Modern Military Strategy: An Introduction

157 Pages·2012·0.88 MB·English

by  Elinor C. Sloan

Modern Military Strategy
This textbook provides a coherent introduction to post-Cold War and post-9/11 military
theory for upper-level students seeking an initial understanding of strategic studies.
In the contemporary period there has been significant and growing interest among
students about international security issues. While many publications focus on one
particular aspect of military strategy, there is no single volume that provides a
comprehensive yet accessible overviewof strategic thought in this new era.
ModernMilitaryStrategyfillsthisgapintheliterature,withchaptersontheconduct
of war in each of the naval, land, air, space and cyber dimensions, and on nuclear
strategy, and irregular war and counterinsurgency. The text concludes by identifying
cross-cutting trends, statements and principles which may form the basis of a modern,
general theoryof war.
This book will be essential reading for students of strategic studies, war studies and
military history, and is highly recommended for students of security studies and interna-
tional relations in general.
ElinorC.SloanisAssociateProfessorofInternationalRelationsatCarletonUniversity,
Ottawa and a former defence analyst with Canada’s Department of National Defence.
HerpreviousbooksincludeMilitaryTransformationandModernWarfare(2008),Security
and Defence in the Terrorist Era (2005), and The Revolution in Military Affairs (2002).
Modern Military Strategy
An introduction
Elinor C. Sloan
Firstpublished2012
byRoutledge
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Modernmilitarystrategy:anintroduction/ElinorC.Sloan.
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Strategy.2.Militaryartandscience.I.Title.
U162.S572012
355.4–dc23
2011038384
ISBN:978-0-415-77770-4(hbk)
ISBN:978-0-415-77771-1(pbk)
ISBN:978-0-203-12446-8(ebk)
TypesetinTimes
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
Contents
List of boxes vi
Introduction 1
1 Seapower 5
2 Landpower 19
3 Airpower 33
4 Joint theory and military transformation 49
5 Irregular war: insurgency, counterinsurgency and New War 65
6 Cyberwar 85
7 Nuclear power and deterrence 100
8 Spacepower 117
Conclusion 133
Glossary 136
Bibliography 137
Name index 145
Subject index 147
Boxes
1.1 Naval ground attackoperations in Bosnia 10
1.2 Anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia 15
2.1 The 2003 Iraq War 29
3.1 The NATO operation in Libya 44
4.1 Military revolutions 51
5.1 The US Army–Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual 79
6.1 Cyber attack against Estonia 88
6.2 The Stuxnet virus 90
7.1 “The nukeswe need” 108
8.1 Space force enhancement 122
Introduction
“What about today?” asked agraduate student in a seminaron strategic thought some
years ago, after discussing the likes of Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, Mahan and Douhet.
“Aren’tthereanycontemporarystrategicthinkers?”Thequestionformedthegenesisof
this book. In 1943 Edward Meade Earle published Makers of Modern Strategy from
Machiavelli toHitler,an editedvolume coveringtherangeofstrategic thought overthe
previous four centuries that ultimately became a modern classic. Four decades later
Peter Paret’s edited book Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear
Age, published in 1986, significantly revised and updated the earlier version and took
us through much of the Cold War era. But “Where are the great military minds ofour
[present] day?” lamented one commentary on military strategy in the latter half of the
1990s, “Are there any?”1 Andwhy does it matter?
In the contemporary erathe conduct of war remains one of the most important acts
of the state. While the overall trend in numbers of conflicts is downward, there are still
many wars between states, between states and non-state actors, and among non-state
actors. A number of issues that impact on the security of citizens today—ultimately a
country’s primary responsibility—are non-military in character or require broader,
comprehensive, whole of government, civilian activities. But for those that are military
in nature, or require a military response, strategic thought remains imperative. “Our
ability simply to cope with—much less shape—a future of pronounced complexity,
uncertainty, and turbulence,” notes one scholar, “will depend in large measure on the
prevalence of strategic thinkers in our midst.”2 In our present age of almost continual
conflict, and on occasion outright war, our ability to think strategically may be more
important than ever.
Our search for strategic thinkers requires aprior understanding of what we mean by
strategy and strategic thought. The word “strategy” is derived from the Greek strategos,
normallytranslatedas“general”.Therefore,notwithstandingtheincreasingapplication
of theword strategy to a range of human activities overthe last several decades—from
education to healthcare to business and industry—the term itself remains fundamentally
military in character. Most discussions of strategy begin with Clausewitz’s classic text
On War, in which he defined strategy as “the use of an engagement for the purpose of
thewar,”3with“engagements”ofteninterpretedasmeaningnotonlyactualbattlesand
campaigns but also tacit and explicit threats of the use of force.
