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ABSTRACT
Critical security advocates commonly portray strategic studies as crippled by its narrow focus on Cold War-era military issues, as state-centric and as Western-centric. I argue that this conception of the scope of strategy is flawed and I offer a comprehensive rebuttal by working out the logic of the theories advanced by Carl von Clausewitz and Thomas Schelling. The proponents of critical security overlook the striking expansion of strategy during the Cold War, its longstanding inclusion of competing political actors not just states, as well as its capacity to put Western and non-Western actors in a common analytic frame. By breaking out of the conceptual jails in which strategy has been incarcerated, I seek to reconnect International Relations to strategic thought from which it has become increasingly estranged.
Acknowledgements
For helpful comments on earlier versions, I thank Thierry Balzacq, Christian Bueger, Sergio Catignani, Mathias Delori, Eric Gjidala, Thomas Lindemann, Bernard Loo, Ong Weichong, Frédéric Ramel, Michael Reese, Evan Resnick, Bhubhindar Singh, Ina Wiesner, anonymous reviewers, and participants at seminars at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS luncheon seminar) and at the University of Chicago (Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security); and participants at conferences of the Changing Character of War Program in honour of Professor Sir Hew Strachan, All Souls College, University of Oxford, the Italian Standing Group on International Relations, the International Studies Association, the International Studies Association Global South Caucus and the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society. Jesse Caemmerer provided excellent research assistance and insightful remarks. Any remaining errors are my own. I gratefully acknowledge the material and intellectual support of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 In this article, I follow the common usage and define ‘critical security studies’ (lower case) as the constellation of perspectives that seek to broaden and deepen security. I provide a fuller discussion below. Barry Buzan, Lene Hansen, The Evolution of International Security Studies (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2009), p. 188; Ole Waever, ‘The history and social structure of security studies as a practico-academic field’, in Trine Villumsen Berling, Christian Bueger, (eds.), Security Expertise. Practice, power, responsibility (London: Routledge 2015), 76–106. Strategic studies is an inter-disciplinary field of study which at its core examines the preparation, threat, use, control and consequences of organised force for political purposes in the course of a dynamic interaction of (at least) two competing wills. I further discuss below the Cold War enlargement of this definition. See: Raymond Aron, ‘The Evolution of Modern Strategic Thought (1945–1968)’ (1st ed. 1968) in: Raymond Aron, Politics and History (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers 2009), 186–211; Jean-Paul Charnay, Essai général de stratégie (Paris: Editions Champ Libre 1973); John Garnett, ‘Strategic Studies and Its Assumptions’, in John Baylis, Ken Booth, John Garnett and Phil Williams (eds.), Contemporary Strategy: I Theories and Concepts (1st ed. 1975) (London: Holmer and Meier 1987), 3–29; Lucien Poirier, Stratégie théorique II (Paris: Economica-Bibliothèque stratégique 1987); Richard K. Betts, ‘Should Strategic Studies Survive?’, World Politics, 50/1 (1997), 7–33. For valuable overviews: Edward Mead Earle, (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy. Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler (1st ed. 1943) (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1948); Peter Paret, (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy: From Macchiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1986); Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999); Beatrice Heuser, The Evolution of Strategy. Thinking War from Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010); Victor Davis Hanson, (ed.), Makers of Ancient Strategy. From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2010); John Baylis, James J. Wirtz, Colin S. Gray, (eds.), Strategy in the Contemporary World (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013); Hervé Coutau-Bégarie, Traité de stratégie (1st ed. 1999) (Paris: Economica 2012); Hew Strachan, The Direction of War. Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2013); Lawrence Freedman, Strategy. A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013).
2 Buzan and Hansen, The Evolution of International Security Studies, op. cit., p. 101, 188; David Mutimer, ‘Critical Security Studies: A Schismatic History’, in Alan Collins, (ed.), Contemporary Security Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013), 68–69. This list is not meant to be exhaustive but only to give an idea of the scholars whose work is generally included in the category ‘critical security studies’ and who challenge strategic studies. I acknowledge that some of them may not self-identify as ‘critical security’ proponents. Irrespective of their preferred self-identification, for my purpose it is sufficient that in some of their work they favour the broadening and deepening of security and challenge strategic studies.
3 I address the critical security claims that the study of strategy is rationalist, materialist and uncritical, in Pascal Vennesson’s ‘Les études stratégiques sont-elles rationalistes et matérialistes?’ Revue Etudes internationales 46/2–3 (2015), 231–252; Pascal Vennesson, ‘Strategy Misunderstood: The Critical Security Challenge to Strategic Studies’ (unpublished manuscript, 5 October 2016).
4 I focus on these three conceptual criticisms because they are insightful and they have crystallised into the critical security doxa. Moreover, compared to the debates of the 1950s–1960s, these critiques are either new or add significantly different dimensions to previously raised arguments. On the debate about strategic studies in the 1950s and 1960s, see in particular: Anatol Rapoport, Strategy and Conscience (1st ed. 1964) (New York: Schocken Books 1964); Philip Green, Deadly Logic. The Theory of Nuclear Deterrence (1st ed. 1966) (New York: Schocken Books 1968); Hedley Bull, ‘Strategic Studies and its Critics’, World Politics 20/4 (1968), 593–605; Colin S. Gray, ‘What RAND Hath Wrought’, Foreign Policy 4 (1971), 111–129; Bernard Brodie, ‘Why Were We So (Strategically) Wrong?’ Foreign Policy 5 (1971–72), 151–161; Colin S. Gray, Strategic Studies: A Critical Assessment (London: Aldwych Press 1982); Columba Peoples, ‘Strategic Studies and its Critics’, in John Baylis, James J. Wirtz, Colin S. Gray, (eds.), Strategy in the Contemporary World (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013), 342–348, 352–354.
