in a crisis situation, or tip-off our

potential adversaries on what our actions might be. A nation may need more than one military

strategy at a time. For instance, if a nation has only a deterrent strategy, and deterrence fails,

what does it do then? Surrender? Submit to piecemeal attacks and incremental losses?

Unleash a massive strategic nuclear attack? These are some of the options if it does not also

have a warfighting strategy. Military strategy can change rapidly and frequently, since

objectives can change in an instant. However, it takes much longer to alter the military forces

so that they may be responsive to new objectives and concepts.

In summary, military strategy consists of the establishment of military objectives, the

formulation of military strategic concepts to accomplish the objectives, and the use of military

resources to implement the concepts. When any of these basic elements is incompatible with

the others, our national security may be in danger.

ENDNOTES - CHAP TER 13

1. JCS Pub. 1: Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. Washington: U.S. Department of Defense, June

1, 1987, p. 232.

2. JCS Pub. 1: Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. Washington: U.S. Department of Defense, June

1, 1985, p. 244.

3. Ibid.

4. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton University Press,

Princeton, NJ: 1976, p. 196.

184
185

5. Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ: 1965, p. 361.

6. B. H. Lid dell Hart, Strat egy, New York, NY: Praeger Publishers, 1975, p. 351.

7. JCS Pub.1: Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. Washington: U.S. Department of Defense, June

1, 1987, p. 349.
187

CHAP TER 14

STRATEGIC RISK

James F. Holcomb, Jr.

In a tac ti cal sit u a tion one is able to see at least half the prob lem with the na ked eye, whereas in strategy ev ery thing has to be guessed at and pre sumed.

1

The hierarchical chart of the Army War College strategy formulation model at Appendix I,

shows a final block labeled “Risk Assessment.” The implication of the diagram is that risk

assessment is peculiar to the development of military strategy. Indeed, it figures prominently

in that process, but not uniquely so. Policy and strategy properly arrived at, demand a

continuous and thorough assessment and reassessment of risk throughout the total process.

Strategists and strategic theorists throughout history have grappled with the concept of

risk and methodologies for its assessment. The motivation to eliminate uncertainty in policy

and strategy development as well as execution is natural if at times chimerical. There will

always be uncertainty. It often will be unmeasurable. The very nature of war and conflict and

the increasingly complex strategic environment ensures that this is so. Where then does this

leave the aspiring student of strategy? Is risk assessment simply the “comfort level that

senior planners experience as they assess key variables?”

2

 It is this and more. The concept of

risk assessment is worth examining in more detail to put some substance to the form.

DE FINING RISK.

Defining risk is a relatively simple task. John Collins, in his primer on grand strategy,

reduces it to its essentials: “Discrepancies between ends, which we have identified as

interests and objectives, and means-available resources-create risks, which can rarely be

quantified.”

3

 At its core, risk arises when ends and means are not in consonance. This is

known as an “ends-means mismatch.” Collins is on solid ground with this definition, the

legacy of which springs from Clausewitz and his discussion of “the political object of war and

the effort to be made.”

4

 B. H. Liddell-Hart also focused on this basic truth: “Strategy depends

for success, first and most, on a sound calculation and coordination of the end and the means 

. . . An excess may be as harmful as a deficiency.”

5

 Strategic risk then is the probability of

failure in achieving a strategic objective at an acceptable cost. The concept is simple to

articulate and easy to understand. But, as in war, the simplest things in strategy are the most

difficult.

The first difficulty is in understanding what Clausewitz and others meant by “means” in

the ends-means equation. Current use of the term generally accepts that means constitute

resources, that is, personnel, treasure, equipment, political will, time and so on. Clausewitz

also intended a larger meaning that includes concepts or courses of action to achieve
particular objectives; these coupled with resources constitute the means or “effort to be

made.”

6

 It has become increasingly useful to separate these two components of Clausewitz’

“means”, for consideration in strategy formulation without confusing Clausewitz’ original

intent. Consequently, risk can be represented by a mismatch in ends and ways or means.

Art Lykke makes the case for this approach in Chapter 12, developing a model comprising

three variables: ends (objectives), ways (concepts, options or courses of action for achieving

them) and means (resources). Using a simple metaphor of a three legged stool, he points out

that if the ends, ways and means (the legs of the stool) are not of equal length then we are left

with a stool (and a strategy) that is out of balance. Continuing the analogy, he defines this

angle of imbalance as risk. The greater the mismatch between ends, ways and/or means, the

greater the risk of not achieving ones objectives. This is a subtle but important addition to the

simple ends-means equation. One can correctly and accurately identify the objective to be

achieved and provide adequate resources to achieve it. However, if the “way” of achieving it is

not in balance then there is an inherent risk of failure to achieve the strategic objective. For

example, during the Cuban Missile Crisis the objective of the Kennedy administration was

fairly straightforward: Get the missiles out of Cuba. The means available were adequate and

deliverable. However, there were several different ways to achieve the objective. Graham

Allison identifies six major categories of possible response: Do nothing, apply diplomatic

pressure, secretly approach Castro, conduct an invasion, conduct air strikes, or

blockade.

7

One can also see this in the continuing debate over the strategy for Kosovo and the

use solely of airpower to achieve particular political objectives. In the Lykke model of the

stool, the balance varies depending on which option is chosen. The degree of lopsidedness or

imbalance defines risk. Choosing the right policy option (or way) to achieve the strategic

objective is therefore a critical consideration even assuming a clear objective and adequate

means. That is, an adequately resourced “way” that is inappropriate to the “end” would still

create risk of failure to achieve the strategic objective.

Thus, the definition of risk is the degree to which strategic objectives, concepts and

resources are in or out of balance. Since strategy is a dynamic process, one must understand

that all three elements are variable and subject to change over time. The formulation of

effective strategy for any endeavor is a constant quest to ensure balance among the variables.

The definition applies to all aspects of strategy development whether dealing with national

security (grand) strategy, defense, military or theater strategies, business strategy or even

personal strategies.

WHY IS STRA TE GIC RISK AS SESS MENT DIF FI CULT?

The subtitle is borrowed from David Jablonsky’s piece “Why is Strategy Difficult?” (see

Chapter 11). The very nature of war and conflict presupposes a relationship between thinking

adversaries. This, in turn, ensures that a degree of ambiguity, uncertainty and yes, risk will

exist in any developed strategy. Indeed, Clausewitz devotes the central theme of On War to

this very premise; that is what distinguishes his work from his predecessors and ensures its

continued relevance to the present day. Clausewitz was not the only one to recognize the

subjective nature of war, but he was the first to mark that characteristic as preeminent.

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189

Throughout his work, there are allusions to “chance,” “luck,” “guesswork,” “uncertainty,”

“probabilities,” and so on. The search for hard truths is a frustrating one. This in itself is a

lesson. The analogies and metaphors the Prussian philosopher provides to help understand

the nature of war are not based on chess, but reflect “a duel on a larger scale,” “a pair of

wrestlers,” “commerce,” a “collision of living forces” or a “game of chance.” Formulating

strategy presupposes “an animate object that reacts” and moreover, reacts unpredictably.

This equates to Andre Beufre’s definition of strategy as the “art of the dialectic of two opposing

wills using force to solve their dispute.”

8

 Just as one actor identifies objectives, develops

concepts and allocates resources, so does the potential or actual adversary. The variables in

the strategic equation have now doubled, further complicating the task. Moreover, ambiguity

and uncertainty increase as one climbs up the strategic ladder as moral factors gain primacy

over material ones.

9

 The problem is that these moral factors can only be guessed at.

Clausewitz explicitly refers to this transition from certainty to uncertainty in strategic

analysis: 

At this point, then, in tel lec tual ac tiv ity leaves the field of the ex act sci ences of logic and math e mat ics.

It then be comes an art in the broad est mean ing of the term-the fac ulty of us ing judge ment to de tect the

most im por tant and de ci sive el e ments in the vast ar ray of facts and sit u a tions.

10

The strategist now faces a prospect “that Newton himself would quail before the algebraic

problems it could pose.”

11

 Risk assessment is difficult because strategy is difficult; strategy is

difficult because war is the most complex of human undertakings and filled with unknowns.

Liddell-Hart concludes in this regard: “This complicates calculation, because no man can

exactly calculate the capacity of human genius and stupidity, nor the incapacity of will.”

12

 It is

the inherent nature of war itself that sets the student adrift in a strategic sea of uncertainty.

GE NIUS AND UN CER TAINTY.

Despite this uncertainty, there is comfort in the knowledge that others have navigated

these waters before. The challenge is to somehow structure or frame the strategic problem to

minimize the unknown or more importantly, to account for it. The effective strategist strives

for the “closest approximation of the truth” knowing that full knowledge is an impossibility.

13

Clausewitz identifies two preeminent qualities in a successful strategist that bear

consideration:

If the mind is to emerge un scathed from this re lent less strug gle with the un fore seen, two qual i ties are

in dis pens able: first, an in tel lect that, even in the dark est hour, re tains some glim mer ings of the in ner

light which leads to truth; and sec ond, the cour age to fol low this faint light wher ever it may lead (empha sis in the orig i nal).

14

These are the elements that define what Clausewitz terms “genius.” The aspiring

strategist should not be misled or discouraged by the use of the term however. Clausewitz

does not refer to the result of good genetics, but to the development of a mind through study

and experience. He is clear on this point as he continues his discussion: “It is the average

result that indicates the presence of military genius.”

15

 In other words, “genius” as Clausewitz 
describes it is not solely the unique gift of a Napoleon or Gustavus or Hannibal. It is an

achievable skill and the “inner light” can be taught and learned.

Von Moltke the Elder took up the same theme several generations later:

What is nec es sary is to dis cover the sit u a tion, such as it is, in spite of its be ing sur rounded by the

fog of the un known; then to ap pre ci ate soundly what is seen, to guess what is not seen, to take a

de ci sion quickly, fi nally to act with vig our, with out hes i ta tion.

16

The message is that an education in strategic subjects, followed by continuous historical

study to maintain mental suppleness combined with vicarious experience through exercise,

and actual experience, all contribute to acquiring the skills necessary for finding the “closest

approximation of the truth.” Strategic ability is rarely born, more often learned, but

eminently achievable.

Acknowledging the theoretical uncertainties inherent in war, conflict and policy and

strategy development is an important, if unsatisfying, step in understanding risk

assessment. It allows a better framing of the strategic puzzle. It is simply a matter of knowing

what is not known in order to make better use of what is known and, as von Moltke suggests,

to guess what is not seen. Guessing well is an inherent part of the art of Grand Strategy.

THE ENDS, WAYS, MEANS CO NUN DRUM IN RISK AS SESS MENT.

The essence of the challenge of strategy in general and risk assessment in particular is the

core problem of relating ends to ways and means. Compounding this basic conundrum is the

fact that most often the ends will be abstract while the ways and means will be relatively well

defined.

17

 In addition, the real test of the master of strategic art is to translate obtuse,

politically couched objectives into specific actions. This is likely to become more of a challenge

as the nature, scope and direction of potential threats multiply. Articulating the political

objective in the event of a major theater war is relatively easy; however, achieving significant

clarity in political objectives in multiplying crises around the world, especially where vital

U.S. interests are not at stake, will become increasingly problematic. One analyst notes in a

critique of the U.S. foreign policy process:

Any am bi gu ity in the ends-means re la tion ship, any loss in the value roots of pol icy, or any fail -

ure to main tain a firm com mit ment to the achieve ment of the na tional pur pose can not help but

de prive a for eign pol icy of es sen tial mean ing and ef fec tive ness.

