Military Strategy: Theory and Concepts

302 Pages·2016·2.78 MB·English

University of Nebraska - Lincoln
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Spring 6-11-2013
Military Strategy: Theory and Concepts
Randall G. Bowdish
University of Nebraska
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MILITARY STRATEGY: THEORY AND CONCEPTS

By

Randall G. Bowdish

A DISSERTATION

Presented to the Faculty of
The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska
In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements
For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Major: Political Science

Under the Supervision of Professor Ross A. Miller

Lincoln, Nebraska
June 2013
MILITARY STRATEGY: THEORY AND CONCEPTS

Randall G. Bowdish, Ph.D.

Univerity of Nebraska, 2013

Adviser: Ross A. Miller

Military strategy was long described as atheoretical—an art that could only be
fully comprehended by military genius. This contention is no longer held, as military
staffs, comprised of experts and specialists, are able to formulate strategy aided by mini-
theories of strategy and a process that takes advantage of collective wisdom rather than
singular genius. But the mini-theories of strategy remain underdeveloped and an
overarching theory of military strategy does not yet exist. In this dissertation I build a
grand theory of military strategy, consisting of a simple two-pole, physical and
psychologically oriented framework, mini-theories of military strategy, and additionally,
concepts of employment that describe conceptual actions that can be employed by
military means to achieve military objectives. Mini-theories of military strategy,
consisting of the five basic military strategies of extermination, exhaustion, annihilation,
intimidation and subversion, are woven together into a coherent military strategy
theoretical framework. Additionally, I expose the principles of war as a myth, instead
proffering concepts of employment as the actionable elements of strategy, which are used
in the conceptual direction of military means to achieve military objectives in support and
amplification of the five basic military strategies. The strategies offered are the result of a
comprehensive meta-data analysis, hermeneutical analysis, and comparative meta-
analysis of the works of past strategy theorists, rather than the case study methodology
employed in most military strategy scholarship. This dissertation provides a baseline
theory from which further military strategy hypotheses can be generated and tested in
order to advance our understanding of military strategy.
Copyright 2013
Randall G. Bowdish
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Dr. Ross A. Miller for his patience and sage counsel in the
preparation of this dissertation. He was the perfect advisor for this old sea-dog (retired
Navy Captain). Encouraging and demanding on the academic side, yet reverent and
respectful towards my military experience, he treated me as a peer and not just another
bothersome student. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Nam Kyu
Kim, Dr. Kevin Smith, and Dr. Peter Bleed, for their insightful comments and
recommendations. Most of all, I thank my wife, *Kate, daughter Brittany, and son,
Brandon, for their loving support.
v

Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................1
Purpose............................................................................................................................4
Limitations and Delimitations.........................................................................................6
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY.......................................7
Theory Building and the Philosophy of Science.............................................................8
Concepts........................................................................................................................13
Meta-study....................................................................................................................16
Grounded Theory..........................................................................................................20
Research Design............................................................................................................23
Methodology.................................................................................................................27
CHAPTER 3: THE MASTER STRATEGISTS...............................................................33
Sun Tzu and The Art of War.........................................................................................33
Ancient Chinese Military Classics and the Thirty-Six Stratagems...............................40
CHAPTER 4: THE EARLY ANNIHILATORS..............................................................48
Carl von Clausewitz, On War.......................................................................................48
Baron De Jomini...........................................................................................................62
CHAPTER 5: THE EXHAUSTERS................................................................................70
Frederick the Great.......................................................................................................70
Hans Delbrück..............................................................................................................76
CHAPTER 6: THE SUBVERTERS.................................................................................80
Marx, Engels, and Lenin...............................................................................................81
Mao Tse Tung and Protracted Popular War.................................................................88
Yuri Bezmenov and the KGB.......................................................................................99
Conclusion..................................................................................................................102
CHAPTER 7: THE MODERN ANNIHILATORS........................................................104
B.H. Liddell Hart........................................................................................................105
John Boyd...................................................................................................................111
CHAPTER 8: THE UNRESTRICTED..........................................................................116
André Beaufre.............................................................................................................116
PLA Colonel’s Liang and Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare and PLA General’s Peng
and Yao, The Science of Military Strategy.................................................................126
CHAPTER 9: THE PRINCIPLES AND CONCEPTS OF WAR..................................133
Principles and Concepts of War—a Napoleonic Heritage..........................................134
Strategy and the Principles..........................................................................................140
The Principles in Small Wars.....................................................................................141
The Spectrum of Conflict Expands.............................................................................151
vi
Annihilation-based Doctrine and Operational Concepts............................................160
War and Operations Other Than War.........................................................................165
Joint Doctrine Becomes Authoritative........................................................................167
Infatuation with Operational Concepts.......................................................................171
Counterinsurgency Doctrine.......................................................................................174
An Expanded List of Principles of Joint Operations..................................................177
CHAPTER 10: CONCEPTS OF EMPLOYMENT........................................................184
Principles and Operational Concepts..........................................................................184
Selected Concepts of Employment.............................................................................187
Concepts as Strategies.................................................................................................188
The Physical Concepts of Employment......................................................................191
Psychological Concepts of Employment....................................................................193
Organizational Concepts of Employment...................................................................196
Conclusion..................................................................................................................199
CHAPTER 11: THE FIVE BASIC MILITARY STRATEGIES..................................201
The Strategy of Extermination....................................................................................201
Strategy of Exhaustion................................................................................................205
The Strategy of Annihilation......................................................................................212
The Strategy of Intimidation.......................................................................................223
The Strategy of Subversion.........................................................................................229
Conclusion..................................................................................................................239
CHAPTER 12: A GRAND THEORY OF MILITARY STRATEGY..........................240
The Basic Military Strategy Continuum.....................................................................241
The Basic Military Strategies and the Concepts of Employment...............................245
Horizontal Combinations of the Five Basic Military Strategies.................................249
Vertical Linkages and Levels of the Basic Military Strategy Continuum..................250
Types of Warfare........................................................................................................252
Conclusion..................................................................................................................255
REFERENCES...............................................................................................................257
APPENDIX: WHAT IS MILITARY STRATEGY?......................................................268
Etymology of Strategy................................................................................................269
The Traveling Problem of Strategy.............................................................................272
Key Terms...................................................................................................................274
GLOSSARY OF MAJOR CONCEPTS.........................................................................287
vii
LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Sartori’s guidelines for concept formation. 15
Table 2.2 Criteria of Conceptual Goodness. 17
Table 3.1 The Thirty-Six Stratagems. 46
Table 8.1 Beaufre’s patterns of strategy. 117
Table 8.2 Beaufre’s interpretation of the rules of strategy. 119
Table 8.3 Means and Methods of Warfare. 127
Table 9.1 U.S. Principles of War 1921-1949. 138
Table 10.2 International Principles of War circa 1981. 160
Table 11.1 Concepts of employment organized by physical, organizational, 188
and psychological actions.
Table 12.2 Types of warfare are stylized from single strategies and 251
combinations of strategies.
viii
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 9.1 Armed conflicts by type and year. 153
Figure 9.2 The Range of Army Operations. 168
Figure 10.1 The two types of annihilation strategies. 212
Figure 12.1 The Basic Military Strategy Continuum. 240
Figure 12.2 The relationship between concepts of employment and strategy. 245
PART I: PRELIMINARIES