5 Only a handful of scholars has challenged the critical security received wisdom about the scope of strategy, and usually in partial ways. Steven Miller has questioned the notion that strategic studies was intellectually hegemonic during the Cold War Steven E. Miller, ‘The Hegemonic Illusion? Traditional Strategic Studies In Context’, Security Dialogue 41/6 (2010), 641–648. John Baylis and James Wirtz have briefly contested the narrowness and state-centric charges and Columba Peoples has succinctly presented, but not rebutted, the claims that strategic studies is inherently uncritical and Western-centric. John Baylis, James J. Wirtz, ‘Strategy in the Contemporary World: Strategy after 9/11’; Columba Peoples, ‘Strategic Studies and its Critics’, in John Baylis, James J. Wirtz, Colin S. Gray, (eds.), Strategy in the Contemporary World (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013), 9–13, 348–356. Richard Betts provided a thorough examination of ten critiques that put the practicability of military strategy into question but he did not address any of the critics of those who attack head-on on the overall relevance and viability of strategic studies, even assuming that strategy is actually possible. Richard K. Betts, ‘Is Strategy an Illusion?’ International Security 25/2 (2000), 5–50. For other insightful, but partial, counterarguments: Lucien Poirier, ‘Préface’ in Charles-Philippe David (ed.), Les études stratégiques. Approches et concepts (Montréal: Editions du Méridien 1989), ix–xxix; Stephen S. Walt, ‘The Renaissance of Security Studies,’ International Studies Quarterly 35/2 (1991), 211–239; Richard K. Betts, ‘Should Strategic Studies Survive?’, World Politics 50/1 (1997), 7–33; Robert Jervis, ‘Security Studies: Ideas, Policy, and Politics,’ in Edward D. Mansfield, Richard Sisson, (eds.), The Evolution of Political Knowledge: Democracy, Autonomy, and Conflict in Comparative and International Politics (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University 2004), 100–126; Thomas G. Mahnken, ‘Strategic Theory’, in John Baylis, James J. Wirtz, Colin S. Gray, (eds.), Strategy in the Contemporary World (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013), 60–75; Hew Strachan, The Direction of War. Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2013), 253–282.
6 Keith Krause, Michael C. Williams, (eds.) Critical security studies: Concepts and cases. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1997); Keith Krause, ‘Critical Theory and Security Studies: The Research Programme of ‘Critical Security Studies’’, Cooperation and Conflict 33/3 (1998), 298–333.
7 Richard Wyn Jones, Security, Strategy and Critical Theory (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 1999); Ken Booth, Theory of World Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007).
8 Barry Buzan, Lene Hansen, The Evolution of International Security Studies (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2009), 188, 187–225. See also: Peter Burgess, (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of New Security Studies (London: Routledge 2010); Shannon Brincat, Laura Lima, João Nunes, (eds.), Critical Theory in International Relations and Security Studies. Interviews and Reflections (London: Routledge 2012). Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear (Brighton: Wheatsheaf 1983), 255–7; Barry Buzan, Ole Waever, Jaap de Wilde, Security (Boulder: Lynne Rienner 1998); Buzan and Hansen, The Evolution of International Security Studies, op. cit., 16. For critical assessments, see: Christopher S. Browning, Matt McDonald, ‘The Future of Critical Security: Ethics and the Politics of Security’, European Journal of International Relations 19/2 (2011), 235–255; Nik Hynek, David Chandler, ‘No emancipatory alternative, no critical security studies’, Critical Studies on Security 1/1 (2013), 46–63.
9 While there are a number of specialised strategic studies textbooks, it is striking that as a theoretical approach, strategy has disappeared from most of security studies textbooks and interdisciplinary surveys: Paul D. Williams, (ed.), Security Studies. An Introduction (London: Routledge 2013); Alan Collins, Contemporary Security Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013); Peter Hough, Shahin Malik, Andrew Moran, Bruce Pilbeam, International Security Studies. Theory and Practice (London: Routledge 2015); Myriam Dunn Cavelty, Victor Maurer, (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Security Studies (London: Routledge 2011); Mary Martin, Taylor Owen, (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Human Security (London: Routledge 2014); Philippe Bourbeau, (ed.), Security. Dialogue Across Disciplines (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2015).
10 Steve Smith, ‘The Contested Concept of Security’, in Ken Booth (ed.), Critical Security Studies and World Politics (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2005), 27–62; Barry Buzan, Lene Hansen, The Evolution of International Security Studies (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2009); David Mutimer, ‘Critical Security Studies: A Schismatic History’, in Alan Collins, (ed.), Contemporary Security Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013), 67–86.