18

A second related potential pitfall facing the grand strategist is the “tail wagging the dog”

phenomenon. In the absence of clear political objectives or policy guidance, the means can in

fact “deflect the direction of ends.”

19

 What gets done becomes what one has the capability of

doing. The ways and means can develop a momentum of their own and the result is strategy

by default, usually at the risk of desired political outcomes. The von Schlieffen Plan and

America’s experience in Vietnam are two stark historic examples of this effect.

190
191

This problem has been ascribed to the “triumph of technique” in American foreign policy.

One critic specifically targets the militarization of foreign affairs during the Cold War and an

emphasis on quantitative assessments based solely on capabilities.

20

 In such cases,

Clausewitz’ “ephemeral factors” are discounted and “consideration of political subtleties

tends to be shunted aside.”

21

 Ferdinand Foch, writing in 1903, complained of the same

phenomenon but went further: “while the moral factors were depressed as causes [of war],

they were also suppressed as effects.” The unintended result is that strategy can become a

function solely of material factors.

22

 The dramatic changes of the last decade and the growing

complexities and dimensions of current and future world problems make simplistic,

capabilities-based approaches dangerous at their worst, or potentially ineffective at best.

Getting ends, ways and means right has always been hard; it is becoming harder.

DE TER MINING RISK.

The simple definition of risk as an imbalance in ends, ways and/or means is

straightforward but clearly incomplete. How does one measure the degree of risk in any

particular strategic endeavor? This is the heart of the dilemma.

NEUCHTERLEIN AND NA TIONAL IN TER ESTS.

Risk assessment is inherent to the entire strategy formulation process. Donald

Neuchterlein addresses risk in his discussion on identifying national interests and their

intensities, a fundamental prerequisite to policy and strategy development. He posits sixteen

criteria for assessing a particular issue as a vital interest.

23

 These are divided into value and

cost/risk factors

*

:

Neuchterlein advocates using a simple valuation process by rating each factor high,

medium or low or even assigning numerical scores to the factors. Likewise, for a particular

issue, some factors may be more important than others and can be appropriately weighted or

prioritized. The factor scores are then totaled. If the value totals of a particular issue are high

compared to a low or medium cost/risk valuation, then the issue probably constitutes a vital

interest. Neuchterlein does not claim a scientific basis for his methodology, only that:

Value Factors Cost/Risk Factors

Proximity of the danger Economic costs of hostilities

Nature of the threat Estimated casualties

Economic stake Risk of protracted conflict

Sentimental attachment Risk of enlarged conflict

Type of government and Cost of defeat or stalemate

human rights

Effect on the balance of Cost of public opposition

power

National prestige at stake Risk of UN opposition

Support of allies Risk of congressional opposition

* Note that there is no direct correlation between value and

cost/risk factors; they are randomly listed.
it pro vides for sys tem atic anal y sis of spe cific for eign pol icy is sues; it should there fore lead to

better judg ments about lev els of in ter est for the United States and its an tag o nists and, one

would hope, to wiser pol i cies than would oth er wise be the case.

24

Thus, it provides a simple tool that assists in the discrimination of interests in relative terms.

Having determined “vitalness," the policy maker/strategist is in a better position to articulate

a balanced set of ends, ways and means in the strategy formulation process by accounting for

degrees of risk up front.

CAL CU LATED RISK.

The noted naval theorist, Admiral J.C. Wylie, took a more rigorous approach to the

problem in a tongue-in-cheek article published in 1953 entitled “The Calculation of Risk.”

25

The impetus for the short article apparently arose from the 1953 budget hearings in which the

Army representative answered difficult questions with the rejoinder “Mr. Congressman, that

is a calculated risk.” Of course no one knew what a calculated risk was or how to calculate it, so

Wylie decided to try.

26

 Although intended facetiously, Wylie’s little paper does merit

consideration in its own right. Using a series of variables and equations, he describes various

strategic characteristics.

27

P = Profit if successful

Cn = Cost if not attempted

Cf = Cost of attempt that fails

Cs = Cost of attempt that succeeds

S = Probability of success

Wylie defines risk as P/Cf, or the potential profit divided by the cost of a failed attempt. As

long as this is greater than 1, the enterprise (or strategy) is “encouraged”; likewise, if less than 

1, “discouraged.” These machinations result in general determining equations:

If P x S < Cf (1-S) then “no go”

If P x S > Cf (1-S) then “go”

These equations describe what is already known instinctively: If the payoff times the

probability of success is greater than the cost of failure times the probability of failure, the

result is a winning strategy.

Risk is further defined by an equation:

Cf/Cs < S/(1-S)

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193

That is, the cost of a failed attempt over the cost of a successful attempt must be less than the

probability of success divided by the probability of failure.

Having had his fun with the reader, Wylie further stipulates that:

To in sure suc cess in its use, there is only one con di tion that must be met: the fac tors in volved must

never be ex pressed in arith me tic quan ti ties. That would blunt the fine edge of judg ment and ob scure

the true bal ance of in tan gi bles.

Wylie clearly subscribes to the Clausewitzian notions of uncertainty and unpredictability

in war and he makes this clear in his important and short book Military Strategy: A General

Theory of Power Control. In it he further admonishes the reader to plan for a complete

spectrum of strategies in order to have a “reserve” of strategies for the inevitable changes that

will occur. He also warns that “the player who plans for only one strategy runs a great risk

simply because his opponent soon detects the single strategy-and counters it . . . planning for

certitude is the greatest of all military mistakes . . .”

28

 Wylie’s reserve of strategies is

essentially conceptual hedging for uncertainty with its inherent risk. This, to borrow from

operational art, is planning for strategic branches and sequels or for potential developments

requiring adjustments in ends, ways or means as a particular strategy is implemented.

Although Wylie’s formulations were intended to ridicule early whiz kids, he actually

produced a relatively sophisticated approach to a difficult concept. For example, an

examination of a recent study prepared by the CIA to address risk assessment and

management of threats to security, uses an identical formulation.

29

 Defining risk as the

potential of damage or loss to an asset, the study assesses the level of risk as the impact of loss

or damage to the asset and the likelihood (probability) that a specific vulnerability could be

exploited by a particular threat.

30

 The formulation is defensive in nature since it is addressing

security protection issues. Nevertheless, it equates exactly to Wylie’s Cf (1-S), that is, the

Cost of Failure times the Probability of Failure. Strategy and risk assessment are

indeed eternal.

31

RISK MAN AGE MENT

The process of risk assessment is dynamic in nature over time and circumstance. That is,

the variables are in constant flux. Risk assessment is simply the constant effort to identify

and correct imbalances among the key variables. The first ability of the strategist is to

recognize when variables change. The second is to adjust the remaining variables to account

for the “delta” or, as it has been defined, the risk. This is known as risk management. In

simplest terms, the strategist has several clear options:

32

MOD IFY ENDS.

When the price to achieve a particular objective is too high or the ability to affect a “center

of gravity” is limited, it may become necessary to reduce the overall objective to more realistic
terms. Examples include the decision to forego a cross-channel attack in 1942 in favor of

North Africa, or accepting a lesser objective than the unification of the Korean peninsula after

the Chinese intervention.

MOD IFY MEANS.

An increase or reallocation of resources may affect the ability to implement a strategy and

achieve the objective. This is, however, not simply a quantitative solution. A definition of

resources includes unpredictable and changeable elements as well. For example, public

support of a particular policy/strategy is a key consideration in a democracy and must be

accounted for even if difficult to measure. Vietnam is a classic example of not adequately

modifying means by calling up the reserves and generating sufficient public support for the

effort.

MOD IFY WAYS.

Assuming that the objective is sound and resources are adequate, there will likely be

multiple ways to achieve the desired end-state. Use of the various elements of power

(political, military, economic, informational) in differing combinations with varying

emphasis may enhance the ability to achieve the same overall objective. The recent Kosovo

experience serves as a good case of modifying ways: The deployment of Task Force Hawk and

increasing information about planning for possible ground options coupled with retargeting

the air operation are thought to have contributed to Milosevic’s decision to withdraw forces.

RE AS SESS THE RISK.

Over time some of the going-in assumptions may be proven invalid. Additional

information may become available or gaps in knowledge filled. The strategist needs to

recognize the potential strategic effect of more or less information, recognizing that the 100%

solution will always be elusive due to the “ephemeral factors.” It is important to reemphasize

that this process is dynamic and “at once abstract and rational, [and] must be capable of

synthesizing both psychological and material data.”

33

 Indeed, one man’s risk is another man’s

certitude and therefore grist for the continuously grinding strategic mill.

FIVE PAT TERNS OF STRAT EGY FOR RISK AS SESS MENT

AND MAN AGE MENT.

Andre Beaufre addresses the “ends-means” conundrum in his classic book Introduction to

Strategy. His intent is to provide a series of models, what he calls patterns of strategy, to

assist in the process of strategic thinking.

34

 The models are intended to show how various and

fundamentally differing strategies can spring from the dynamic relationship between ends,

194
195

ways and means. These five patterns are macro-descriptors and it is clear to see that

countless variations are possible.

Ends Moderate, Means Large. This is described as a strategy of “direct threat”; nuclear

deterrence strategy is given as example of this pattern.

Ends Moderate, Means Limited. Consisting of a pattern of “indirect pressure,” this

pattern is useful when freedom of action is limited. It emphasizes political, diplomatic, and

economic elements of power at the expense of direct military action. It models the basis of

Soviet strategy, that is, avoiding direct military confrontation with the United States.

Ends Important, Ways Limited (Low Freedom of Action), Means Limited. This

pattern constitutes a combination of “direct threat” and “indirect pressure” applied in

successive actions and reflects the strategy of indirect approach as described by Liddell-Hart.

It is most appropriate to nations strong defensively but with limited resources.

Ends Important, Ways Unlimited (High Freedom of Action), Means Inadequate.

This reflects a strategy of protracted war but at a low level of military intensity. It is the

theoretical basis for Mao Tse-Tung’s theory of protracted struggle.

Ends Important, Means Unlimited. This traditional pattern is characterized by

“violent conflict aiming at military victory.” Beufre describes it as the classic strategy of the

Napoleonic era with Clausewitz as its principle theorist.

With these five patterns of strategy as a basis, Collins addresses risk specifically with

seven examples of how to balance the strategic equation:

35

-Eliminate waste [modifying ways and/or means]

-Compress objectives [modifying ends]

-Adjust strategy [modifying ways]

-Augment assets [modifying means]

-Reduce ends and increase means [modifying ends and means]

-Bluff [adversary misinterprets your ends, ways, means]

-Give up on the objective [the ultimate modification of ends]

Intended as examples, achieving strategic balance and hence strategic effectiveness may

require application of one, more or other creative elements to induce change in the strategic

equation.
READI NESS AND RISK.

There does exist detailed and rigorously institutionalized processes for measuring risk

within the U.S. defense establishment. The roots of these processes spring from the era of

McNamara and the introduction of systems analysis to defense planning. In general, these

methodologies represent an attempt to institutionally account for the unknown and help to

“guess well.” For example, the Joint Net Assessment (JNA) is the informal process that

“provides a strategic level risk assessment and provides the basis for developing risk

associated with alternative force structures and strategies.”

36

 The JNA draws on multiple

sources of information and contributes to other strategic assessments and potentially to

changes in the National Military Strategy. Normally a net assessment is developed every four

years but dramatic changes in the geostrategic environment can result in more frequent

assessments. One of the sources of information feeding the JNA process is the regularized

readiness reporting system. Therefore, bureaucratically and institutionally, at least in the

Department of Defense, strategic risk is related closely to readiness. That is the system. But

as recent events in Kosovo have demonstrated, the reality of risk assessment can have as

much to do with art as with science.

