The lost meaning of strategy

Survival

Volumn 47, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 33-54

  Strachan, Hew ^a  

^a ALL SOULS COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 23844549863     PISSN: 00396338     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00396330500248102     Document Type: Article

References (70)

1. See reports in The Times and the Daily Telegraph, 20 November 2003. What follows was delivered as my inaugural lecture as Professor of the History of War in Oxford on 4 December 2003.
2. CM 6052, December 2003.
3. CM 6041, December 2003.
4. CM 5566, July 2002.
5. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), p. 177, see also 128, 227.
6. Xenophon and Polybius both used (strātegemā), or stratagem, to cover the art of the general. Xenophon uses (strategiā), or strategy, to mean plan in Anabasis, book II chapter ii, 13; but contrast I, vii, 2, where a Persian council of war discussed 'how he [Cyrus] should fight the battle', and II ii, 6, which speaks of the 'wisdom which a commander should have'. Onasander, (or The General) discussed 'the principles of generalship' and 'the art of the general and the wisdom that inheres in the precepts' (Proemium, 3), but used the word 'strategy' in chapter XXXII, 5. I am grateful to Martin West and Brian Campbell for discussing these points with me.
7. Azar Gat, The Origins of Military Thought from the Enlightenment to Clausewitz (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 39.
8. Quoted by J.-P. Charnay, in André Corvisier (ed.), A Dictionary of Military History and the Art of War, English edition ed. John Childs (Oxford: Blackwell Reference, 1994), p. 769;
9. see also Gat, Origins of Military Thought, p. 42.
10. Quoted by Charnay in Corvisier, Dictionary of Military History, p. 769.
11. Antoine-Henri Jomini, Summary of the Art of War, trans. G.H. Mendell and W.P. Craighill (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1862), p. 137.
12. Ibid., p. 13.
13. Ibid., p. 69.
14. Gerhard Ritter, The Sword and the Scepter: The Problem of Militarism in Germany, 4 vols (London: Allen Lane, 1969-73), vol. I, pp. 187-260.
15. Friedrich von Bernhardi, On War of To-day, trans. Karl von Donat, 2 vols (London: Hugh Rees, 1912-13), vol. 2, pp. 187, 194.
16. Jean Colin, The Transformations of War, trans. L.H.R. Pope-Hennessy (London: Hugh Rees, 1912), p. 343.
17. Commandant [Henri] Mordacq, Politique et stratégie dans une démocratie (Paris: Plon, 1912), pp. 214, 237.
18. Julian Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, ed. Eric Grove (Annapolis, MD: Brassey's, 1988; 1st ed. London, 1911), p. 10.
19. Ibid., p. 17.
20. Ibid., p. 30.
21. 'The Green Pamphlet', printed as an appendix in ibid., p. 308.
22. Jon Tetsuro Sumida, Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Command: The Classic Works of Alfred Thayer Mahan Reconsidered (Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1997), p. 27.
23. Raoul Castex, Théories stratégiques, 5 vols (Paris: Société d'Editions Géographiques, Maritimes et Coloniales, 1927-33); the quotation is from the revised edition of vol. 1, published in 1937), p. 9.
24. Ibid., vol. 3, p. 115.
25. Cameron Hazlehurst, Politicians at War, July 1914 to May 1915: A Prologue to the Triumph of Lloyd George (London: Jonathan Cape, 1971), p. 176.
26. J.F.C. Fuller, The Reformation of War (London: Hutchinson, 1923), p. 218.
27. Ibid.;
28. see also Fuller, The Foundations of the Science of War (London: Hutchinson, [1926]), pp. 105-107.
29. Basil Liddell Hart, When Britain Goes to War (London: Faber, 1928), p. 83;
30. see also Liddell Hart, Thoughts on War (London: Faber & Faber, 1944), pp. 151-6.
31. J.R.M. Butler, Grand Strategy, 2 (London: Cabinet Office, 1957), p. xv.
32. Michael Howard, Grand Strategy, 4 (London: Cabinet Office, 1972), p. 1;
33. see also Michael Howard, 'Grand Strategy in the Twentieth Century', Defence Studies, vol. 1, 2001, pp. 1-10.
34. Liddell Hart, When Britain Goes to War, p. 83.
35. Edward Mead Earle (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1943), p. viii.
36. Clausewitz, On War, p. 606.
