The classical strategists (1969)

Abstract

With the death of Professor Sir Michael Howard, The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) lost not only its president emeritus but the last of its founders and intellectual parents. The foremost military historian of his generation, Sir Michael embodied and epitomised a historical sensibility that informed all his writing. He will forever remain an icon not only for historians, but for all those who acknowledge the indispensability of history and the historical sensibility for any true understanding of present events.

In tribute to Sir Michael and in celebration of his life and work, this Adelphi book collects a selection of his remarks and writings for IISS publications over six decades, as well as previously unprinted material. Through this collection, these works will reach a new generation of readers and be made more accessible to those fortunate enough to have read them already. They illustrate Sir Michael’s role in the Institute’s creation and his abiding presence in its evolving intellectual life, and serve as a historical document, tracing the development of strategic thought and preoccupations from the 1950s to the recent past. In addition to their historical value, Sir Michael’s conclusions retain their immediacy and power. This book is therefore of direct relevance to anyone interested in contemporary events: whether the professional analyst, the student of international relations or the general reader.

‘This wonderful collection, containing pieces written by Sir Michael Howard over 60 years, will be enjoyed by his, and the Institute’s, many friends and admirers. Here will be found many reminders, written with Michael’s customary lucidity, of the big issues of the post-war period as they were seen at the time. In addition to a fascinating interview conducted not long before his death about the origins of the Institute, there are obituaries of many of the key and now too often forgotten figures of those early years.’

— Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies, King’s College London

‘Sir Michael’s exploration of policy judgement by fusing politics, strategy, history, ethics, and technology in the nuclear age is increasingly relevant in this complex age of artificial intelligence. His interdisciplinary approach continues to be a guide as we work to synthesize and solve the challenges presented by rapid technological advancements. The pieces contained here show both the continued relevance of his work, and his commitment to studying military history properly, in “depth”, in “width”, and in “context”.’

— Dr Yoichi Funabashi, Chairman of Asia Pacific Initiative

Notes

* The term seems appropriate. Strategy deals with too many imponderables to merit the description ‘science’. It remains, as Voltaire described it two hundred years ago, ‘murderous and conjectural’.

** This of course begs the whole question so carefully examined by Stephen Maxwell in Adelphi Paper 50: Rationality in Deterrence (London: ISS).

1 B.H. Liddell Hart, Strategy: The Indirect Approach (London: Faber, 1967), p. 335.

2 André Beaufre, An Introduction to Strategy (London: Faber, 1965), passim, esp. pp. 107–130.

3 Ibid., p. 22.

4 P.M.S. Blackett, Studies of War (London: Oliver & Boyd, 1962), p. 128.

5 Sir John Slessor, ‘Air Power and the Future of War’, Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, August 1954.

6 P.M.S. Blackett, The Military and Political Consequences of Atomic Energy (London: The Turnstile Press, 1948), p. 56.

7 Vannevar Bush, Modern Arms and Free Men (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949), pp. 115–16.

8 As for example Jacob Viner's paper on ‘The Implications of the Atomic Bomb for East–West Relations’, the influence of which is acknowledged by Brodie and many others. Albert Wohlstetter gave an impromptu account, at the ISS Conference, of the main lines along which these discussions ran. Some account will also be found in Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, The New World (Vol. I of the History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Pennsylvania, 1962), and in the early issues of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

9 B.H. Liddell Hart, The Revolution in Warfare (London: Faber, 1946), p. 87.

10 Bernard Brodie (ed.), The Absolute Weapon (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946), p. 89.

11 Brodie, op. cit., pp. 75–76. He did not, however, deal with the problem of vulnerability of retaliatory forces, and the consequent dependence of stability on an effective secondstrike capability.

12 Richard N. Rosecrance, The Defense of the Realm (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1967), p. 159.

13 ‘The Place of the Bomber in British Policy’. Reprinted in The Great Deterrent (London: Cassell, 1957), p. 123.

14 B.H. Liddell Hart, The Defence of the West (London: Cassell, 1950), pp. 97, 134, 139, 140.

15 15 Sir John Slessor, Strategy for the West (London: Casseli, 1954), p. 108

16 Lt-Gen. Sir John Cowley, ‘Future Trends in Warfare’, Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, February 1960, p. 13.

17 Rosecrance, op. cit., pp. 160–61.

18 Slessor, Lecture at Oxford University, April 1955, reprinted in The Great Deterrent, p. 181.

19 P.M.S. Blackett, Atomic Energy and East–West Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), p. 100.

20 P.M.S. Blackett, ‘Critique of Some Contemporary Defence Thinking’. First published in Encounter in 1961, this article is reprinted in Studies of War, op. cit., pp. 128–46. See also Blackett's dissenting note in Alastair Buchan: NATO in the 1960's (London: Chatto & Windus, 1960).

21 Text in The New York Times, 13 January 1954

22 See the analysis ‘“The New Look” of 1953’ by Glenn H. Snyder, in Warner R. Schilling, Paul Y. Hammond and Glenn H. Snyder, Strategy, Policy and Defense Budgets (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), pp. 379–524.

23 Bernard Brodie, ‘Unlimited Weapons and Limited War’, The Reporter, 18 November 1954. For an indispensable annotated bibliography of the whole controversy, see Morton H. Halperin: Limited War in the Nuclear Age (New York and London: John Wiley, 1963).