THE CHAIR MAN’S READI NESS SYS TEM.

The Chairman’s Readiness System is the process by which the Chairman of the Joint

Chiefs of Staff assesses the military’s readiness to fulfill the requirements of the National

Military Strategy (NMS). The vehicle for assessing and reporting readiness across the armed

forces is the Joint Monthly Readiness Review (JMRR).

37

The Chairman’s overall strategic assessment draws on three sources of information: The

individual services unit readiness reports, the Unified Combatant Commanders (CINCs)

joint readiness assessments and the Combat Support Agencies reports on their ability to

support the CINCs. A full JMRR takes place quarterly with an assessment of capabilities and

risk currently and out to 12 months in the future.

The assessments are scenario driven and derive from the current National Military

Strategy. The scenarios normally start with a real-world operation currently underway and

include a Smaller Scale Contingency (SSC) or one or two Major Theater Wars (MTW) “in two

distant theaters in overlapping timeframes”

38

 CINCs are then required to address potential

deficiencies in their ability to execute the scenario-based mission requirements. Deficiencies

are identified and categorized. Fixes are suggested or they are forwarded for consideration

and solution by other working bodies. Unresolved deficiencies are aggregated and considered

collectively. These are then termed “key risk elements.” Further aggregation may intensify

into “overall strategic concerns”; these are potential risks to implementation of the National

Military Strategy itself and constitute an overall strategic risk assessment.

39

The system is largely score-based, that is, commanders at all levels are charged with

assessing their own readiness and that of their subordinates and assigning a value to it.

Scores are aggregated as assessments and forwarded upward. The process would appear at

196
197

first glance to be relatively sound, based as it is on seemingly quantitative assessments.

However, the “granularity” of assessment becomes less clear as the reports are progressively

aggregated. In fact, there are substantial opportunities for commanders to inject subjective

assessments into the process.

40

 It is here, as Clausewitz says, that “intellectual activity leaves

the field of the exact sciences of logic and mathematics. It then becomes an art in the broadest

meaning of the term.”

41

 Differing perceptions of readiness in turn drive differing perceptions

of the degree of ultimate risk for the armed forces to implement the National Military

Strategy, and by extension, elements of the National Security Strategy. This is the basis of the

readiness debate within the services, the Joint Staff, the Department of Defense and the

Congress today.

42

Although the system would appear to guess well on the surface, there is growing concern

that an ends-ways-means mismatch exists. Culturally, commanders are naturally reluctant

to report their commands unready to execute their missions. Likewise, senior commanders

are adverse to less than capable readiness assessments from their subordinates. Further

clouding the process is the political scrutiny under which it takes place. The measure of risk

may depend on how one interprets the current strategic mandate:

The United States [must be] able to deter and defeat large-scale cross-border aggression in

two distant theaters in overlapping time frames. In short, we must be able to fight and win

two major theater wars nearly simultaneously.

43

The current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs assesses the risk factors for fighting and

winning the first Major Theater War as “moderate," but the second as “high.”

44

 What does this

mean in real terms, especially with the occasional Smaller Scale Contingency thrown in for

good measure? One’s point of view depends on where one sits. “Moderate” risk to the

Department of Defense may be acceptable to the Senate Armed Services Committee, but as it

is derived from an aggregated assessment, it may be considered downright dangerous by

CENTCOM or TRANSCOM.

THE CASE OF KOSOVO AND TWO MTW’S.

The conflict in Kosovo provides a fitting vehicle for examining in more real terms the

nature of risk in strategy formulation and implementation. It is not the intent to examine the

strategy for the conflict itself although this has proven to be a rich field of discussion and

debate, especially with regard to matching political ends to military objectives, courses of

action and resources. More interesting is the impact the conflict had on the ability to execute,

if need be, declared elements of the National Security and National Military Strategies and

the risk thereby incurred as a result of the commitment to the Kosovo operation.

As established, the National Military Strategy (as well as the National Security and

Defense Strategies) posit as a fundamental element the ability to “deter and defeat nearly

simultaneous, large-scale, cross-border aggression in two distant theaters in overlapping

time frames.” Moreover, this obtains in an environment in which the United States is globally
engaged and indeed conducting “multiple concurrent smaller-scale contingency operations”

at the same time.

The National Security Strategy states that in the event of one or two MTW’s it may be

necessary to withdraw from ongoing contingency operations. In doing so, the NSS

acknowledges accepting a “degree of risk” since such a course is necessary to “reduce the

greater risk incurred if we failed to respond adequately to major theater wars.” What happens

when a smaller scale contingency takes on the characteristics, at least in part, of a major

theater war?

As outlined earlier, the Joint Monthly Readiness Report (JMRR) is the Chairman’s

snapshot of the U.S. Armed Forces ability to execute the National Military Strategy. The two

JMRRs crafted during and immediately following the Kosovo conflict highlighted some of the

risk entailed in the two-MTW component of the National Military Strategy.

The JMRR covering the April to June 1999 timeframe posited as a scenario an expanding

Kosovo operation lasting until September with a simultaneous outbreak of war on the Korean

peninsula.

45

 It assessed the risk of not prevailing in the Korean MTW as “moderate” and the

risk of successfully responding to a second, unstated MTW as “high." Moderate risk under the

given scenario was defined in terms of time and potential casualties:

This does not mean that U.S. forces would not pre vail in ei ther con tin gency [Kosovo and Ko rea],

but rather, that po ten tially lon ger timelines re quired to ini ti ate the coun ter-offensive increase

the po ten tial for higher ca su al ties to forces in the in terim and dur ing the warfight.

As might be expected, the Air Force was particularly affected due to its significant

commitment to Kosovo. In fact, the Air Force level of effort in Kosovo constituted an MTW in

its own right.

4 6

 The strategic concerns listed included mobility shortfalls,

logistics/sustainment shortfalls, and C4 and ISR deficiencies. Since strategic concerns are

“an aggregation of key risk elements that impact [on] readiness to execute the National

Military Strategy,” the JMRR in effect provides an overall and general articulation of risk.

47

The overall strategic effect of this risk was well articulated in the Kosovo After Action

Report to Congress:

With out ques tion, a sit u a tion in which the United States would have to pros e cute two ma jor the -

ater wars nearly si mul ta neously would be ex traor di narily de mand ing-well be yond that required for Op er a tions Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990 and 1991. It would in volve our

com plete com mit ment as a na tion and would en tail all el e ments of our to tal force . . . Consis tent

with our de fense strat egy, U.S. forces could not have con tin ued the in tense cam paign in Kosovo

and, at the same time, con ducted two nearly si mul ta neous ma jor the ater wars.

48

In fact, in the course of operations in Kosovo, higher levels of risk were reassessed and

some measures were taken to bring the strategic variables into better balance. One

assumption notes that the forces in and around Southwest Asia, coupled with elements

enforcing the no-fly zone constituted an effective deterrent to Saddam. The air-bridge

supporting the Kosovo operation was also considered to be a positive asset if operations had to

198
199

be redirected to the Gulf. However, in Northeast Asia some units were repositioned and

others put on a “tighter string” for a quicker response in the event of crisis. The objective was

to “maintain a very visible defense capability to discourage leaders in Baghdad and

Pyongyang . . . .”

49

 In other words, some adjustments in ways and means were undertaken to

reduce potential strategic risk in undertaking the Kosovo operation.

If all this language leaves readers slightly dissatisfied with the ability of the defense

establishment to measure and articulate risk, then they are in good company. Both the

Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs also acknowledge a shortcoming in

this particular strategic skill. The Kosovo experience brought home the potential impact that

smaller scale contingencies could have on the execution of the National Military Strategy,

especially the two-MTW capability.

Risk anal y sis is im por tant in judg ing force readi ness where com mit ments are made to sup port im por -

tant and nec es sary op er a tions but do not in volve our vi tal in ter ests. Some smaller scale con tin gen cies

may be in this cat e gory.

50

In fact, the statement of the Secretary and Chairman before Congress acknowledged that:

man ag ing these risks is a highly com pli cated en deavor that would ben e fit from a more struc tured and

dy namic set of tools for as sess ing our abil ity to con duct ma jor wars when we re spond to contin gen -

cies.

51

The search for “the closest approximation of the truth,” like strategy, is eternal.

CON CLU SION.

Assessing and managing strategic risk is an inherently inexact process. It encompasses a

combination of inputs, both material and moral, that defy empirical resolution. Weighing

these inputs, identifying possible outcomes and planning for uncertainty should be done with

the clear understanding that a complete solution is impossible to achieve but always striven

for. Once a strategy is developed, the most important strategic skill and the true mark of

strategic “genius” is accounting for potential change and recognizing actual change in a

timely enough manner to adjust the strategic variables and thereby ensure a valid strategic

equation oriented firmly on achieving the political objectives at hand. This is increasingly

difficult to do in a dynamically changing strategic environment with myriad threats,

challenges, actors and unclear potential effects. This is why the development and execution of

strategy is primarily an art and why the requirement for developing masters of that art is so

essential. In the end though, the essential elements of strategic risk are unchanged through

the ages and consist in the proper balancing of ends, ways and means to achieve the desired

strategic outcome. Understanding that fundamental relationship and “guessing well”

through study, exercise and experience will ensure that assessing and managing strategic

risk rises above simply “the comfort level of strategic planners.” A gastro-intestinal

assessment is not good enough. It never was.
ENDNOTES - CHAP TER 14

1. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 1976), pp. 178-179.

2. Henry C. Bartlett, G. Paul Holman, Jr., and Timothy E. Somes, “The Art of Strategy and Force Planning,”

in Strategy and Force Planning, ed. The Strategy and Force Planning Faculty, US Naval War College (Newport,

R.I.: Naval War College Press, 1995), p. 20.

3. John M. Collins, Grand Strategy: Principles and Practices, (Annapolis MD: Naval Institute Press, 1973),

p. 5.

4. Clausewitz, On War, pp. 81, 92, 585.

5. B.H. Liddell Hart, Strategy, 2nd ed. (New York: Meridian, 1991), pp. 322-323. Liddell Hart sounds here

very much like Clausewitz. See Clausewitz, On War, p. 177: “A prince or general can best demonstrate his genius

by managing a campaign exactly to suit his objectives and resources, doing neither too much nor too little.”

6. See Clausewitz, On War, pp. 92-95 for a discussion of “ways."

7. Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed.,

(New York: Longman, 1999), pp. 111-120.

8. Andre Beufre, An Introduction to Strategy, (New York: Praeger, 1965), p. 20.

9. Clausewitz, On War, pp. 178, 586.

10. Ibid., p. 585.

11. Ibid., pp. 112, 586. Attributed to Napoleon, it is interesting that Clausewitz uses it in support of two

different discussions; one on Military Genius and the other on the Scale of the Objective and the Effort To Be

Made. 

12. Liddell Hart, Strategy, p. 323.

13. Ibid.

14. Clausewitz, On War, p. 102.

15. Ibid., p. 103.

16. Von Moltke is quoted here in Ferdinand Foch, The Principles of War, (New York: Holt, 1920), p. 17.

17. Roger S. Whitcomb, The American Approach to Foreign Affairs: An Uncertain Tradition, (Westport, CT:

Praeger, 1998), p. 71.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid., p. 72.

21. Ibid. See also M. Thomas Davis, “Size Military to Strategy, Not Vice Versa," Government Executive, 31,

no. 12 (December 1999): pp. 81-82.

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201

22. Foch, The Principles of War, p. 3.

23. Donald E. Neuchterlein, America Overcommitted: United States National Interests in the 1980s,

(Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1985), pp. 18-28.