11 Tarak Barkawi, Shane Brighton, ‘Absent War Studies? War, Knowledge, and Critique’, in Hew Strachan, Sybille Scheipers, (eds.), The Changing Character of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011), 524–541.
12 Laura Sjoberg, Gendering Global Conflict. Toward a Feminist Theory of War (New York: Columbia University Press 2013), 30–35, 185–216, 217–247. See also for a stimulating use of Carl von Clausewitz’s notion of centre of gravity from a feminist perspective: Laura Sjoberg, Jessica L. Peet, ‘Targeting Civilians in War: Feminist Contributions’, in J. Ann Tickner, Laura Sjoberg (eds.), Feminism and International Relations: Conversation about the Past, Present and Future (New York: Routledge 2011), 169–187.
13 Barry Buzan, Lene Hansen, The Evolution of International Security Studies (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2009), 101, 188; David Mutimer, ‘Beyond Strategy: Critical Thinking on the New Security Studies’, in Craig A. Snyder (ed.), Contemporary Security and Strategy (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave-Macmillan 2011), 45–71.
14 As critical security studies have seized the social-theoretic high ground, the main focus of my rebuttal is theoretical. Space does not permit me to systematically assess the empirical implications of my argument for the study of international security and I do not attempt to do so here. However, I provide a number of empirical illustrations along the way and lay out the research and policy implications of my rebuttal in the conclusion. On the importance of concept clarification: David Collier, John Gerring, (eds.), Concepts and Method in Social Science. The Tradition of Giovanni Sartori (London: Routledge 2008).
15 Richard Wyn Jones, Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 1999), 93–124; Ken Booth, ‘Critical Explorations’, in Ken Booth, (ed.), Critical Security Studies and World Politics (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2005), 5; Ken Booth, Theory of World Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007), 305–320; Karin M. Fierke, Critical Approaches to International Security (London: Polity 2007), 24; Barry Buzan, Lene Hansen, The Evolution of International Security Studies (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2009), 9, 92; Mary Kaldor, ‘Inconclusive Wars: Is Clausewitz Still Relevant in these Global Times?’ Global Policy 1/3 (2010), 271; Tarak Barkawi, Shane Brighton, ‘Absent War Studies? War, Knowledge, and Critique,’ in Hew Strachan, Sybille Scheipers, (eds.), The Changing Character of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011), 524–541.
16 ‘Thomas C. Schelling – Facts’. Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 21 May 2016. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2005/schelling-facts.html
17 Christopher Bassford, Clausewitz in English. The Reception of Clausewitz in Britain and America, 1815–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1994), 200–209; Antulio J. Echevarria, ‘On the Clausewitz of the Cold War: Reconsidering the Primacy of Policy in On War,’ Armed Forces and Society 34/1 (2007), 90–108; Hew Strachan, Clausewitz’s On War: A Biography (New York: Grove Press 2007), 24–25; Stuart Kinross, Clausewitz and America. Strategic Thought and Practice from Vietnam to Iraq (London: Routledge 2008), 49–103.
18 Buzan and Hansen, The Evolution of International Security Studies, op. cit., 105. See also: Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear (2nd edition) (Boulder: Lynne Rienner 1991), 10–11; Bradley S. Klein, Strategic Studies and World Order. The Global Politics of Deterrence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994), 2; Simon Dalby, ‘Contesting an Essential Concept: Reading the Dilemmas in Contemporary Security Discourse’, in Keith Krause, Michael C. Williams, (eds.) Critical security studies: Concepts and cases. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1997), 4; Columba Peoples, Nick Vaughan-Williams, Critical security studies: An introduction (London: Routledge 2014), 5, 20.
19 Columba Peoples, Nick Vaughan-Williams, Critical security studies: An introduction (London: Routledge 2014), 5.
20 Carl von Clausewitz, On War (1st ed. 1832–1834) (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1989), 177, 128.
21 Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999), 23–44.
22 Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1960); Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CO: Yale University Press 1966). On Schelling’s life: Robert Dodge, The Strategist. The Life and Times of Thomas Schelling (Hollis: Hollis Publishing 2006). See also: André Beaufre, Introduction to Strategy (1st ed. 1963) (New York: Praeger 1965), 22; André Beaufre, Deterrence and Strategy (1st ed. 1964) (London: Faber 1965); Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War (1st ed. 1960) (New York: The Free Press 1969); Hedley Bull, ‘Strategic Studies and its Critics,’ World Politics 20/4 (1968), 593–605; Marc Trachtenberg, History and Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1991); Barry H. Steiner, Bernard Brodie and the Foundations of American Nuclear Strategy (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas 1991); Lucien Poirier, le Chantier stratégique. Entretiens avec Gérard Chaliand (Paris: Hachette-Pluriel 1997), 48; Bruce Kuklick, Blind Oracles: Intellectuals and War from Kennan to Kissinger (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2006); David Jardini, Thinking Through the Cold War: RAND, National Security and Domestic Policy, 1945–1975 (Smashwords 2013); Francis J. Gavin, Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America’s Atomic Age (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2012). For other criticisms of Cold War strategic thinking: Ron Robin, The Making of the Cold War Enemy. Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2001); Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi, The Worlds of Herman Kahn. The Intuitive Science of Thermonuclear War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2005); Paul Erickson, et al., How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind: The Strange Career of Cold War Rationality (Chicago: Chicago University Press 2013); Ron Robin, The Cold World They Made. The Strategic Legacy of Roberta and Albert Wholstetter (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2016).