Clausewitz’s definition lends itself to a wider interpretation of strategy that encom-
passes policy instruments other than the military. Once we do that, what we are really
talking about is not strategy per se but grand strategy. The role of grand strategy,
argued Sir Basil Liddell Hart, “is to coordinate and direct all of the resources of a
2 Introduction
nation, orband of nations, toward the attainment of the political objective of the war.”4
Othersgostillbroader,arguingthatgrandstrategyisastate’stheoryabouthowitcanbest
“cause” security for itself, and that there may be military, political and/or economic
strategies within an overarching grand strategy.5 There is a great deal of merit to this
broadest perspective, in that it can help to explain the overall foreign and security
policy actions of a state. It is avaluable big-picture perspective. But it is not the focus
of this book. Rather, this book takes as its starting-point the original Clausewitzian
definition of strategy, noted above, and paraphrased in the 1986 Makers volume as
“the useofarmed forcetoachieve the militaryobjectivesand, by extension, the political
purpose of the war.”6
Strategicthoughtorstrategicthinking,arguesBernardBrodie,canberoughlyequated
to strategic theory.7 Theory may be defined as a set of statements or principles devised
to explain agroup offacts or phenomena. But theory in the area of strategy cannot be
static,asthisdefinitionwouldsuggest;itmustalwaysbeforwardlooking.“Theessence
of strategy,” argues Colin Gray, “lies in the realm of the consequences of actions for
future outcomes.”8 Strategic theory must be transferable to the world of action. Yet at
the same time its components cannot be overly linked to the practical world, lest they
be rendered irrelevant in a different time and place. An important characteristic of a
theoryofwaristhatitsideasmustalsobeabletotranscend“time,environment,political
andsocialconditions, andtechnology.”9The challengeis tofindthe appropriatebalance
between practicality and enduring applicability.
Afurtherfactortoconsideriswhetherthestrategicthoughtaccountsforalldimensions
of warfare—sea, land, air, space, and now cyber—or whether it focuses on just one
(or two) element(s). It is the distinction between a general theory of war and partial
theories like the works of Alfred Thayer Mahan on seapower and Guilio Douhet on
airpower. These provide valuable insight into the nature of war, so long as no one
“mistakes their partial theories for whole theories of war and strategy.”10 At first
glance Clausewitzalso presentsapartial theoryofwar,butClausewitzianconcepts like
friction, the political nature of war, and the centre of gravity, originally formulated for
land warfare, have been applied to all dimensions of warfare, thereby demonstrating
that a partial theory can contain the seeds of a general theory.
As for who may be considered a strategic thinker, at the most rudimentary level we
might askwhether wearelooking for theideasof a militarypersonor a civilian.Some
argue for the former. “It is ironic and disappointing that virtually all the reputed
‘experts’ on strategic and military affairs familiar to the public are civilian academi-
cians, consultants, and journalists … To be effective in the strategic realm, the military
must produce its own strategic thinkers.”11 Others argue that “the civilian writers with
something important to say have usually been well received by the professionals,” and
have often been closer to the mark than their military contemporaries in making pre-
dictions about the future.12 Thus it would seem that a maker of modern strategy can
come from the ranks of the militaryorcivilian society. The real problem is the relatively
small number of strategists of any stripe. “The field of potential strategic theorists is
exceeding small because soldiers tend not to be scholars, civilians tend not to be com-
fortable theorizing about strategy, and strategy as avocation falls between the political
and military realms.”13
Thus strategic thought matters. It matters because it helps us to cope with the
uncertain and turbulent world around us, and because it helps us to understand the
contemporary role of military force in a nation’s security policy. “Although its effects
Introduction 3
on international politics are profound,” notes one scholar, “the conduct of war is often
neglected [by members of the academic community] who instead focus chiefly on its
causes.Thisoverlooksarich—ifunder-theorized—literaturebyhistorians,soldiers,and
strategists.”14 To this end, this book centers on strategic thought in the post-Cold War
and post-9/11 eras. In our search for modern strategic thinkers we are looking for
military strategists and practitioners, civilian strategists and scholars, and military and
civilianhistorianswhohavewritten inthedecadessince theendoftheColdWarabout
the conduct of war in the contemporary period, andwho have put forth statements or
principles that are at a sufficient level of generality, so as to present, at a minimum, a
partial theory of war.