24. Ibid., p. 28.

25. J.C. Wylie, “The Calculation of Risk," United States Naval Institute Proceedings (July 1953): p. 725.

26. See introduction by John B. Hattendorf in J.C. Wylie, Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power

Control, (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989), p. xxvii.

27. I have modified the variables for greater ease of understanding.

28. Wylie, Military Strategy, pp. 71-72.

29. Center for CIA Security, Analytical Risk Management, (December 1998).

30. Ibid., p. 29.

31. A reference to Chapter 13 “Strategy Eternal” in Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy, (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1999).

32. Bartlett, Holman and Somes, “The Art of Strategy and Force Planning," Strategy and Force Planning, p.

19.

33. Beufre, Introduction to Strategy, p. 29.

34. Ibid., pp. 26-29.

35. Collins, Grand Strategy, pp. 6-7.

36. CJSCI 3100.01A, Joint Strategic Planning System (1 September 1999), p. E-5.

37. CJCSI 3401.01B (July 1, 1999), Chairman’s Readiness System.

38. William J. Clinton, A National Security Strategy for a New Century, (Washington, D.C.: The White

House, December 1999), p. 19.

39. The Chairman’s Readiness System, Enclosure E; see also Michael A. Pearson ed., How the Army Runs,

(Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1 April 1999), pp. 8-6 – 8-10.

40. Admiral Joseph W. Prueher, “Measuring Readiness," Armed Forces Journal International (January

1999), p. 16.

41. Clausewitz, On War, p. 585.

42. David Abel, “Two War Strategy is ‘Unrealistic,’ Senator Says," Defense Week, December 6, 1999, p. 1.

43. Congress, Senate, Armed Services Committee, “Joint Statement of William S. Cohen and General Henry

H. Shelton," Hearing on Kosovo After-Action Review, 14 October 1999.

44. Henry H. Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Posture Statement before the 106th Congress

Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, 8 February 2000, p. 5.
45. JMRR information from Elaine M. Grossman, “U.S. Forces May Have Faced High Risk If Major War

Erupted Last Spring," Inside the Pentagon, 21 October 1999, p. 1 and Elaine M. Grossman, “U.S. Forces Still

Faced High Readiness Risk After Kosovo Air War," Inside the Pentagon, 6 January 2000, p. 1. See also Elaine M.

Grossman, “DOD Finds Readiness Risks in ‘One-And-A-Half’ Overlapping Wars," Inside the Pentagon, 25 May

2000, p. 2.

46. William S. Cohen and Henry H. Shelton, Report to Congress: Kosovo/Operation Allied Force After-Action

Report, 31 January 2000, p. 121.

47. The subsequent JMRR (July-September 1999) had an even more dire assessment. The scenario assumed

all real-world ongoing commitments with an outbreak of war in Southwest Asia. The JMRR assessed “moderate

to high risk factors for conducting this scenario." See Grossman, “US Forces Still Faced High Risk After Kosovo

Air War."

48. Cohen and Shelton, Report to Congress, p. 12.

49. “Joint Statement . . .," Hearing on Kosovo After-Action Review, p. 7.

50. Cohen and Shelton, Report to Congress, p. 121

51. “Joint Statement . . .," Hearing on Kosovo After-Action Review, p. 8.

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CHAP TER 15

STRATEGIC ART:

THE NEW DISCIPLINE FOR 21st CENTURY LEADERS

Rich ard A. Chilcoat

Dramatic changes in the international system have forced us to reevaluate old strategies

and look for new reference points amid the still unsettled debris of the Old World order. At

issue for strategic leaders and strategists is the role of the United States in the world and our

capabilities to defend and promote our national interests in a new environment where threats

are both diffuse and uncertain, where conflict is inherent, yet unpredictable. These new

patterns of uncertainty combined with declining resources pose difficult challenges to

national security.

Meeting these challenges requires an integrated, systematic approach to the formulation

and execution of strategy. This article is an appeal to strategists to match the success in the

development of operational art and joint doctrine with an equally comprehensive approach to

strategic art.

1

 If operational art is an effective guide for the employment of force, strategic art

can be equally effective in guiding the formulation of national security strategy, national

military strategy, and theater strategy, thereby linking the use of military forces to the larger

political-military context in which wars occur. In other words, strategic art must establish the

relationships between military power and other instruments of power. It must also guide

combatant and theater commanders in fulfilling their strategic responsibilities.

Strategic leadership is the effective practice of the strategic art. Strategists can think

about and help devise strategies, but it is the strategic leader who practices the art and makes

it happen. A successful search for strategy and the mastery of strategic art by our senior

leaders, military and civilian, are vital to the nation. Identifying and mastering the

components of strategic art offer no panaceas, but elevating the importance and ensuring the

visibility of these steps in the national security debate can serve as constructive

counterpoints to such tendencies as political isolationism, militant economic protectionism,

military unpreparedness, and emotion-based interventions.

This essay is not intended to provide a strategy or even an ideal process for formulating or

mastering strategic art. Its purpose rather is to emphasize that the search itself is important,

permanent, and worth our best efforts and attention at a time when familiar landmarks have

vanished and no new strategic vision has attracted a national consensus. Said another way,

we have come a long way towards mastery of the tactical and operational arts—the time is

now to strive for mastery of the strategic art.

Simultaneous revolutions in military affairs, technology, and information, and a

reordering of the international system, have shattered traditional boundaries, merging the

tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war into a single, integrated universe in which
action at the bottom often has instant and dramatic impact at all levels. Never in history have

so many strategic burdens confronted the entire chain of command, ranging from the

President in the White House all the way down to the individual rifleman at a security

checkpoint in Macedonia. We have, in Vice Admiral Jerry 0. Tuttle’s words, “entered the

‘visual era’—our rules of engagement are new, dominated by the risk that parents will see their

sons and daughters killed in real—time on TV—or that mothers and babies—churches and

mosques—temples and hospitals—will be blown away in full color before us in our living

rooms. . . . ”

2

These dramatic changes require an integrated approach to strategy and operations, an

approach that conceptually combines the levels of war—strategic, operational, and

tactical—with all the instruments of power in the national security strategy (see Figure 1).

Before the national security strategy can become a coherent plan for action, strategic art must

first be invoked to coordinate all the instruments of power available to a nation or coalition to

attain clearly defined and agreed-upon objectives and end states. For this reason, we can no

longer afford isolated or uncoordinated approaches among the domains of strategy—military,

diplomatic, economic, or informational—which often, as Gregory Foster has observed,

“manifest themselves operationally as costly bureaucratic and institutional barriers to unity

of thought and action.”

3

 Churchill’s genius was rooted in his understanding of this reality.

Like a painter, he tells us, the strategist must have an “all-embracing view, which presents

the beginning and the end, the whole and each part, as one instantaneous impression

retentively and untiringly held in the mind.”

4

 Churchill was the classic example of both the

204

Figure 1. 
205

strategist and the strategic leader. His leadership made the difference in translating words

into deeds, ideas and concepts into action. He was a master of the strategic art.

Unity of thought and action requires strategic leaders in uniform to understand

disciplines outside their own professional expertise, and civilian strategic leaders must

likewise comprehend the broader consequences of policy on the national security and national

military strategies. Trade, for example, if pursued for maximum economic benefits to the U.S.

economy, may include the transfer of technologies that put U.S. military superiority at risk.

Conversely, by erecting trade barriers we may cause conflict with other nations, again

putting our security at risk. These are difficult choices that can be mediated only by leaders

who are able to balance short-term against long-term benefits and regional against global

interests, and who are able to reconcile the collective effects of all components of strategy in

promoting and defending all U.S. interests. Mastering strategic art requires close,

cooperative, interagency relations and leaders with vision to see over and beyond the

bureaucratic barriers.

Political and military leaders must work closely together, interacting with one another on

desired end states, objectives, courses of action, capabilities, and risks, for there is no clear

threshold between peace and war marking the point where political and military leaders

hand off responsibility. Both must be masters of strategic art, and the subordination of

military to civilian leadership does not lessen the importance of military counsel and advice to

political authorities, or the responsibilities of both to communicate and coordinate at every

level of strategy and during all phases of conflict. This is the essence of strategic art.

DE VELOPING A WORKING DEF I NI TION OF STRA TE GIC ART.

Good definitions should be brief, yet broad in scope and sufficiently specific to inform

action. Strategic art entails the orchestration of all the instruments of national power to yield

specific, well-defined end states. Desired end states and strategic outcomes derive from the

national interests and are variously defined in terms of physical security, economic well

being, and the promotion of values. Strategic art, broadly defined, is therefore: The skillful

formulation, coordination, and application of ends (objectives), ways (courses of action), and

means (supporting resources) to promote and defend the national interests.

Several definitions of strategic art considered for inclusion here were overly restrictive,

limited in scope to military art. While it is indisputable that the nation’s military leadership

bears the responsibility to fight and win the nation’s wars, it is equally true that strategic art

includes the mastering of other instruments of power and understanding their contributions

and limitations within the national security strategy. Just as diplomacy absent supporting

military and economic power may be impotent, even dangerous, military strategy absent

political direction and a strong economic foundation may suffer the same disabilities.

The planning and execution of strategy require a paradigm understood by military and

civilian leaders alike. The strategy paradigm comprised of “ends, ways, and means”—which

has almost universal applicability—defines objectives, identifies courses of action to achieve
them, and provides the resources to support each course of action.

5

 The relationships among

these elements of strategy allow for planning and the debating of alternative strategic

visions, calculations, and assessment of risk. This paradigm and its application to national

strategy and to military strategy are taught to senior military officers at every senior service

college.

Strategic leaders in uniform must simultaneously be able to comprehend and operate at

the levels of national security strategy, national military strategy, and theater strategy. At

the highest or grand strategy level, one of the principal tasks of the Chairman of the Joint

Chiefs, his staff, and often the theater or regional commanders in chief (CINCs) is to assist the

Secretary of Defense in the formulation of national security strategy. This difficult task

requires a grasp of how all the elements of power comprising national strategy might be

applied either singly or in concert. Strategic leaders translate national security guidance into

a focused military expression through the formally articulated Defense Planning Guidance

and the National Military Strategy. It is at this level and in this process that differences

between strategic art and operational art are most pronounced.

Operational art does not establish the strategic context, but instead flows from the policy

decisions and strategy made at the national and theater levels. Operational art in the middle

overlaps with and bridges strategy and tactics and translates theater strategy into military

action by integrating the key activities of all levels of warfare (see Figure 2). It is more strictly

focused on the employment of military forces to attain the aims set by strategy through the

design and execution of campaigns and major operations.

206

Figure 2. 
207

Combatant commanders play a complex and multifaceted role as the integrators and

translators of strategy into the operational level. Of necessity they are practitioners of both

forms of art. Their responsibility is to assist in the formulation of national security strategy

and national military strategy as required, as well as to formulate a theater strategy to

implement national policy and guidance. Theater strategy integrates concepts and courses of

action to secure the aims of national or multinational strategy. It is the conceptual wellspring

from which operational art flows in application. The CINC stands precisely at the critical

junction where multiple levels of strategy are translated into operational designs for unified

action that link tactical operations to strategic objectives.

In practice, CINCs and their staffs often deal directly with nonmilitary agencies involved

in implementing the broader national security strategy. This requires the military

professional to deal with all the instruments of national power as presented in a bewildering

array of options, requirements, and constraints. These often represent competing interests in

an interagency system or in a coalition as ad hoc in makeup as it is in command

arrangements. In this complex political environment, military expertise and traditional

command and leadership skills must be supplemented by a keen understanding of underlying

political, military, and economic issues, peer leadership and consensus-building skills, and

the ability to secure the cooperation of organizations and personalities beyond one’s direct

influence and control.