23 As Bernard Brodie famously pointed out: ‘Thus far the chief purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on its chief purpose must be to avert them. It can have almost no other useful purpose’. Bernard Brodie, (ed.), The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order (New York: Harcourt, Brace 1946), 76.
24 Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CO: Yale University Press 1966), vi, 31; Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1960), 9. At the time, many defence intellectuals were even more dismissive of military expertise: Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (1st ed. 1959) (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1971), 21–70; Alain C. Enthoven, K. Wayne Smith, How Much Is Enough? Shaping the Defense Program, 1961–1969 (1st ed. 1971) (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 2005), 88–92. In turn, a number of officers strongly criticised the defense intellectuals: General Curtis E. LeMay (with Major General Dale O. Smith), America Is In Danger (New York: Funk & Wagnalls 1968), vii–xv, 303; General William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (1st ed. 1976) (New York: Dell 1980), 152–156. H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty. Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam (1st ed. 1997) (New York: Harper Perennial 1998), 18–21, 326–327.
25 On deterrence: Patrick Morgan, Deterrence: A Conceptual Analysis (London: Sage 1983); Lucien Poirier, Essais de stratégie théorique (Paris: Fondation pour les Etudes de Défense Nationale 1983); Lawrence Freedman, Deterrence (Cambridge: Polity Press 2004). On compellence: Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CO: Yale University Press 1966); André Beaufre, La Stratégie de l’action (1st ed. 1966) (La Tour d’Aigues: Éditions de l’Aube 1997); Alexander L. George, W. E. Simon, (eds.), The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy (1st ed. 1971) (Boulder, CO.: Westview Press 1994); Robert Pape, Bombing to Win. Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1996); Lawrence Freedman, (ed.), Strategic Coercion. Concepts and Cases (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998). On arms control: Thomas C. Schelling, Morton H. Halperin, Strategy and Arms Control (1st ed. 1961) (Washington, DC: A Pergamon-Brassey’s Classic 1985).
26 Thomas C. Schelling, ‘Arms Control: Proposal for a Special Surveillance Force,’ World Politics 13/1 (1960), 1–18; Thomas C. Schelling, ‘Strategic Problems of an International Armed Force,’ International Organization 17/2 (1963), 465–485.
27 I thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this point.
28 On the strategic logic of honour in international relations: Barry O’Neill, Honor, Symbols, and War (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press 2001). On peacetime planning and strategies see: Talbot C. Imlay, Monica Duffy Toft, (eds.), The Fog of Peace and War Planning. Military and Strategic Planning under Uncertainty (London: Routledge 2006); Thomas Mahnken, (ed.), Competitive Strategies for the 21st Century: Theory, History, and Practice (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 2012).
29 Schelling, Strategy of Conflict, 15. This inclusion of promises, originally suggested by William Kaufman, was further developed and explored in International Relations: William W. Kaufman, ‘The Requirements of Deterrence’, in William W. Kaufman, (ed.), Military Policy and National Security (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1956), 31–32; James T. Tedeschi, ‘Threats and Promises’, in Paul Swingle, (ed.), The Structure of Conflict (New York: Academic Press 1970), 155–191; David Baldwin, ‘The Power of Positive Sanctions’, World Politics 24 (1971), 19–38; David Baldwin, ‘Thinking about Threats’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution 15/1 (1971), 71–78; James W. Davis, Jr., Threats and Promises. The Pursuit of International Influence (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press 2000).
30 Schelling, Strategy of Conflict, 21. Civil resistance, peacebuilding and statebuilding, for example, can be, and are in fact, approached from a strategic standpoint and with the categories of strategic thinking: Erica Chenoweth, Adria Lawrence, (eds.), Rethinking Violence: States and Non-State Actors in Conflict (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 2010); Erica Chenoweth, Maria J. Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (New York, NY: Columbia University Press 2011); Daniel Philpott, Gerard F. Powers (eds.), Strategies of Peace. Transforming Conflict in a Violent World (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2010); Antonio Giustozzi, The Art of Coercion. The Primitive Accumulation and Management of Coercive Power (London: Hurst 2011). The means of coercion and competition do not have to be exclusively military, they can be diplomatic, financial or legal for example, see: Anne E. Sartori, Deterrence by Diplomacy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007); Juan Zarate, Treasury’s War (New York: Public Affairs 2013); Orde. F. Kittrie, Lawfare. Law as a Weapon of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2016).
31 Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior (1st ed. 1978) (New York: W.W. Norton 2006); Thomas C. Schelling, Strategies of Commitment (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 2006).
32 Michael Howard, ‘The Classical Strategists,’ (1968) in Michael Howard, Studies in War and Peace (New York: The Viking Press 1972), 154; Edward N. Luttwak, Strategy. The Logic of War and Peace (1st ed. 1987) (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2001), 39–42.
33 Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, vi, 14–15.