For simplicity’s sake the book is organized functionally. Chapter 1, Seapower,
chronicles the move from the blue-water, open-ocean strategic thinking of the Cold
Wartothepost-ColdWaremphasisonoperationsinlittoralregions“fromthesea”onto
land, to today’s integration of the two approaches to include operations in the littorals
and throughout the sea lines of communications. Chapter 2, Landpower, focuses on
state-to-statecombatinthelanddimension,drawingoutperspectivesontheconductof
warthatfirstemergedinthelatterColdWarperiodwithAirLandbattle,werelaterrefined
in military vision statements, and saw application in the 2003 Iraq War. Chapter 3
examinesstrategicthinkingonthevalueanduseofairpower,debatesthatweresparked
in the contemporary era by the 1991 Gulf War and continued through to the 2011
operation in Libya. Chapter 4, on joint theory, examines strategic thought on themes
that cannot be neatly categorized into the sea, land or air dimensions of warfare, but
includeallthreeservicesaswellasforceenhancementfromthespacedomain.Packagesof
discrete but to some degree overlapping ideas are captured by the terms Revolution in
Military Affairs, system of systems, network-centric warfare, military transformation,
effects-based operations, rapid decisive operations, and “shock and awe.”
The most prevalent form of conflict today, irregular war involving a state and at
leastonenon-stateentity,isthesubjectofChapter5,whichconsidersstrategicthinking
on insurgency and counterinsurgency and includes concepts like fourth-generation
warfare,non-trinitarianwar,andNewWar.Chapter6centresoncyberwar,atopicthat
sparked some discussion in the mid-1990s but, with the growing number of cyber-
attacks against states in the 2000s, has been an area ofincreasing attention. Chapter 7,
on nuclear power and deterrence, highlights strategic thinking on the current role of
nuclear weapons in deterrence and how best to make threats credible in light of new
actors, whileChapter8turnstostrategicthoughtonspacepower,including“traditional”
spacepower themes like space force enhancement, as well as space control and some
fledgelingideas(atleastintheunclassifieddomain)aboutwarin,through,andfromspace.
In each chapter I attempt to identify the significant contemporary strategic thinkers
inaparticulararea,recognizingofcoursethatthemoststrategicofstrategicthinkers—
those who move beyond partial theories to approach a general theory of war—cannot
fit neatly into one chapter or another. Some names appear in several places. A further
constraining factor is that some notable thinkers—Marine Corps General (retired)
Charles Krulak comes to mind—published few works and thus it was not possible
to cover their strategic thought in as great detail as their actual contribution wouldwar-
rant. Many chapters begin with a brief opening discussion of the ideas of classical,
mainly pre-World War Two, strategists within the functional theme in order to provide
historical context. Specific to a particular geopolitical circumstance, and available in
innumerable places, the vast Cold War literature on most topics is only briefly raised.
4 Introduction
The focus and added value of this volume is the post-Cold War period. One exception
is Irregular War, whichincludes anexaminationof ColdWarliterature, since the endof
the Cold War arguably had little impact on the conduct of war at that level. Finally,
somefunctionalareasarealmostpurelypost-ColdWarinnatureandthushavelittleor
no prior bodyof literature.
Each chapter concludes by drawing together principles of a theory of war within a
particular functional areaas revealedbythe scholarship of the strategic thinkers in our
midst. A holistic consideration of these partial theories may make it possible to draw
out themes that collectively approach ageneral theoryof war in the contemporary era.
This is a tall order—and the one to which the book aspires.
Elinor Sloan
Ottawa
Notes
1 GregoryD.Foster,“Research,Writing,andtheMindoftheStrategist,”JointForcesQuarterly
(Spring 1996),115.
2 Ibid., 111.
3 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton,
NJ:Princeton UniversityPress,1976),177.
4 B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy: The Indirect Approach (London: Faber and Faber Limited,
1954), 335–36.
5 Barry R. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1984), 13.
6 Peter Paret, “Introduction,” in Peter Paret et al., eds., Makers of Modern Strategy from
Machiavelli totheNuclearAge(Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,1986), 3.
7 BernardBrodie,WarandPolitics (NewYork:MacmillanPublishing Co.,Inc.,1973), 452.
8 Colin S.Gray,ModernStrategy(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,1999),18.
9 Ibid., 125.
10 Ibid., 126.
11 Foster,“Research,Writing, andtheMindoftheStrategist,” 115.
12 Brodie,WarandPolitics,437and473.
13 Gray,ModernStrategy,114.
14 Stephen Biddle,“StrategyinWar,”PoliticalScience &Politics 40,no.3 (July2007), 461.
Further reading
Earle, Edward Mead, ed. Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to
Hitler (Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,1943).
Gray,Colin S.Modern Strategy(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,1999).
Handel, MichaelI.MastersofWar:Classical Strategic Thought(London: FrankCass,2001).
Paret,Peter,ed.MakersofModernStrategyfromMachiavellitotheNuclearAge(Princeton,NJ:
Princeton UniversityPress,1986).