MAS TERING STRA TE GIC ART.

According to the definitions of strategic art thus far developed, strategic leadership—in

the context of national security affairs—requires that senior leaders be able to skillfully

formulate, coordinate, and apply ends, ways, and means at hand to promote and defend the

national interests. This definitive relationship is shown at Figure 3.

Masters of the strategic art are those alone who can competently integrate and combine

the three roles performed by the complete strategist: the strategic leader, strategic

practitioner, strategic theorist. These roles, each with a distinctive set of skills, form the

defining competencies of the person who is the master of the strategic art. These roles and

skills, all quite complex, are depicted in Figure 4.

6

 It will be seen that the three skill groupings

overlap to some degree, but each is coherent and they are all mutually supportive. The

competencies depicted in Figure 4 are developed by the master of the strategic art during the

course of a lifetime of education, service, and experience:

● The Stra te gic Leader pro vides vi sion and fo cus, cap i tal izes on com mand and peer lead er -

ship skills, and in spires oth ers to think and act.

● The Stra te gic Prac ti tio ner de vel ops a deep un der stand ing of all lev els of war and strategy and their in ter re la tion ships, de vel ops and ex e cutes stra te gic plans de rived from inter agency and joint guid ance, em ploys force and other di men sions of mil i tary power,

and uni fies mil i tary and non mil i tary ac tiv i ties through com mand and peer lead er ship

skills.
208

Figure 3. 

Figure 4. Roles and Skills of the Master of the Strategic Art.
209

● The Stra te gic The o rist stud ies the his tory of war fare, de vel ops stra te gic con cepts and

the o ries, in te grates them with the el e ments of na tional power and with the Na tional Secu rity Strat egy and Na tional Mil i tary Strat egy, and teaches or men tors the stra te gic

art. The dis tinc tion be tween a stra te gic the o rist and a stra te gic leader is sim i lar to the

one psy chol o gist Howard Gardner draws be tween di rect and in di rect lead ers. Di rect

lead ers in flu ence oth ers in ten tion ally. Their ma jor tools are mes sages, themes, concepts, or vi sions; their most im por tant skill is ef fec tive com mu ni ca tion. The au di ence of

di rect lead ers is broad, and may in clude the na tion as a whole. In di rect lead ers af fect

oth ers through their work—of ten the o ries or trea tises.

7

The three roles are shown here separately for the purposes of analysis, but the master

strategist integrates and plays each role simultaneously as he executes his responsibilities.

The senior leader exercises strategic leadership, most completely, when he is competent in

each of the three roles. Often it is position or function that determines which of the three roles

are dominant at any given time. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the service chiefs, for

example, embody the role of the strategic leader, while a CINC, his staff, or a joint task force

commander are more focused on the functions of the strategic practitioner. Commandants of

the senior service colleges and high-level planners within the OCJCS and NSC place a high

premium upon their facility as strategic theorists.

Mastery of the strategic art is not the same as so-called “strategic genius.” True strategic

genius—a transcendent ability to read the enemy state’s center of gravity and then to devise

the most effective and efficient combination of means for attacking or threatening that center

of gravity—is probably too much to expect of any individual at the dawn of the 21st century,

because the total spectrum of elements of national power has grown so astonishingly broad

and complex.

8

 The activity of the individual strategic prodigy as manifested in centuries past

is today a corporate endeavor within governments. Realistically, the complex interagency

structure of national security requires military leaders to develop complementary and

overlapping expertise, as well as understanding that building organizations and developing

strategies and plans reflecting all three competencies of strategic art are as important as

striving for individual mastery. The trends that are likely to define the 21st century will

demand strategic leaders who can integrate and synchronize organizations and policies

simultaneously in all three areas.

Some skills are common to all three components of strategic art. For instance, all

strategists must be able to think holistically, meshing the different instruments of national

power and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the various organizations and

agencies involved in national security. They must also be able to think conceptually because

strategy is distinguished from other activities by its expanded timeframe. Strategy deals with

the relationship of the present to the future, with balancing short-term and long-term

considerations. Conceptual thinking is the gateway to long-range planning. Finally, all

strategists must be able to think normatively. Value judgments are the heart of strategy.

Strategists must be able to decide not only what is attainable, but also what is preferable.

This is always a difficult process. Military officers must constantly make normative choices,

but at the tactical level these are simplified by formal guidance such as doctrine, SOPs, rules

of engagement, the Code of Conduct, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. At the
strategic level, many normative choices entail trade-offs. To promote democracy or promote

stability? To feed starving Africans or rebuild American inner cities? And so on. This

normative complexity places great demands on strategists. To succeed, they must build and

constantly refine a coherent ethical framework. In the end, no strategist is stronger than his

ethical foundation. 9

Other groups of skills are particular to one or another of the three roles played by the

master strategist. Acting primarily as strategic theorists and teachers, for instance, the

masters of strategic art must have a full grasp of the political, military, economic, social,

ethical, and cultural spirit of their time—what the Germans call Zeitgeist. They must be able

to think in abstractions, to understand dilemmas, possibilities, and relationships that may

not be obvious to casual observers. And, most of all, they must be creative, able to see beyond

the limitations of the present, to sense new opportunities, and then to propose means to attain

them. They must, in other words, inspire others to think about the future.

Acting as the strategic leader, the element of individual psychology is important. The

master requires the ability to sense and compensate for his own weaknesses, to understand

the strengths and weaknesses of others, and to craft symbiotic relationships among

individuals to create an effective team.

10

 No strategist is equally skilled in all dimensions of

his craft but psychologically-aware leaders can overcome this. For example, George Marshall

had, in General Shalikashvili’s words, “a rare intuition, a nearly flawless inner sense for other

men’s strengths that allowed him to seek the spark of leadership in others, and when he saw

that spark, to place such men into key assignments and then to fully support their efforts.”

11

In a more modern vein, the strategic foundation of the Gulf War victory arose from the

blending of the diverse talents of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and Norman

Schwarzkopf. The ability to make a penetrating assessment of personal strengths and

weaknesses of all the main players is thus a requisite skill for strategic leaders. But that is not

all they need. Strategic leaders must have the same ability to inspire great efforts that leaders

need at every level. Patton, for instance, “had an innate knack for inspiring soldiers to fight

beyond all limits of their endurance.

12

 Where strategic theorists and teachers must be able to

inspire others to think, strategic leaders must be able to inspire others to think and act.

Strategic leaders must not only be able to transcend old conceptual limitations themselves,

but also encourage and empower others to do the same. Additionally, strategic leaders must

be skilled at the fine art of focusing, for this allows them to prioritize, to distinguish the vital

from the important, the important from the irrelevant, and the urgent from the routine.

Finally, in modern strategy, leaders must be as skilled in peer leadership as in directing

subordinates. This is a special talent never mastered by some officers who were outstanding

at the tactical level. In strategy, then, there is a time to dictate, order, and demand, but also a

time to persuade, cajole, and build consensus. Strategic leaders must understand the

difference and know the time for each.

Acting in the capacity as strategic practitioners, the masters must be particularly strong

in understanding cause-and-effect relationships and the orderly phasing of activities. They

must have an astute grasp of the operational and tactical levels, including the relationship of

military and nonmilitary activity in these venues. They must understand not only the

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application of force, but also other methods of using military power such as psychological

operations and nation assistance. And they must have impeccable communication skills.

Where strategic leaders and strategic theorists and teachers seek to inspire and thus build

their written and spoken communication for hortatory purposes, strategic practitioners

translate inspiration into practical plans and attainable goals. Clarity as well as inspiration

are the criteria by which they are measured. The master of the strategic art must be able to do

it all.

One method of measuring success and failure in strategic art is to look at history for

examples of both. A representative reading list would surely include great theorists

(Thucydides, Sun Tzu, Clausewitz), leaders (Marshall, Eisenhower, Churchill), and

practitioners (Patton, Rommel, Ridgway). The master of strategic art should be a student of

history, studying the successful traits that these and other equally talented figures had in

common. We must not, however, ignore failures, including some that may seem at first

successful, but upon closer examination are not. Napoleon, for example, is often remembered

as a master of strategic art—Martin Van Creveld has called him the most competent human

being who ever lived. Examination of Napoleon’s reputation for military genius, however,

illuminates the boundaries between operational and strategic art. His genius lay primarily in

his innovations in operational art—his brilliant campaigns and leadership on the battlefield.

When judging Napoleon’s skills as a master of strategic art, we must keep in mind

Clausewitz’s warning that “the effects of genius show not so much in novel forms for action as

in the ultimate success of the whole.”

13

 By this standard, which has even greater resonance

today, Napoleon was a strategic failure whose legacy included the death of several million

Frenchmen, the occupation of his country by three armies, the restoration of the monarchy, a

century of British dominance, and his own exile.

14

 Similarly, German brilliance at the tactical

and operational levels on the battlefield in World War II did not prevent the virtual

devastation of Germany and occupation by the allies. In spite of demonstrated operational

genius, these are not records that aspiring masters of strategic art would seek to emulate.

Jomini’s works provide another useful example in distinguishing operational from

strategic art. Jomini’s legacy lies in his effort to bring clarity and predictability to war by

making operational art more scientific. His focus, however, ignores the larger political

context for which wars are conducted. He reduces the problem of war to the professional and

operational concerns of military commanders, thereby reinforcing the view that in war

military objectives and authority should not be subordinated to political objectives and

political authority.

15

 This view is the antithesis of both strategy and strategic art as we will

know and experience it in the 21st century. Two contemporary examples illustrate the

complexity of reconciling all elements of national security strategy with military strategy and

operations.

First, in the Gulf War, much of the hindsight criticism centers on the proposition that the

American-led offensive was halted too soon. More of the retreating Iraqi army should have

been destroyed, many commentators argue; others imply, or state outright, that we should

have pressed on to Baghdad, killed or captured Saddam, and established a new, presumably

democratic, government. Saddam’s continued presence in power, this argument goes, serves
as a daily reminder that our policy failed, or, at the very least, that our victory was “hollow.” It

now appears that the offensive capability of Iraqi forces was not as completely destroyed as

appears to have been militarily desirable. From a political perspective, however, the

suspension of hostilities was timed about right, and every senior leader, military and civilian,

concurred in the decision. Prolongation—even for a few hours—of what was increasingly seen

by some, as a high-technology massacre of Muslims would not have been received well in

hostile (or even friendly) Middle East capitals.

Whether the destruction of the Iraqi military could have proceeded much further without

depriving Baghdad of the means of forcibly holding the country together after the cease-fire is

a question that can never be definitively answered. What does seem clear is that it is in the

interest of the United States to see Iraq survive as a regional power in the Gulf, particularly

as a potential counterbalance to resurgent Iran. As ruthless and despicable as Saddam’s

crushing of the Shiite and Kurdish rebellions was, future stability in the Gulf is better served

by an intact Iraq than by an Iraq splintered into Shiite, Sunnite, and Kurdish sectors.

American strategic leaders were confronted with forging and maintaining a fragile

political coalition, the challenge of projecting a formidable military capability great distances,

maintaining the political support of the American people, and leaving a credible regional

balance of power in the region where Iran, more than Iraq, may be the major threat in the

future. Balancing these elements of near and long-term strategy, the Bush administration

enunciated four objectives: (1) unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait; (2)

restoration of Kuwait’s legitimate government; (3) safety of U.S. citizens in the area; and (4)

reestablishment of stability and security in the Gulf. Four out of four is not bad strategic

artistry.

16

A second example is U.S. participation in multilateral peacekeeping and peace

enforcement operations, especially those inspired by ethnic conflict as in Bosnia.