34 Albert O. Hirschman, The Strategy of Economic Development (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 1958); Albert O. Hirschman, Journeys Toward Progress. Studies of Economic Policy-Making in Latin America (New York: The Twentieth Century Fund 1963); Erving Goffman, Strategic Interaction (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press 1969); F. G. Bailey, Stratagems and Spoils. A Social Anthropology of Politics (New York: Shocken Books 1969); Michel Crozier, Erhard Friedberg, Actors and Systems: The Politics of Collective Action (1st ed. 1977) (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1980); Jon Elster, Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1979); Michel Dobry, Sociologie des crises politiques (Paris: Presses de Sciences-Po 1986); Erhard Friedberg, Local Orders: The Dynamics of Organized Action (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press 1997); James M. Jasper, Getting Your Way. Strategic Dilemmas in the Real World (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 2006); Marshall Ganz, Why David Sometimes Win: Leadership, Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2010).
35 Critical security advocates distinguish ‘state-centrism’ which refers to a preferred object of study from ‘statism’ which is the normative claim that politically states should be accorded the highest value in themselves. They tend to assume that because a strategic thinker is ‘statist’, his strategic theory can only be state-centric. I focus on state-centrism here but my claim is that strategic studies is neither state-centric, nor statist. Bradley S. Klein, Strategic Studies and World Order. The Global Politics of Deterrence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994), 35; Keith Krause, ‘Insecurity and State Formation in the Global Military Order: The Middle Eastern Case’, European Journal of International Relations 2/3 (1996), 319–54; Keith Krause, Michael C. Williams, ‘From Strategy to Security: Foundations of Critical Security Studies’, in Keith Krause, Michael C. Williams, (eds.), Critical Security Studies. Concepts and Cases (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1997), 39–43; Richard Wyn Jones, Security, strategy, and critical theory (Lynne Rienner Publishers 1999), 95, 97–98, 126, 165–166; K. M. Fierke, Critical Approaches to International Security (Cambridge: Polity Press 2007), 42–43, 204; Columba Peoples, Nick Vaughan-Williams, Critical security studies: An introduction (London: Routledge 2014), 19.
36 Bradley Klein, Strategic Studies and World Order, 35.
37 Christine Sylvester, (ed.), Experiencing War (London: Routledge 2011); Christine Sylvester, War as Experience: Contributions from International Relations and Feminist Analysis (London: Routledge 2013); Christine Sylvester, (ed.), Masquerades of War (London: Routledge 2015). For an earlier argument along similar lines focused on World War I: Jean Norton Cru, War Books: A Study in Historical Criticism (partial translation of Témoins, 1st ed 1929) (San Diego, CA: San Diego State University Press 1976).
38 Mary Kaldor, New & Old Wars (1st. ed. 1999) (London: Polity 2006); Mary Kaldor, ‘Inconclusive Wars: Is Clausewitz Still Relevant in these Global Times?’ Global Policy 1/3 (2010), 271–281.
39 Paret, Clausewitz and the State, 439; Raymond Aron, ‘Clausewitz et l’Etat’, Annales. Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations 32/3 (1977), 1260–1265; Andreas Herberg-Rothe, ‘Clausewitz’s Concept of the State’, in Andreas Herberg-Rothe, Jan Willem Honig, Daniel Moran, (eds.), Clausewitz, the State and War (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag 2011), 17. See also: Daniel Moran, ‘Late Clausewitz’, in Andreas Herberg-Rothe, Jan Willem Honig, Daniel Moran, (eds.), Clausewitz, the State and War (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag 2011), 87–107.
40 Peter Paret, Clausewitz and the State: The Man, His Theories, and His Times (1st ed. 1976) (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1985); Hugh Smith, ‘The Womb of War: Clausewitz and International Politics,’ Review of International Studies 16/1 (1990), 39–58.
41 Peter Paret, Clausewitz and the State. The Man, His Theories, and His Times (1st ed. 1976) (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1985), 406–409.
42 Clausewitz’s conception is consistent here with the realist research tradition which highlights the significance of groups, not states: William C. Wohlforth, ‘Realism’, in Christian Reus-Smit, Duncan Snidal (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2008), 133.
43 Pascal Vennesson, ‘War without the People’, in Hew Strachan, Sibylle Scheipers, (eds.), The Changing Character of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011), 241–258.
44 Carl von Clausewitz, On War (1st ed. 1832–1834) (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1989), 479–483; Carl von Clausewitz, ‘From the ’Political Declaration‘ (1812)’ in Carl von Clausewitz, Historical and Political Writings (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1992), 285–303; Christopher Daase, James W. Davis (eds.), Clausewitz on Small War (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2015).
45 On Clausewitz and people’s war: Christopher Daase, James W. Davis (eds.), Clausewitz on Small War (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2015). See also: Werner Hahlweg, ‘Clausewitz and Guerrilla Warfare’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 9/2–3 (1986), 127–133; Christopher Daase, ‘Clausewitz and Small Wars’, Antulio J. Echevarria II, ‘Clausewitz and the Nature of the War on Terror’, in Hew Strachan, Andreas Herberg-Rothe, (eds.), Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2007), 182–195, 196–218; Antulio J. Echevarria II, Clausewitz and Contemporary War (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2007), 76, 138; Sandrine Picaud-Monnerat, ‘La petite guerre selon Clausewitz, à travers sa réflexion sur la guerre d’avant-postes’; Thierry Noulens, ‘Clausewitz et la guerre révolutionnaire’, in Laure Bardiès, Martin Motte, (eds.), de La guerre? Clausewitz et La pensée stratégique contemporaine (Paris: Economica-Bibliothèque stratégique 2008), 405–432, 433–452; Beatrice Heuser, ‘Small Wars in the Age of Clausewitz: The Watershed Between Partisan War and People’s War’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 33/1 (2010), 139–162; Sebastian Kaempf, ‘Lost through non-translation: Bringing Clausewitz’s writings on ’new wars‘ back in’, Small Wars and Insurgencies 22/4 (2011), 548–573; Sibylle Scheipers, ''The most beautiful of wars': Carl von Clausewitz and small wars,' European Journal of International Security 2/1 (Citation2016), 47-63.