37. Herfried Münkler, Über den Krieg. Stationen der Kriegsgeschichte im Spiegel ihrer theoristchen Reflexionenen (Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2002), pp. 91-115;
38. Andreas Herberg-Rothe, Das Rätsel Clausewitz (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2001), pp. 31-4, 102-24.
39. Carl von Clausewitz, Historical and Political Writings, ed. and trans. Peter Paret and Daniel Moran (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 290.
40. Erich Ludendorff, The Nation in Arms, trans. A.S. Rappoport (London: Hutchinson, [1935]), pp 19.
41. Ibid., p. 22.
42. Ibid., p. 23.
43. Münkler, Über den Krieg, p. 145.
44. Eric de la Maisonneuve, Incitation à la réflexion stratégique (Paris: Ed. Economica, 1998), p. 6.
45. André Beaufre, An Introduction to Strategy (London: Faber, 1965), pp. 14, 23.
46. Interestingly Bernhardi explicitly used the phrase 'political strategy' in War of To-day, vol. 2, p. 454, but only once and without defining it.
47. Castex, Théories stratégiques, vol. 1, pp. 17-18.
48. Beaufre, Introduction to Strategy, pp. 11, 13.
49. Edward Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1987), p. 4.
50. Barry Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany between the World Wars (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), pp. 13, 220.
51. Aleksandr A. Svechin, Strategy, ed Kent Lee (Minneapolis, MN: East View, 1992), p. 69.
52. On the Russian element, see Richard Simpkin, Race to the Swift: Thoughts on Twenty-first Century Warfare (London: Brassey's, 1985), pp. 37-53,
53. and Shimon Naveh, In Pursuit of Military Excellence: The Evolution of Operational Theory (London: Frank Cass, 1997), pp. 164-208.
54. For a comparison, consider the German focus of the essays in Richard D. Hooker, Jr (ed.), Maneuver warfare (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1993).
55. Erich Ludendorff, Kriegführung und Politik (Berlin: E.S. Mittler, 1922), pp. 320-42;
56. see also Otto von Moser, Ernsthafte Plaudereien über den Weltkrieg (Stuttgart: Belser, 1925), pp. 6-14;
57. ein Generalstäbler, Kritik des Weltkrieges. Das Erbe Moltkes und Schlieffens im grossen Kriege (Leipzig: K.F. Koehler, 1920).
58. Daniel J. Hughes (ed.), Moltke on the Art of War: Selected Writings (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1993), p. 47.
59. Hermann Franke (ed.), Handbuch der neuzeitlichen Wehrwissenschaften, 3 vols in 4 (Berlin: Grenter, 1936-39), vol. 1, pp. 181-2; also p. 195.
60. Ibid., pp. 175, 549-53.
61. See, above all, Karl-Heinz Frieser, Blitzkrieg-Legende. Der Westfeldzug 1940 (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag 1995).
62. Martin van Creveld, On Future War (London: Brassey's, 1991; published in the US as The Transformation of War); John Keegan, A History of Warfare (London: Hutchinson, 1993);
63. Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars (London: Polity, 1999).
64. Stephen Launay, La guerre sans la guerre: essai sur une querelle occidentale (Paris: Descartes, 2003), p. 334.
65. Wesley Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo and the Future of Combat (Oxford: Perseus, 2001), p. 427.
66. Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), pp. 174-6, 192; see also pp. 42-44, 84, 99, 128-9, 227, 245-6;
67. Dana Priest, The Mission: waging war and keeping peace with America's military (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003), pp. 21-4, 34, 37.
68. James Fallows, 'Blind into Baghdad', Atlantic Monthly, January/ February 2004, pp.53-74;
69. Anthony H. Cordesman, The Iraq War: Strategy, Tactics and Military Lessons (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2003), pp. 153-71, 496-509. I am grateful for the comments on the last section of those who heard me speak at the Olin Institute of Strategic Studies, at Harvard, and at the Triangle Institute for Security Studies, North Carolina, in April 2005, and especially to Stephen Rosen, Peter Feaver, Richard Kohn and Jacqueline Newmyer. They forced me to sharpen my argument, even if they do not necessarily agree with it.
70. Priest, The Mission, pp. 11-19.