17

 In these

conflicts, military leaders play a major role in the interagency decisionmaking process.

Ideally, this process assesses U.S. interests and objectives against the risks and costs of

intervention. The risks from military intervention in deeply rooted, and in some cases

intractable, ethnic conflicts (often driven by emotional rather than material interests) are

substantial. Economic and political incentives may neither satisfy nor deter the combatants.

The risk of escalation is high, especially when ethnic combatants have kinsmen or patron

states in the region. Escalation may also entail terrorism directed against the United States.

Military objectives and centers of gravity in such conflicts are difficult to identify and difficult

to attack, and may lie beyond imposed political constraints.

This last point lies at the heart of civil-military decisionmaking. Civilian leadership

identifies the broad political objectives and acceptable levels of cost and risk. Military

leadership is responsible for a military strategy to achieve political objectives. Reconciling the

two requires a clear delineation of political constraints and an equally clear assessment of

military objectives and centers of gravity that must be attacked to achieve both military and

political objectives. If centers of gravity, the most vital military targets, lie beyond the

political constraints imposed by the nation’s leadership, military intervention is unlikely to

succeed.

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If external political, economic, or military support is a center of gravity (Serbia’s support

of Bosnian Serbs, for example), then regional escalation of a conflict must be contemplated. If

land forces are the center of gravity, then the United States must tally the level of effort,

including American casualties, required to defeat or destroy those forces. If local support for

ethnic combatants is a center of gravity, then economic and other targets that are punitive to

noncombatants must be considered.

The difficult reconciliation process between political or economic constraints on war and

military objectives is vital to the formulation of effective military strategy if military force is

to be the principal means for conflict termination. Reconciliation is equally important

whether in war—situations in which military force is the principal means to achieve national

objectives—or in operations other than war—situations in which military power is available

but subordinate to political or economic power in conflict resolution. This process is strategic

art in practice; its complexity requires both interagency coordination and expertise beyond

one’s organizational responsibilities.

HOW WILL STRA TE GIC ART CHANGE?

As with many human skills, strategy combines immutable elements that remain constant

across time with more fluid components that vary according to place and condition. The

constants are defined by strategic culture.

18

 For instance, 21st century American

strategists—like their predecessors—will still need to minimize the human costs of applying

power in pursuit of national interests, and to mobilize and sustain public support.

Synchronizing the instruments of national power will also be a constant. Future strategists

will continue to struggle with obstacles posed by the American strategic culture such as

impatience, a tendency to seek economic and technological solutions to strategic problems,

and difficulty understanding the perceptions, attitudes, and motives of others. And, most

important, future strategists will continue to reflect core American values such as respect for

the individual, reverence for basic civil and political rights, and the imperative to minimize

violence whenever possible.

But within this framework of constants, future American strategists will be forced to

cultivate some new skills or, at least, to place greater emphasis on some that were formerly

less central. For instance, as stressed above, horizontal or peer leadership will become

increasingly important. In the 21st century, strategy will almost always be interagency and

multinational. Military strategists must thus be able to exercise peer and cross-cultural

leadership as often as vertical or command leadership. The two require different skills. For

horizontal leadership, a command personality and ability to impose the leader’s will are less

relevant than the ability to negotiate, persuade, and build consensus. Horizontal leadership

will also place increased stress on the ability to communicate and understand cross-culturally

(including cross-institutional cultures). Phrased differently, future strategists must have a

sophisticated understanding of the psychology of cross-cultural leadership.

Given the rapidly accelerating rate of change that characterizes the modern era, 21st

century strategists also will be required to build new task-oriented organizations in relatively
short periods. Innovativeness, conceptual thinking, a willingness to accept risk, the ability to

exploit rapid and persistent change, openness to continuing education, and general mental

flexibility will separate masters of strategic art from apprentices. Also needed is the ability to

quickly and accurately assess the strengths and weaknesses of others, and to build balanced,

complementary intra-team relationships. The complexity of 21st century strategy will

demand strategic leaders who can build the right leadership team for a specific task within a

rapidly evolving politicalmilitary environment.

Finally, facility in quick and accurate information assessment will become a central

strategic skill. If the 21st century is to be the “information age,” one of the foremost skills

strategists must have is the ability to select and extract vital information from the great mass

of useless information provided. Acquiring information will not be a problem. If anything,

future strategic leaders will be overwhelmed with information, and winnowing out what is

useful will be the challenge. Skill at this must be carefully and deliberately cultivated.

How, then, can 21st century strategists develop the complex skills their profession will

demand? Until fairly recently, the process of mastering strategy was informal and often ad

hoc. With the establishment of the service war colleges and the development of strategic

studies as an academic discipline in the 20th century, efforts have been made to formalize and

improve this process. These efforts must continue into the 21st century as the formal

mechanisms for cultivating strategic skill are reassessed and modified.

Three trends are particularly important. One is improved understanding of the adult

learning process. In the past, some candidate strategists were lucky enough to find a skilled

mentor. Dwight Eisenhower, for instance, gained much of his initial grasp of strategy at the

hand of Brigadier General Fox Conner.

19

 There were probably those with promise of strategic

skill who never found a mentor, and thus did not reach their full potential. Now with better

institutional understanding of adult learning, few, if any, truly talented strategists should

fall through the cracks. One challenge for the Army is honing its methods of identifying

strategic skill. Currently, admission to the war colleges is based mostly on tactical level

success, particularly in command. This may or may not be the best possible criterion, but it

certainly warrants further study and debate.

A second trend is increased utilization of technology. Information technology can help

strategists develop mentor and peer relationships; simulations technology can help

strategists test their decisionmaking skills; and, computer technology can help them acquire

and assess information. Anyone who aspires to master the strategic art must understand the

challenges and opportunities afforded by technology.

A third important trend, pointing toward the need to learn from other disciplines and

translate their accumulated wisdom into a form usable by strategists, is expanding

conceptual horizons. From the business community, for instance, strategists can learn

methods for assuring organizational flexibility and quality of product.

20

 From psychologists

and sociologists, strategists can develop sophisticated notions of how human societies

function, allowing them to craft the most effective strategies possible for coercing enemy

societies or repairing friendly ones. From cyberneticists, strategists can develop a better

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understanding of information systems, thus maximizing the effectiveness of their own while

eroding that of opponents. And from moral philosophers, strategists can come to a better

understanding of the ethical choices that form the foundation of their efforts. The key is a

continuous but critical “looking outward” to decide what wisdom from other disciplines is

relevant for strategy and what parts are inapplicable.

Strategic skills are developed over the course of a career through formal and informal

education and self-development, and additionally through professional experience. Senior

service colleges have traditionally made their main contribution by offering curricula

emphasizing the theoretical aspects of strategic art.

21

 But theoretical education is only part of

the process. If we accept the notion that strategic art is more something we do than something

we know, it is natural that we should exercise it in the classroom in expectation that we can

enhance students’ application of strategic art beyond the classroom and increase their value

as a resource to their individual service or agency and to the nation. This expectation for

strategic preparation is consistent with the extensive past efforts dedicated to tactical and

operational simulations, exercises, and wargames and our perception that praxis enhances

real-world performance. The unfortunate fact is, however, that strategic wargarming

emphasizing political, economic, and informational instruments of power has traditionally

not been exercised in the classroom nearly so much as its tactical and operational

counterparts.

The practice of the strategic art in the classroom has received less attention because, like

strategy itself, it is quite difficult. Politico-military relationships and their many related

factors are not nearly so neat or quantifiable, as are the operational and tactical issues so

familiar to military leaders; as a result, these issues fall outside the individual’s comfort zone

and often end up in the “too hard” category. Moreover, many officers have relatively little

exposure to the political and interagency processes at the highest levels of our own

government, let alone the complex web of relationships among nations and alliances,

although service, as a general officer almost always requires familiarity with the interagency

and intergovernmental processes. As a result, the services’ officer corps—and the Army’s

officer corps in particular—are far more comfortable and experienced with operational and

tactical wargames and simulations. Thus, a very real challenge in exercising strategic art in

the classroom is one of raising students’ sights and exposing them to these higher-level

processes before they actually have to deal with them in the real world.

The greatest challenge in providing practice in strategic art in the classroom is in creating

a reasonably representative politico-military environment in which the players must operate.

Beyond the lack of familiarity of many military officers with that environment, many other

impediments have existed in the past. Realistic scenario development has always involved

political sensitivities (signal sending) and risked giving offense to friends and allies, and

provocation to enemies. This has led to the generation of artificial scenarios and geographic

settings, often referred to as “synthetic theaters of war,” for use in simulations. Also, it has

often been difficult to obtain the participation of experienced key individuals from the

national and international political arenas to replicate their roles in relatively low-level

simulations. In such cases, simulations conducted by the military often resorted to the use of

military personnel who lacked the requisite expertise, with the result that significant
distortion was introduced into the fabric of the simulations. Further, there is the tendency of

many military officers, even in strategic simulations involving the interagency process and

international and coalition-building issues, to focus nonetheless on lower-level issues more

appropriate to operational and tactical simulations with which they are more familiar.

To overcome such problems, the Army War College’s annual Strategic Crisis Exercise has

been designed expressly to confront students with practice at all levels and in all components

of strategic art.

22

 Among the many lessons learned is that the information age challenges us

to think beyond our traditional conception of the classroom—moving us towards the concept

of a “virtual classroom” in which we can bring high-level experts, policymakers, and

representatives of various player organizations into our exercises without their ever having

to leave their offices. This capability greatly enhances the realism and dynamism of strategic,

politico-military simulations.

The first Strategic Crisis Exercise confirmed our anticipation of the need for enhanced

representation of various commands and non-Defense agencies, better representation of

foreign nations—both friendly and hostile—and better portrayal of nongovernmental and

private entities such as the Red Cross and various relief and humanitarian organizations.

Also, it was evident that the student officers were more comfortable dealing with tactical and

operational issues than the complex mix of political, economic, and military issues. One

surprising development during the exercise was the underestimation of computer

requirements for automated simulations. In the information age, “if you are not able to go on

line at will, you virtually do not exist.”

The various lessons learned from exercising strategic art in the classroom coalesce in the

following conclusion: The combined revolutions in technology and global affairs have

shattered traditional boundaries between levels of strategy and levels of war, merging them

into a single integrated system that must be mastered by all strategic leaders, both military

and civilian. Military leaders will be relied upon for their ability to fight and win the nation’s

wars. But it is equally important that they see, plan, and act with the knowledge that military

art is but one component in a broad, dynamic strategy for national defense.

CON CLU SIONS.

The beginning of the Cold War marked the first time in American history that strategic

leaders were forced to deal with the essential paradox of grand strategy faced by the Roman

Empire and other great powers in the intervening centuries: Sivis pacem, para bellum—if you

want peace, prepare for war. Good strategy does not recognize the concept of permanent

victory. There are no such victories; there are only phase lines in a permanent struggle to

promote and defend our national interests. At each phase line threats are defeated or recede;

the international system reconfigures as old powers decline and new powers rise; and, at

home, resources are redistributed in support of new priorities. Only the nation’s interests

remain relatively constant, requiring new strategies and competencies for their promotion

and defense in new environments.

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The foregoing realities persist for the United States in the post—Cold War transition

period in which the National Security Strategy of global engagement and enlargement is

supported by a National Military Strategy focused on regional contingencies and operations

other than war. The key to the success of these strategies remains the creation of linkage

among national ends, ways, and means. And what constitutes “credible” in terms of national

security in the coming years will depend, as it always has in American history, on our ability

to reconcile the often conflicting demands of domestic and international politics. This means,

in turn, that civilian and military strategic leaders will face even greater challenges in this

transition period in building a consensus among the American people with regard to the

increasingly complex concept of national security.