46 Isabelle Duyvesteyn, Clausewitz and African War. Politics and Strategy in Liberia and Somalia (London: Frank Cass 2004); M. L. R. Smith, ‘Strategy in an age of ’low-intensity‘ warfare: Why Clausewitz is still more relevant than his critics’, in Rethinking the Nature of War, (ed.) Isabelle Duyvesteyn and Jan Angstrom, (eds.) (New York: Frank Cass 2005); Christopher Daase, ‘Clausewitz and Small Wars’, in Hew Strachan, Andreas Herberg-Rothe, (eds.), Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2007), 182–195; Emile Simpson, War From the Ground Up. Twenty-First-Century Combat as Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012); Colin Fleming, Clausewitz’s Timeless Trinity. A Framework for Modern War (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing 2013); Hew Strachan, The Direction of War. Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2013), 193–209; David Betz, Carnage and Connectivity. Landmarks in the Decline of Conventional Military Power (London: Hurst 2015).
47 Clausewitz, On War, 86.
48 Clausewitz, On War, 113. See also: Charles Ardant du Picq, Battle Studies. Ancient and Modern Battle (1st ed. 1880) in: Roots of Strategy, Book 2 (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books 1987). On the limits of the exclusive focus on experiential accounts: Kimberly Kagan, The Eye of Command (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press 2006).
49 Daniel Little, Varieties of Social Explanation. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Social Science (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1991), 39–65, 183–200.
50 Michael S. McPherson, ‘On Hirschman, Schelling and Sen: Revising the Concept of the Self’, The Partisan Review 51/4 (1984), 238–241.
51 Thomas C. Schelling, ‘Foreword’, in Robert V. Dodge, Schelling’s Game Theory. How to Make Decisions (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012), xi.
52 Martha Crenshaw, ‘The logic of terrorism: Terrorist behavior as a product of strategic choice,’ in Walter Reich (ed.), Origins of Terrorism. Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press-Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 7–24; Diego Gambetta (ed.), Making Sense of Suicide Missions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); M. L. R. Smith, Fighting for Ireland? The Military Strategy of the Irish Republican Movement (1st ed. 1995) (London: Routledge, 1997); Peter R. Neuman and M.L.R. Smith, The Strategy of Terrorism: How It Works and Why It Fails (London: Routledge, 2008); Richard K. Betts, ‘The Soft Underbelly of American Primacy: Tactical Advantages of Terror’, Political Science Quarterly 117/1 (2002), 19–36; Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (New York: Columbia University Press 2005); Robert Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (New York: Random House 2005); Kelly Greenhill, Weapons of Mass Migration: Force Displacement, Coercion and Foreign Policy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2010); Barry R. Posen, ‘The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict’, Survival 35/1 (1993), 27–47.
53 Bradley S. Klein, Strategic Studies and World Order. The Global Politics of Deterrence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994), 13–14; Tarak Barkawi, Mark Laffey, ‘The Postcolonial Moment in Security Studies’, Review of International Studies 32/2 (2006), 329–352; Karin M. Fierke, Critical approaches to international security (London: Polity 2007), 26, 33; Buzan and Hansen, The Evolution of International Security Studies, op. cit., 19; Pinar Bilgin, ‘The “Western-Centrism” of Security Studies: “Blind Spot” or Constitutive Practice?’ Security Dialogue 41/6 (2010), 615–622; Roland Dannreuther, International security: The contemporary agenda (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons 2014), 50. See also: Ken Booth, Strategy and Ethnocentrism (London: Croom Helm1979); Edward E. Azar, Chung-in Moon, ‘Legitimacy, Integration and Policy Capacity: The “Software” Side of Third World National Security’, in Edward E. Azar, Chung-in Moon, (eds.), National Security in the Third World: The Management of Internal and External Threats (Aldershot: Edward Elgar 1988), 77–101; Abdel Monem Al-Mashat, National Security in the Third World (Boulder: Westview Press 1985); Brian Job, ed., The (In)Security Dilemma: National Security of Third World States (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1992); Mohammed Ayoob, The Third World Security Predicament: State Making, Regional Conflict, and the International System (Boulder: Lynne Rienner 1995); Pinar Bilgin, Regional Security in the Middle East: A Critical Perspective (London: Routledge 2005); Tarak Barkawi, Globalization and War (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield 2005); Ayse Zarakol, After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2011); Tarak Barkawi, Keith Stanski, (eds.), Orientalism and War (New York: Columbia University Press 2012); Tarak Barkawi, 'Decolonising war,' European Journal of International Security 1/2 (2016), 199–214; Pinar Bilgin, The International in Security, Security in the International (London: Routledge Citation2016). See more generally: Patrick Porter, Military Orientalism: Eastern War through Western Eyes (New York: Columbia University Press 2009).
