New text on strategic studies

Strategic Studies: A Reader

The above text is just out from Routledge. It’s edited by my colleague Dr Joe Maiolo and Dr Thomas Mahnken (currently US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning). The two also co-edit The Journal of Strategic Studies. I strongly recommend the Reader for students of strategic studies. It’s a helpful addition to a small but well-developed literature. It’s a very handy accompaniment to the Baylis et al Strategy in the Contemporary World text from Oxford University Press to which Mahnken and fellow blogger Theo Farrell are contributors.

I like the layout of the Reader very much. There are 6 thematic sections consisting of between two and five essays with an introduction and suggestions for further reading provided by the editors. The essays are very well selected ranging from Bernard Brodie’s ‘Strategy as Science’ written in 1949 to Hew Strachan’s ‘the Lost Meaning of Strategy’ written in 2005. There are no duds here. No student of strategy should be unfamiliar with any of these papers.

Table of Contents

Part 1: The Uses of Strategic Theory Introduction. Strategy as a Science Bernard Brodie. Strategic Studies and the Problem of Power Lawrence Freedman. What is a Military Lesson? William C. Fuller

Part 2: Interpretation of the Classics Introduction. The Art of War Sun Tzu. Strategy: The Indirect Approach Basil Liddell Hart. Arms and Influence Thomas C. Schelling

Part 3: Instruments of War: Land, Sea, and Air Power Introduction. J.F.C. Fuller’s Theory of Mechanized Warfare Brian Holden Reid. Some Principles of Maritime Strategy Julian Corbett. Air Power and the Origins of Deterrence Theory Before 1939 Richard J. Overy. Kosovo and the Great Air Power Debate Daniel L. Byman and Matthew C. Waxman

Part 4: Nuclear Strategy Introduction. The Absolute Weapon Bernard Brodie. The Delicate Balance of Terror Albert Wohlstetter

Part 5: Irregular Warfare and Small Wars Introduction. Science of Guerrilla Warfare T.E. Lawrence. Problems of Strategy in China’s Civil War Mao Tse Tung. Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice David Galula. Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars: The Politics of Asymmetric Conflict Andrew Mack. Countering Global Insurgency David J. Kilcullen. Strategic Terrorism: The Framework and its Fallacies Michael Smith and Peter Neumann

Part 6: Future Warfare, Future Strategy Introduction. Cavalry to Computer: The Patterns of Military Revolutions Andrew F. Krepinevich. From Kadesh to Kandahar: Military Theory and the Future of War Michael Evans. Why Strategy is Difficult Colin S. Gray. The War on Terror in Historical Perspective Adam Roberts. The Lost Meaning of Strategy Hew Strachan

My point of criticism is, predictably, the one which always appears in even the most positive academic reviews: it’s what they left out. Of course choices have to be made and not everything can go in (as Mahnken and Maiolo point out). The infinite pleasure academics get from assembling and reassembling bits of the literature in order to stimulate debate is not at all dissimilar to the behaviour seen here:

My point is that with the honourable exceptions of Sun Tzu (dead for 25 centuries) and Mao Tse Tung this is a very Western male line up. But what concerns me most as a strategist now is understanding how the other side conceives of strategy. In the introduction they write:

It is worth emphasizing that the primacy of politics applies not only to states, but also to other strategic actors. As Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s chief theoretician, wrote in his book Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner:

‘If the successful operations against Islam’s enemies and the severe damage inflicted on them do not serve the ultimate goal of establishing the Muslim nation in the heart of the Islamic world, they will be nothing more than disturbing acts, regardless of their magnitude, that could be absorbed and endured, even if after some time and with some losses.’

Clausewitz would doubtless approve of Zawahiri’s understanding of strategy, if not his goals.

I would have liked to have seen more development of this line of reasoning. Why not a Zawahiri chapter, for instance? For that matter in the part on Future Warfare, Future Strategy why not Unrestricted Warfare (Chinese perspective on future war) or Makhmut Gareev’s If War Comes Tomorrow? (Russian perspective on future war)?

This is a small criticism, however, of a really valuable new text which I will be assigning in my strategy course.