Clausewitz was prescient on this issue. He did not discuss bureaucratic politics,

interagency process, or the separation of power in a constitutional democracy. He did,

nevertheless, clearly anticipate the necessity to achieve political consensus at home before

victory in war was possible. Patience, perseverance, and endurance in the face of protracted

conflict without prospects for clear and final victory are assuredly likelihoods for which the

strategist and the public alike must prepare.

ENDNOTES - CHAP TER 15

1. Through the mid-1980s, Army doctrine and service instruction introduced and emphasized operational

art for the employment of military forces to attain strategic objectives. Since 1986 (Goldwater-Nichols), joint and

other service doctrine has rapidly emerged. Joint doctrine has been remarkably successful in integrating a wide

range of ideas and concepts for the systematic conduct of war at the strategic, operational and tactical levels.

However, national security strategy and military strategy are only briefly addressed. Treatment ofthe strategic

responsibilities of the combatant or theater commanders is still maturing and not yet adequately developed as a

coherent frame of reference. For the history of operational art in the U.S. Army see Richard M. Swain, “Filling

the Void: The Operational Art and the U.S. Army,” paper presented at Royal Military College of Canada,

Kingston, Ontario, Canada, March 22—25, 1995.

2. Vice Admiral Jerry 0. Tuttle, “Information Warfare,” speech presented at OSD Information Wargame,

Washington, DC, December 6, 1993.

3. Gregory D. Foster, “A Conceptual Foundation for a Theory of Strategy,” Washington Quarterly, Winter

1990, p. 51.

4. Quoted in Elliot Cohen, “Churchill and Coalition Strategy in World War ll,” Grand Strategies in War and

Peace, ed. Paul Kennedy, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991, p. 66.

5. The most succinct and applicable discussion of this concept is in Art Lykke, “Toward an Understanding of

Military Strategy,” in Military Strategy. Theory and Application, ed. Art Lykke, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War

College, 1993, pp. 3-8.

6. Figure 4 is derived in part from LTC Ted Davis, “Potential Roles of Military Strategists,” unpublished

working paper, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS, February 1995.

7. Howard Gardner, Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership, New York: Basic Books, 1995, pp. 6-13.

8. For the possibilities of information war, see Mark Thompson, “If War Comes Home,” Time, August 21,

1995, p. 45.
9. This was the theme of Secretary of Defense William Perry in a speech, “The Ethical Use of Military Force,”

delivered at the U.S. Naval Academy, April 18, 1995, reproduced in U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Issues,

Vol. 10, No. 49.

10. For elaboration of the concept of collective strategic genius, see Steven Metz, “The Mark of Strategic

Genius,” Parameters, Vol. 21, No. 3, Autumn 1991, pp. 55-57.

11. John M. Shalikashvili, “The Three Pillars of Leadership,” remarks at the George C. Marshall ROTC

Award Seminar, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, VA, April 12, 1995, reprinted in Defense Issues, Vol. 10,

No. 42, p. 2.

12. Shalikashvili, p. 1.

13. Clausewitz, On War, eds. Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,

1976, p. 177.

14. This critique of Napoleon is developed by Stephen M. Wait, “The Search for a Science of Strategy, A

Review Essay,” International Security, Summer 1987, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 142-143.

15. John Shy’s conclusions in “Jomini,” Makers of Modern Strategy. From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed.

Peter Paret, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986, pp. 161, 167.

16. In his biography, General Powell describes the decision to suspend hostilities in detail. He was strongly

influenced by the strategic risks of fighting beyond the coalition’s stated political objectives. See, My American

Journey, Random House: New York, 1995, pp. 512-523. For a reasoned account of the “War Ended Too Soon”

school, see Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor’s The General’s War, Little Brown and Company: New York,

1995, pp. 405-439.

17. This example is summarized from William A. Stofft and Gary L. Guertner’s “Ethnic Conflict: The Perils

of Military Intervention,” Parameters, Vol. XXV, No. 1, Spring 1995, pp. 37-39.

18. See Frederick M. Downey and Steven Metz, “The American Political Culture and Strategic Planning,”

Parameters, Vol. 28, No. 3, September 1988, pp. 34-42.

19. Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower, Volume One: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890-1952,

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983, pp. 76-78; and David Eisenhower, Eisenhower. At War, 1943-1945, New

York: Vintage, 1987, p. 62.

20. Examples of this include General Gordon R. Sullivan’s “Business Outreach Program” administered by

the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute.

21. In addition, of course, to opening paths to continuing education and self-development. The information

revolution makes it possible for senior service colleges to stay in direct contact with graduates, providing

information, studies, and new developments appropriate for and relevant to their post-war college assignments.

22. In March 1995, the Army War College undertook an effort to exercise strategic art in the classroom with

its first College-wide Strategic Crisis Exercise (SCE). The SCE involved the entire U.S. student body and faculty

and numerous players from outside the College in a 2-week exercise involving six near-simultaneous crises set

in the year 2005. Scenarios ranged from a Western Hemisphere disaster relief effort, through several minor

crises involving the deployment of military forces to various world regions, to a major regional conflict in North

Africa. Throughout the exercise, the players were challenged to examine U.S. interests in each region, consider

the full range and implications of political, economic, and military options, and, where appropriate, develop a

campaign plan for the employment of military forces. Student players, assigned to one of four groups playing the

same scenario and crises, played roles including the National Security Advisor, the CJCS, the Joint Staff,

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Service Chiefs, and Specialized and Unified Commanders. They were forced to formulate, defend, and execute

their recommendations under the scrutiny of the interagency process, the press, and congressional oversight.
221

AP PEN DIX I

GUIDELINES FOR STRATEGY

I. General. Strategy is an art, and a highly creative one at that. It is also somewhat

scientific, in that it follows certain patterns which require a common understanding of

terminology, adherence to certain principles, and disciplined, albeit creative, thought

processes. In that spirit, offered herein are some guidelines, definitions, and rules of thumb.

The structure, definitions and processes described here are the basis for instruction in

Strategy Formulation for the students at the U.S. Army War College (USAWC). The term

“guidelines” best describes their intended use. They are not prescriptive in nature but

preceptual concepts to assist the strategic leader in constructively developing national

policies and strategies in an extremely complex international environment.

II. Strategy Formulation Guidelines. Understanding that these are guidelines and

not formulas, strategy will be developed in keeping with the particular features of the time,

place and personalities involved. Nevertheless, the USAWC guidelines offer an approach to

address the complexities of strategy formulation, and are intended for strategists attempting

to achieve the coherence, continuity, and consensus that policy makers seek in designing,

developing and executing national security and military strategies.

National Interests

National Values

Strategic Appraisal

National Policy

National Strategy

Risk Assessment

Military Strategy
III. National Strategy (or National Security Strategy or “Grand Strategy”).

A. National Values. U.S. national values represent the legal, philosophical

and moral basis for continuation of the American system. U.S. values are the core of national

interests.

B. National Interest. Nations, like individuals, have interests—derived from

their innate values and perceived purposes—which motivate their actions. National interests

are a nation’s perceived needs and aspirations largely in relation to its external environment.

Hence, U.S. national interests determine our involvement in the rest of the world, provide the

focus of our actions to assure their protection, and thus, are the starting point for defining

national security objectives and then formulating national security policy and strategy.

1. As a rule of thumb, interests are stated as fundamental concerns of the

nation, and written as desirable conditions without verbs, action modifiers, or intended

actions. For example, U.S. national interests might be stated as:

a. Access to raw materials — (Not—protecting sources of raw

materials).

b. Unrestricted passage through international waters—

(Not—securing sealines of communications).

2. For simplicity and taking our cue from Nuechterlein and Blackwill,

1

 we

group national interests into four categories and three degrees of intensity.

a. Categories help us to organize. Keep in mind the breakdown is

normally artificial. Thus, while “Unrestricted access to Persian Gulf Oil” as a U.S. national

interest has a primary category of “Economic Well-Being” for the U.S. and its allies, it also ties

into the other three categories of national interest used by the USAWC. The four categories

are:

(1) Defense of the Homeland

(2) Economic Well-being

(3) Favorable World Order

(4) Promotion of Values

b. Intensity of interests helps us to determine priority of interests,

recognizing that without prioritization, there is the potential for unlimited derivative

objectives and the consequent mismatch of those objectives (ends) with resources (means),

which are always finite.

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(1) The current National Security Strategy document lists three

degrees of intensity: VITAL, IMPORTANT, HUMANITARIAN.

(2) The USAWC modifies and expands Blackwill’s core national

objectives to create core national interests which correspond generally to the four categories

listed in paragraph III.B.2.a. above:

(a) Defense of the Homeland. Physical Security refers to the

protection against attack on the territory and people of a nation-state in order to ensure

survival with fundamental values and political systems intact.

(b) Economic Prosperity.

(c) Promotion of Values.

(d) Favorable World Order. Note that Blackwill does not use this

category because “its universalism makes it exceedingly difficult to distinguish between more

and less important U.S. national security interests.” This, of course, is a problem that

policymakers in the post-Cold War era face on a daily basis.

(3) The three USAWC degrees of intensity are determined by answering

the question: What happens if the interest is not realized?

(a) Vital — if unfulfilled, will have immediate consequence for

core national interests.

(b) Important — if unfulfilled, will result in damage that will

eventually affect core national interests.

(c) Peripheral — if unfulfilled, will result in damage that is

unlikely to affect core national interests.

C. Strategic Appraisal.

1. The strategic appraisal begins with the sorting out of interests by

category and intensity using the general criteria above.

2. The next step is examining the domestic and international

environments to ascertain the challenges (forces, trends, opportunities and threats) that

affect national interests.

a. In particular, in assessing the relationship of an external threat

to a national security interest, the USAWC uses the following Blackwill criteria to relate the

effects on that interest with what the USAWC terms the core national interests (See above):

(1) Immediacy in terms of time.
(2) Geographic proximity.

(3) Magnitude.

(4) “Infectious” dimensions.

(5) Connectivity — How many links in a chain of events from threat

(situation/event) to core national interest.

b. It is important that this step take place after the sorting out of

interests by category and intensity. The degree of intensity of an interest, in particular,

should be determined before a detailed analysis of threats to those interests. It is important

that interests not become a function of a particular threat. If a government begins with a

threat assessment before a conceptualization of interest intensity, it may react to a threat

with major commitments and resources devoid of any rational linkage to that intensity.

Rational cost-benefit analysis should not be allowed to affect the intensity of interest.

Although U.S. administrations sensibly make just such cost-benefit calculations, Blackwill

points out that:

these should be an a lyt i cally in de pend ent from judge ments about how im por tant to the United

States a par tic u lar na tional se cu rity in ter est is. We may choose to de fend a pe riph eral U.S. inter est be cause it is not costly to do so; the in ter est nev er the less is still pe riph eral. Or we may

choose not to de fend vig or ously an im por tant-hopefully not vi tal-U.S. na tional se cu rity in ter est

be cause we de cide it is too ex pen sive in a va ri ety of ways to do so; the in ter est nev er the less is still

im por tant, and we may well pay dearly for our un readi ness to en gage.

3. The appraisal must be more than a listing of challenges. To be useful,

an appraisal must analyze and explain which and in what ways U.S. interests are affected.

The assessment should seek to identify opportunities and threats to U.S. interests. As a

consequence, the strategic appraisal will not only be influenced by current national policy,

but will help identify recommendations to change existing policies.

4. Following is an outline for developing a strategic appraisal.

Step 1: Determine U.S. Interests

— By category: defense of the homeland; economic well-being; favorable

world order; promotion of values.

