Strategy and Politics

187 Pages·2016·2.37 MB·English

by  Colin S. Gray

Strategy and Politics
This bookexamines the subject of strategy and its relationship with politics.
Despitethefactthatstrategyisalwaystheproductofpoliticalprocess,therelationship
between the two concepts and their ancillary activities has scarcely been touched by
scholars. This book corrects that serious deficiency, and explains the high relevance of
political factors for matters of general defence. Each chapter aims to show how and
why strategy and politics interact and how this interaction has had significant con-
sequences historically. Neither strategy nor politics can make sense if considered alone.
Strategy requires direction that can only be provided by political process, while politics
cannot be implementedwithout strategy.
In summary, this volume will explain:
(cid:1) what strategy is (and is not);
(cid:1) why strategy is essential;
(cid:1) what strategy does and how it does it; and
(cid:1) how strategy is made and executed.
Writtenbyaleadingscholarandformerpractitioner,thisbookwillbeessentialreading
for all students of military strategy, strategic studies, security studies and war and
conflict studies.
Colin S. Gray is Professor Emeritus of Strategic Studies at the University of Reading,
UK. He has published twenty-eight books and innumerable journal articles. Recent
books include Strategy and Defence Planning (2014), Airpower for Strategic Effect
(2012), War, Peace and International Relations, 2nd edn (2011) and The Strategy
Bridge (2010).
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Strategy and Politics
Colin S. Gray
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Firstpublished2016
byRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
andbyRoutledge
711ThirdAvenue,NewYork,NY10017
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©2016ColinS.Gray
TherightofColinS.Graytobeidentifiedasauthorofthisworkhasbeenassertedby
himinaccordancewithsections77and78oftheCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct
1988.
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedorutilisedin
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Trademarknotice:Productorcorporatenamesmaybetrademarksorregistered
trademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationandexplanationwithoutintentto
infringe.
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Names:Gray,ColinS.,author.
Title:Strategyandpolitics/ColinS.Gray.
Description:NewYork,NY:Routledge,2016.|Includesbibliographical
referencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2015034706|ISBN9780415714761(hardback)|
ISBN9780415714778(pbk.)
Subjects:LCSH:Strategicculture.|Strategy--Politicalaspects.|National
security--Politicalaspects.
Classification:LCCU21.2.G67272016|DDC355.02--dc23
LCrecordavailableathttp://lccn.loc.gov/2015034706
ISBN:978-0-415-71476-1(hbk)
ISBN:978-0-415-71477-8(pbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-88241-3(ebk)
TypesetinTimesNewRoman
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
Contents
Preface vi
Introduction: the argument 1
1 Politics, power, and security 10
2 Peace andwar: politics at home and abroad 23
3 War andwarfare 36
4 Theory for practice 50
5 Making strategy 64
6 History and geography 79
7 Culture and circumstance 95
8 Civil–military relations 111
9 Politics and defence planning 126
10 Morality and its ethics in politics and strategy 141
11 Strategic future 156
Key terms 162
Bibliography 165
Index 171
Preface
Theideaofwritingabookkeyedtoaseriousprobeoftheseveralmutualdependencies
between strategy and politics is hardly a very original one. However, to my surprise
when I looked closely at the existing literature, I discovered that really very little
attention has been paid to this most critical of relationships. Everyone, seemingly,
agreeswith Carl von Clausewitz that war, indeed military behaviour morewidely, is by
strict definition political in nature. This perspective on strategic matters is not at all
controversial. Indeed, it is so far beyond sensible dispute that scholarswould appear to
have decided to pass over it in a consensual silence. In fact I came to realize fairly
rapidlythatmanyelementsintherelationshipbetweenstrategyandpoliticswerenotat
all well treated analytically or, in some cases, even understood properly. In this work I
haveattemptedtothrowsomeneededlightontheconnectionsbetweenthetwoclusters
of ideas. I can only speculate as to the reason for the acute shortage of books on these
subjects.
One reason may well be the complication that is anticipated and discerned in
the relationship. Unifocal scholarship tends to be content with careful treatment of
strategy, or of politics, but not with the need to relate each to the other. It is clear
enough to this author that most, if not necessarily all, strategic efforts are foredoomed
to disappoint their political parents if theyarenot founded and then sustained on deep
enough understanding of the societies they are intended to influence. In point of fact I
have been more than mildly surprised to discover how modest have been the official
efforts to decide, settle upon, and then sustain, the political architecture of state and
alliance policies. We should have been reminded by our very disappointing protracted
experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq that war and its warfare always must be about
politics.Ifthepoliticalrationaleforinternationalinterventionisconfusedandtherefore
confusingtomostlocalparticipantsintheconsequentaction,sensiblypurposiveresults
should not be anticipated – and so it has proved in both Afghanistan and Iraq. One
either works as apartner with the local cultural grain of a society, orone isnearcertain
tofail.Thisdictumoughttoberecognizedasatruism,butadecade-plusofsubstantial