24 William W. Kaufmann, ed. Military Policy and National Security (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1956), pp. 28, 38, 257.

25 Ibid., pp. 53–7, 60–72.

26 Ibid., pp. 75–101.

27 Robert E. Osgood: Limited War: the Challenge to American Strategy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1957). Henry A. Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1957).

28 J.F. Dulles, ‘Challenge and Response in United States’ Policy’, Foreign Affairs, October 1957.

29 Osgood, op. cit., p. 258.

30 Kissinger, op. cit., pp. 174–202.

31 Anthony Buzzard et al., On Limiting Atomic War (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1956); and ‘The H-Bomb: Massive Retaliation or Graduated Deterrence’, International Affairs, 1956.

32 Slessor: ‘Total or Limited War?’ in The Great Deterrent, pp. 262–84. Liddell Hart, Deterrent or Defence: a Fresh Look at the West's Military Position (London: Stevens, 1960), pp. 74–81. Blackett, ‘Nuclear Weapons and Defence’, International Affairs, October 1958.

33 Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959), p. 330. Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cam., Mass.: Harvard University Press 1960), pp. 262–66. But the debate continued. Brodie in Escalation and the Nuclear Option (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966) was to argue strongly against what had by then become known as the ‘firebreak’ theory, and emphasize the deterrent value of tactical nuclear weapons.

34 Kissinger, The Necessity for Choice (London: Chatto & Windus, 1960), pp. 81–98.

35 The literature is enormous, but three outstanding contributions are Helmuth Schmidt, Verteidigung oder Vergeltung (Stuttgart, 1961); Alastair Buchan and Philip Windsor, Arms and Stability in Europe (London: Chatto & Windus, 1963); and Raymond Aron, Le Grand Débat (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1963).

36 Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons, p. vii.

37 For an analysis of the various attitudes of American strategic thinkers to the question of détente see Robert A. Levine, The Arms Debate (Cam., Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963), passim.

38 Albert Wohlstetter, ‘The Delicate Balance of Terror’, Foreign Affairs, January 1958. The article is reprinted in Henry A. Kissinger, (ed.) Problems of National Strategy (New York and London: Praeger and Pall Mall, 1965). The principal relevant studies were Selection and Use of Air Buses (R-266, April 1954) and Protecting US Power to Strike Back in the 1950s & 1960s (R-290, April 1956) by Albert Wohlstetter, F.S. Hoffman, and H.S. Rowen. Wohlstetter in a private communication to the present writer has stressed also the significant part played in these studies by experts in systems-analysis such as J.F. Pigby,

E.J. Barlow, and R.J. Lutz.

39 Oskar Morgenstern, The Question of National Defence (New York: Random House, 1959), p. 75

40 See particularly his ‘Surprise Attack and Disarmament’ in Klaus Knorr, (ed.), NATO and American Security (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959). Schelling's whole work on the problem of dialogue in conflict situations is of major importance. His principal articles are collected in The Strategy of Conflict (Cam., Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960).

41 Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age, op. cit., Chapter 8. Brodie and Schelling, like Wohlstetter, were at the time working at RAND Corporation, as also was Herman Kahn. All have acknowledged their mutual indebtedness during this formative period in their thinking.

42 Ibid., pp. 294–97.

43 Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960).

44 Ibid., pp. 301–2.

45 Thinking the Unthinkable. On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios (London: Pall Mall, 1965).

46 Knorr, On the Uses of Military Power in the Nuclear Age (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966). Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966).

47 William W. Kaufmann, The McNamara Strategy (New York: Harper & Row, 1964) provides a useful if uncritical account. It should be read in association with Bernard Brodie's dry commentary ‘The McNamara Phenomenon’, World Politics, July 1965.

48 McNamara speech at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, 16 June 1962. Kaufmann, op. cit., p . 116.

49 See Charles Hitch and Roland McKean, The Economics of Defense in the Nuclear Age (Cam., Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960) for the promise. The performance was examined in Planning – Programming – Budgeting: Hearings before the Subcommittee on National Security and International Operations of the Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate, 90th Congress, 1st Session (US Government Printing Office, 1967).

50 John Strachey, On the Prevention of War (London: Macmillan, 1962).

51 Pierre Gallois, Stratégie de l’Age nucléaire (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1960).

52 André Beaufre, Deterrence and Strategy (London: Faber, 1965), p. 93.

53 Ibid., p. 97.

54 Ibid., p. 140. Beaufre's experience as commander of the French land forces in the Suez operation of 1956 may have had some relevance to his views on this point.

55 Gabriel Bonnet, Les guerres insurrectionnelles et révolutionnaires de l’antiquité a’nos jours (Paris: Payot, 1955). Important unpublished studies by Colonel Lacheroy were in circulation at the same time.

56 Ibid., p . 60.

57 See, for example, Julian Paget, Counter-Insurgency Campaigning (London: Faber, 1967) and Sir Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency (London: Chatto & Windus, 1966).

58 For a good select bibliography see the excellent and highly critical study by Peter Paret, French Revolutionary Warfare from Indo-China to Algeria (London: Pall Mall, 1964).

59 Robert Strausz-Hupé, et al., Protracted Conflict; A Challenging Study of Communist Strategy (New York, 1959) and A Forward Strategy for America (New York, 1961).

60 André Beaufre, An Introduction to Strategy (London: Faber, 1965); Deterrence and Strategy (London: Faber, 1965); Strategy of Action (London: Faber, 1967).