— By intensity: vital; important; peripheral.

Step 2: Identify and Assess Challenges to U.S. Interests

— Defense Trends (Threats & Opportunities)

— Economic Trends (Threats & Opportunities)

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— World Order Trends (Threats & Opportunities)

— Promotion of Values Trends (Threats & Opportunities)

Step 3: Comparison to U.S. National Strategy. Discuss where your

assessment agrees or differs from the current U.S. national security strategy, and the reasons

you disagree.

Step 4: Policy Recommendations. Based on this assessment, present

policy recommendations for national diplomatic, economic, and military policies that must be

changed currently and in the future to protect against threats and to take advantage of

existing opportunities.

D. National Policy. To secure our national interests, the national political

leadership establishes policies to guide the formulation of a national strategy. National policy

is a broad course of action or statements of guidance adopted by the government at the

national level in pursuit of national objectives.

E. National Strategy. (synonymous with national security strategy). The art

and science of developing and using all the elements of national power during peace and war

to secure national interests.

1. Various agencies of government contribute to the several components

of national strategy, with the President—assisted by the National Security Council (NSC)

and Staff—as the final integrator. Since the Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, the

President’s National Security Strategy document is the authoritative unclassified statement

of our national strategy.

2. You must be able to develop strategies employing all of the elements of

power. Remember, the formulation of national strategy, as it does at any level of strategy,

employs the strategic thought process based on the use of Ends, Ways, and Means:

a. National Objectives — ENDS.

b. National Strategic Concepts — WAYS.

c. National Resources — MEANS.

F. Military Strategy. Military strategy is meaningful only in the policy context

outlined above.

Military Strategy — The art and science of employing the armed forces of a

nation to secure the objectives of national policy by the application of force or the threat of

force.

Military Strategy = Objectives + Strategic Concepts + Resources
Generic Military Answers

Ends Objectives What?

Ways Concepts How? (+Where & When)

Means Resources With What?

The next crucial step then, is translating national policy objectives and

guidance into clear, concise, and achievable military objectives.

1. Military Objectives. What is to be achieved by the military element of

power? As a rule of thumb, military objectives should:

be appropriate, explicit, finite, achievable, and, if necessitated

by policy guidance, limited in scope. (Test this by asking yourself if, as a CINC, you would

know exactly what you would be expected to accomplish by national leadership).

directly secure one (or more) stated interest(s). An effective first

step in articulating a military objective is to attach an appropriate verb to each previously

identified interest. For example:

Interest: access to raw materials

Objective: secure access to raw materials

Interest: a region free of conflict

Objective: deter intraregional conflict

Interest: survival of Country X

Objective: defend Country X

If no realizable military objective can be articulated to satisfy a given

interest, a policy choice to use the military element of power should be questioned.

2. Military Strategic Concepts. Strategic concepts are broad courses of

action or ways military power might be employed to achieve the aforestated objective. They

answer the question of “How.” Here is where the originality, imagination, and creativity of the

strategist come into play. As Clausewitz observed, there are many ways to achieve a given

end; presumably many can be right, but real genius lies in finding the best. As a rule of thumb:

Each military objective must have one (or more) concept(s)

detailing how means (resources) are to relate to ends (objectives).

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Stated strategic concepts represent the preferred options of the

possible courses of action considered.

Strategic concepts also detail when, where, phasing,

sequencing, roles, priorities, etc., as appropriate.

Example:

Interest: Access to Middle-East oil

Objective: Secure sea lines of communication to the Middle-East

Strategic Concept: U.S. naval forces and embarked land forces

will maintain a periodic presence in the Eastern Mediterranean and Indian Ocean in

peacetime; be prepared to provide full-time presence in crisis; and be prepared to achieve

naval superiority in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean in wartime.

3. Military Resources. Finally, the strategy must have resources—i.e.,

military forces and means implied by the objectives and concepts identified. Military

resources are often stated as forces (divisions, wings, naval groups), but might include things

such as time, effort, organization, people, etc. As a rule of thumb:

—Military resources must be identified for each objective and

concept articulated.

—Supportability of forces should be addressed (in terms of

strategic lift, sustainability, host nation support, reinforcements, etc.).

—For Example:

One Carrier Battle Group (CBG) with an embarked Marine

Expeditionary Unit (MEU) will deploy to X ocean on a quarterly basis . . .

A permanent Joint Task Force (JTF) will be established to . . . . Two

CONUS-based Divisions, one Special Forces Group and two Tactical Fighter Wings,

supported by . . . will be prepared to . . .

Identification of resource implications, while completing the

strategy, should be the first step in testing its internal logic. You should now think backward

through the process to ensure the forces envisioned are adequate to implement the concepts,

that the concepts achieve stated objectives, that the military objectives correctly satisfy the

policy objectives and protect the national interests identified, and so forth.

G. Risk Assessment. As almost no strategy has resources sufficient for

complete assurance of success, a final and essential test is to assess the risk of less than full

attainment of objectives. Living with risk is part of our business in the modern world, and
being able to articulate its extent is the first step in reducing its impact. Where the risk is

determined to be unacceptable, the strategy must be revised. Basically there are three ways:

Reduce the objectives.

Change the concepts.

Increase the resources.

In other words, the strategist must reconcile the ends, ways and means to

minimize the risk inherent in a particular strategy.

IV. Conclusion. This thought process applies equally to national strategy, national

military strategy, and theater military strategy.

ENDNOTES - AP PEN DIX I

1. See Donald E. Neuchterlein, “National Interest as a Basis of Foreign Policy Formulation,” in

Neuchterlein, America Overcommitted: United States National Interest in the 1980’s (Lexington: University of

Kentucky Press, 1985) and Robert D. Blackwill, “A Taxonomy for Defining US National Security Interests in the

1990’s and Beyond” in Verner Veidenfeld and Josef Janning (ed.), Europe in Global Change (Bertelsmann,

1993).

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AP PEN DIX II

U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY AND STRATEGY:

A BIBLIOGRAPHY

COMPILED BY JANE E. GIBISH

Please Note: In its directive for Course 2 entitled “War, National Policy & Strategy,” the

Department of National Security and Strategy (DNSS) lists seven elements in the strategy

formulation guidelines. They are National Values, National Interests, Strategic Appraisal,

National Policy, National Strategy, Military Strategy, and Risk Assessment. These

guidelines formed the parameters for the development of the following bibliography.

The bibliography is divided into three main parts: Books and Documents, Periodical

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264
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SE LECTED IN TERNET SITES

BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE ORGANIZATION.

http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html/bmdolink.html

BROOKINGS INSTITUTION, Washington, DC. Analyzes public policy problems and

offers practical solutions.

http://www.brook.edu/

CENTER FOR NONPROLIFERATION STUDIES, Monterey Institute of International

Studies, Monterey, CA. This Center “is the world’s largest non-governmental

organization devoted to combating the spread of weapons of mass destruction.”

http://cns.miis.edu/

CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, Washington, DC. This

public policy research institution provides analyses in such areas as international

relations, U.S. foreign policy and national security issues, and U.S. domestic and

economic policy.

http://www.csis.org/ 

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, New York, NY. Focuses on international affairs

and U.S. foreign policy.

http://www.foreignrelations.org/

CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE ASSURANCE OFFICE. “The Critical Infrastructure

Assurance Office, announced by President Clinton in May 1998, will facilitate the

creation of a national plan to protect the services that we depend on daily:

telecommunications, banking and finance, electric power, transportation, gas and

oil, emergency services and government services.”

http://www.ciao.gov/ 

DEFENSELINK. Official web site for the Department of Defense and a good starting

point for finding U.S. military information online.

http://www.defenselink.mil/

FOREIGN MILITARY STUDIES OFFICE, Fort Leavenworth, KS. This Office “assesses

regional military and security issues through open-source media and direct

engagement with foreign military and security specialists to advise Army

leadership on issues of policy and planning critical to the U.S. Army and the wider

military community.”

http://call.army.mil/call/fmso/fmso.htm

280
HENRY L. STIMSON CENTER, Washington, DC. This Center “is an independent,

nonprofit, public policy institute committed to finding and promoting innovative

solutions to the security challenges confronting the United States and other nations

 in the twenty-first century.”

http://www.stimson.org/

HERITAGE FOUNDATION, Washington, DC. The mission of this think tank “is to

formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free

enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values,

and a strong national defense.”

http://www.heritage.org/

HOOVER INSTITUTION ON WAR, REVOLUTION AND PEACE, Stanford University,

CA. Besides being a world-renowned library and archives, the Hoover Institution is

a center of scholarship and public policy research.

http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/

INSTITUTE FOR FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Cambridge, MA, and Washington,

DC. This Institute “is an independent, nonpartisan research organization that

conducts research, publishes studies, convenes seminars and conferences,

promotes education, and trains policy analysts in the fields of foreign policy and

national security affairs.” Offers an excellent array of links to other sites.

http://www.ifpa.org/

INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES, United States Air Force Academy,

CO. The mission of this Institute is “to promote national security research for the

Department of Defense within the military academic community and to support the

 Air Force national security education program.”

http://www.usafa.af.mil/inss/

INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC STUDIES, National Defense University, Ft.

McNair, Washington, DC. “The Institute’s research agenda focuses on analysis of

key issues of strategy and policy that require in-depth research to support senior

decisionmakers in OSD, the Joint Staff, and the CINCs.”

http://www.ndu.edu/inss/insshp.html

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND SECURITY NETWORK (ISN). Coordinated and

developed by the Center for Security and Conflict Research in Zurich, Switzerland,

“ISN is a one-stop information service in the fields of international relations and

security.” Includes a useful annotated links library.

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/

NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL. This web site includes speeches and documents such

as the 1999 National Security Strategy and the International Crime Control

Strategy.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/NSC/html/nschome.html

281
NATIONAL SECURITY STUDY GROUP (NSSG), NOW KNOWN AS THE

HART-RUDMAN COMMISSION. Provides public access on the process of

developing a national security strategy for the 21st century.

http://www.nssg.gov/

RAND, Santa Monica, CA. Provides analyses of many areas, including international

relations, national defense, and domestic and foreign affairs.

http://www.rand.org/ 

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE, United States Army War College, Carlisle, PA.

This Institute is the “strategic level study agent for the Deputy Chief of Staff for

Operations and Plans, Department of the Army.” In addition to analyses and

studies, the web site provides a host of excellent links to related military and

strategy sites.

http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usassi/welcome.htm

TERRORISM RESEARCH CENTER. This Center “is dedicated to informing the public of

the phenomena of terrorism and information warfare. The web site features essays

and thought pieces on current issues, as well as links to other terrorism documents,

research and resources.”

http://www.terrorism.com/ 

U.S. INSTITUTE OF PEACE, Washington, DC. This Institute “is an independent,

nonpartisan federal institution created and funded by Congress to strengthen the

nation’s capacity to promote the peaceful resolution of international conflict.”

http://www.usip.org/ 

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT. The Department of State “advises the President in the

formulation and execution of foreign policy. . . .[Its] primary objective in the conduct

of foreign relations is to promote the long-range security and well-being of the

United States.”

http://www.state.gov/

THE WHITE HOUSE.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/

282
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Robert R. Ivany

Commandant

*****

Editors

Colonel Joseph R. Cerami

Colonel James F. Holcomb, Jr.

Department of National Security and Strategy

*****

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

Dr. Earl H. Tilford, Jr.

Director of Publications and Production

Ms. Marianne P. Cowling

Publications Assistant

Ms. Rita A. Rummel

*****

Composition

Mrs. Christine A. Williams

Cover Artist

Mr. James Kistler