misadventure in exotic places proved unduly challenging of American, British and
other allied efforts. It seems obvious enough to this author that a permissive political
context should be regarded as an essential enabler for any foreign intervention that
aspires to prove other than a ‘forlorn hope’.
This book may aid public understanding by/with its focus upon the persisting
importance of political factors for the quality of performance of the strategic and
military ones. I must admit that I was tempted to call this book Politics and Strategy,
rather than Strategy andPolitics,but I convinced myself that the theoryand attempted
Preface vii
practice of strategy could encompass political process well enough, provided it treated
the ends, in ends, ways, and means, with due respect. Should some readers choose to
regard politics as the superior concept of the two, I would not be unduly surprised or
disappointed.
Recognition of the high importance of the political is a feature of this whole book.
This is not a history book, rather is it a sustained effort to probe and examine the
influence of political considerations upon the course chosen for strategy. As a suppor-
tive companion to this work, readers should find my study of strategic history very
helpful(Gray,2012).Attimesitmayappearthatstrategyanditsmilitaryconsequences
can seem to occupy much of the space available here; by and large, I hope, that
appearance will be more than superficial. There have been and continue to be conflicts
wherein either strategy or politics are inappropriately hegemonic in their influence.
Notwithstanding the neatly briefable distinctions that differentiate political phenomena
from strategic ones, real-world experience commonly may more resemble chaos than it
doesgoodorder.InthisworkIseektoexplorethenatureofthephenomenaofinterest,
whether or not the picture thus painted is expediently well ordered for our disciplined
attention.
This work rests upon the evidential base that I have accumulated over the course of
nearly fifty years, living andworking in Britain, Canada, and the United States. I have
taken much by way of understanding from these three very different political and
strategic cultures. In particular, I am heavily indebted to friends, colleagues, and of
course my students. My list for scholarlygratitude is challenging to confine, but I must
mention the following scholars with my appreciation for the quality of their efforts to
let some needed extra light shine on the subject of this work: Carl von Clausewitz,
Michael Howard, Richard Neustadt, Ernest May, Harold Lasswell, Jeremy Black,
Patrick Porter,and Raymond Aron. Theseeight scholars, fromsixcountries,contributed
vitally to my conceptual armoury, and I am most grateful.
As much and most sincerely also, I must thank my professional computing helper,
Mrs Barbara Watts for her devotion to what proved to be a heavy challenge. My ever
tolerant family needs to be thanked beyond standard praise. I am, I hope sincerely,
suitablygrateful for their support and love.
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Introduction
The argument
Reader’sguide:The mutualdependenceofstrategyandpolitics.
Politics provides strategy with its purpose, while strategy provides politicswith the way
in which that purpose may be realized in practice. The relationship between these two
vital concepts thus is one of complete mutual dependence. That essential truth duly
said, this book explains why relations are never perfect, and may even appear to be
absent altogether, in the real world of statecraft and military power. Indeed, some dis-
harmony between politics and strategy is entirely commonplace. Although this author
is a strategist by scholarly, and sometime also administrative, profession, he is not
writing here in any sense as an advocate of strategic thought and behaviour. The main
purpose of this work, its principal argument certainly, is as the substantive title to the
Introduction asserts: to explain fully just why and how politics has to be the senior
partner in its relationship with strategy. The seniority, indeed effectively the sovereign
authority, of politics is rarely challenged in theory, though assuredly it has been much
neglected historically in practice. These chapters explain that the relationship between
politics and strategy frequently is misunderstood, often with dire consequences for
those who were confused.
Before moving at full throttle into the argument necessary here, it is important to
notesignificantgeneralsourcesofharassmentthattypically lowerthequalityofpolitical
and strategic performances. Specifically, both individually and collectively it is all too
human to make mistakes. The key to success is not an all but magical ability to avoid
error,butratheranabilitytoadapttounexpectedchallenges,includingthoseproducedby
one’s own previous misjudgements. The relevant standard to reach politically and
strategically is best characterized as the ‘good enough’ rule. For recent historical
examples, whether or not America and Britain were wise in choosing to intervene on
the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s, did they manage to perform well
enough to provide a sensibly defensible record of achievement in their protracted
efforts? Mistakes in politics – and the resulting policy – are near certain to ensure that
context for strategic performancewill turn out to be differentfrom the one anticipated.
Forverygrandhistoricalexamplesoftherepeatedrecurrenceofunanticipatedstrategic
contexts,itisworthconsideringtheheroicscaleoffaultyanticipationoffuturepolitical
and strategic context demonstrated by all the greater powers in the twentieth century,
repeatedly. None of the three general wars of the period (the First, then the Second,
and in addition the Cold War) was expected authoritatively in the leading capitals of
global politics.