54 This research agenda is notably inspired by the work of Edward Said: Edward W. Said, Orientalism (1st ed. 1978) (New York: Vintage Books 1979). See also: John M. Hobson, The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics. Western International Theory, 1760–2010 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2012). For an insightful critique of Said’s ideas: Robert Irwin, Dangerous Knowledge. Orientalism and Its Discontents (1st ed. 2006) (Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press 2008).
55 Bradley S. Klein, Strategic Studies and World Order. The Global Politics of Deterrence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994), 41; Tarak Barkawi, Mark Laffey, ‘The Postcolonial Moment in Security Studies,’ Review of International Studies 32/2 (2006), 335–338; Mark Laffey, Jutta Weldes, ‘Decolonizing the Cuban Missile Crisis’, International Studies Quarterly 53/3 (2008), 555–577; Pinar Bilgin, ‘Security in the Arab world and Turkey: Differently Different’, in Thinking International Relations Differently, edited by Arlene B. Tickner and David L. Blaney, (eds.) (London: Routledge 2012), 24–47.
56 For example, Charles Callwell or Alfred T. Mahan: see, Sadao Asada, ‘Alfred T. Mahan: Navalist, Imperialist, and Racist’, in Sadao Asada, Culture Shock and Japanese-American Relations: Historical Essays (Columbia: University of Missouri Press 2007), 53–83; Charles E. Callwell, Small Wars. Their Principles and Practice (1st ed. 1896) (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 1996). On strategy and ethnocentrism in the non-West, see for example: Ernesto Che Guevara, The African Dream. The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo (New York: Grove Press 2001).
57 Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan briefly acknowledge this point but do not elaborate on the contradiction with most critical security studies claims about strategy: Amitav Acharya, Barry Buzan, ‘Why is there no non-Western international relations theory? An introduction’, in Amitav Acharya, Barry Buzan, (eds.), Non-Western International Relations Theory. Perspectives On and Beyond Asia (1st ed. 2007) (London: Routledge 2010), 7. See also: Colin S. Gray, ‘The strategic anthropologist,’ International Affairs 89/5 (2013), 1285–1295.
58 For useful overviews: Gérard Chaliand (ed.), The Art of War in World History. From Antiquity to the Nuclear Age (1st ed. 1990) (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 1994); Christon I. Archer, John R. Ferris, Holger H. Herwig, Timothy H. Travers, World History of Warfare (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 2002).
59 Grant T. Hammond, The Mind of War. John Boyd and American Security (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press 2001), 124–125, 147–148; Robert Coram, Boyd. The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (Boston: Little, Brown and Company 2002), 331; Derek M. C. Yuen, Deciphering Sun Tzu. How To Read The Art of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014).
60 Hew Strachan, Clausewitz’s On War: A Biography (New York: Grove Press 2007), 193. See also: Bruno Colson, Clausewitz (Paris: Perrin 2016).
61 Clausewitz, On War, 76; Andreas Herberg-Rothe, Clausewitz’s Puzzle: The Political Theory of War (1st ed. 2001) (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2007).
62 Clausewitz, On War, 76.
63 Ibid. 76; Raymond Aron, ‘Reason, Passion, and Power in the Thought of Clausewitz’, Social Research 39/4 (1972), 607.
64 Clausewitz, On War, 76.
65 Herbert Rosinski, The German Army (1st ed. 1939) (New York: Praeger 1966), 110–111; Peter Paret, ‘Clausewitz’s Politics’, in Peter Paret, Understanding War. Essays on Clausewitz and the History of Military Power (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 176; Thomas Waldman, War, Clausewitz and the Trinity (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing 2013).
66 Herbert Rosinski, The German Army, 111; Raymond Aron, Penser La guerre, Clausewitz, 117, 456–457.
67 Raymond Aron, Penser La guerre, Clausewitz, 429–430.
68 Takeshi Oki, ‘Clausewitz in the 21st Century Japan’, in Reiner Pommerin, (ed.), Clausewitz Goes Global. Carl von Clausewitz in the 21st Century (Berlin: Carola Hartmann Miles Verlag 2011), 203–209; Yu Tiejun, ‘The Western Master and Bible of War: Clausewitz and his “On War” in China’, in Reiner Pommerin, (ed.), Clausewitz Goes Global. Carl von Clausewitz in the 21st Century (Berlin: Carola Hartmann Miles Verlag 2011), 42–59; Chen-Ya Tien, Chinese Military Theory, Ancient and Modern (1st ed. 1992) (Singapore: Horizon Books 2005), 209–263; Shu Guang Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanticism. China and the Korean War, 1950–1953(Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas 1995), 12–30; Alastair Ian Johnston, ‘Cultural Realism and Strategy in Maoist China’, in Peter Katzenstein, (ed.), The Culture of National Security (New York, NY: Columbia University Press 1996), 216–268; Edward N. Smith, ‘The Influence and Use of Chinese Classical Military Philosophy in the Writings of Mao Zedong’, Journal of Chinese Military History 3/1 (2014), 47–70. For comparisons of the strategic reasoning of Clausewitz, Sun Tzu and Mao Tse Tung: Michael I. Handel, Masters of War (London: Frank Cass 2001); François Jullien, A Treatise on Efficacy: Between Western and Chinese Thinking (1st ed. 1996) (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 2004); Derek M. C. Yuen, Deciphering Sun Tzu. How To Read The Art of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014), 99–125.
69 Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 20.
70 Ibid.
71 Ibid. On this logic, see: Diego Gambetta, Codes of the Underworld. How Criminals Communicate (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press2009).
72 Schelling, Arms and Influence, pp. 54–55.
73 S. Paul Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent. Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia (1st ed. 2007) (Singapore: NUS Press 2009), 45–55. See also: George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb. The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 2002); Rajesh M. Basrur, Minimum Deterrence and India’s Nuclear Security (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 2005); Paul Kapur, Sumit Ganguly, India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia (New York: Columbia University Press 2010); Feroz Khan, Eating Grass. The Making of the Pakistani Bomb (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 2012); Vipin Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era: Regional Powers and International Conflict (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2014).
74 Stephen P. Rosen, Societies and Military Power: India and Its Armies (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1996); Alastair Ian Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1998); Robert E. Harkavy, Stephanie G. Neuman, Warfare and the Third World (Basingstoke: Palgrave 2001); Pradeep P. Barua, The Military Effectiveness of Post-Colonial States (Leiden: Brill 2013); Thomas G. Mahnken, Dan Blumenthal, (eds.), Strategy in Asia. The Past, Present, and Future of Regional Security (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 2014); Caitlin Talmadge, The Dictator’s Army. Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2015); Shang-su Wu, The Defence Capabilities of Small States. Singapore and Taiwan’s Responses to Strategic Desperation (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2016).
75 On the continuing need for assessing, creating and refining theories: John Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt, ‘Leaving Theory Behind: Why Simplistic Hypothesis Testing Is Bad for International Relations’, European Journal of International Relations 19/3 (2013).
76 Beatrice Heuser, (ed.), The Strategy Makers: Thoughts on War and Society from Machiavelli Clausewitz (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger-ABC-Clio 2010).
77 Jacqueline de Romilly, The Mind of Thucydides (1st ed 1956) (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2012); André Beaufre, Introduction to Strategy (1st ed. 1963) (New York: Praeger 1965); André Beaufre, Deterrence and Strategy (1st ed. 1964) (London: Faber, 1965). See also: Michael Howard, ‘The Strategic Approach to International Relations’, (1st ed. 1976) in Michael Howard, The Causes of Wars and other essays (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1983), 36–48.
78 Raymond Aron, Penser La guerre. Clausewitz (Paris: Gallimard 1976), 11; Raymond Aron, Peace and War. A Theory of International Relations (1st ed. 1962) (Rutgers: Transaction 2003).
79 Zeev Maoz, ‘Power, Capabilities, and Paradoxical Conflict Outcomes’, World Politics 41/2 (1989), 240.
80 J. Samuel Barkin, Realist Constructivism. Rethinking International Relations Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010), 17–25.
81 Alastair Ian Johnston, ‘What (If Anything) Does East Asia Tell Us About International Relations Theory?’ Annual Review of Political Science 15 (2012), 53–78; David C. Kang, ‘International Relations Theory and East Asian History: An Overview’, Journal of East Asian Studies 13/2 (2013), 181–205.
82 Li Ning, ‘Military specialists and military treatises’, in Yan Wenming, (ed.), The History of Chinese Civilization. Volume I Earliest Times-221 B.C.E. (1st ed. 2006) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2012), 526–537. See also: Thomas G. Mahnken, Dan Blumenthal, (eds.), Strategy in Asia. The Past, Present, and Future of Regional Security (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 2014).
83 R. P. Kangle, The Kautilya Arthasastra, Part II, Translation with Critical and Explanatory Notes (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers 2010); P. K. Gautam, One Hundred Years of Kautilya’s Arthasastra (New Delhi: IDSA Monograph Series 2013). See also: Kanti Bajpai, Saira Basit, V. Krishnappa (eds.), India’s Grand Strategy. History, Theory, Cases (London: Routledge 2013).
84 Masao Maruyama, Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan (1st ed. 1952) (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press 1974), pp. 76–92, 341–367; H. D. Harrotunian, ‘Late Tokugawa culture and thought,’ in Marius B. Jansen, (ed.), The Emergence of Meiji Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1995), pp. 116–137. See also: Mike Mochizuki, ‘Japan’s Search for Strategy’, International Security 8/3 (1983–84), 152–79; Richard J. Samuels, Securing Japan. Tokyo’s Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2007), 1–9, 13–37.
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Pascal Vennesson
Pascal Vennesson is Professor of Political Science at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research and teaching lie at the intersection of the fields of international relations and strategic studies. He is the author, co-author and editor of six books and his refereed articles have been notably published in Armed Forces and Society, International Relations, Journal of Strategic Studies, Review of International Studies, Revue Française de Science Politique (French Political Science Review) and Security Studies. His current research interests focus on war in the global village and on how cognitive psychology combined with strategic knowledge can help understand war decisions.
