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ABSTRACT
Classical strategy as a concept encompasses two different logics (instrumentality and adversariality) as well as two different modes (decision-making and performance). In modern strategy, these modes have been on diverging paths, with varying interpretations privileging one logic above the other. Game theory focuses on decision-making, but encompasses both adversariality and instrumentality. Operational art focuses on performance, but in an adversarial context. The ends, ways, means model emphasises performance in an instrumental context. Each is imbalanced and inadequate when faced with the challenge of comprehending and controlling war. Strategic studies must make a return to balanced interpretations of strategy.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Hew Strachan, ‘The lost meaning of strategy’, Survival 47/3 (July 2005), 33.
2 Quoted in Hew Strachan, ‘Strategy or Alibi? Obama, McChrystal and the Operational Level of War’, Survival 52/5 (September 2010), 165.
3 Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: Oxford UP 1999), 17.
4 Basil Liddell Hart, Strategy (New York, NY: Meridian 1991), 321.
5 J.C. Wylie, Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control, (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press 1989), 14.
6 André Beaufre, An Introduction to Strategy R.H. Barry trans. (London: Faber and Faber 1965), 22.
7 Colin S. Gray, The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice (Oxford: Oxford UP 2010), ch. 6.
8 François Jullien, The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy in China Janet Lloyd, trans. (New York: Zone Books 1995), 35.
9 Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard UP 1980), 3n.
10 Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale UP 2008), 34.
11 Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 16; see also Neil Martin, ‘Strategy as Mutually Contingent Choice: New Behavioral Lessons from Thomas Schelling’s The Strategy of Conflict’, SAGE Open (April-June 2016), 1–12.
12 Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict¸ 9–10; see also Emerson M.S. Niou and Peter C. Ordeshook, Strategy and Politics: An Introduction to Game Theory (Abingdon: Routledge 2015), 2–3.
13 Bernard Brodie, quoted in Robert Ayson, Thomas Schelling and the Nuclear Age: Strategy as Social Science (London: Frank Cass 2004), 130.
14 Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 5.
15 Schelling, Arms and Influence, 4.
16 See note 14.
17 Ibid., 15.
18 Schelling, Arms and Influence, 3.
19 Hew Strachan, ‘Strategy in the Twenty-First Century’, in Hew Strachan & Sibylle Scheipers (eds.), The Changing Character of War (Oxford: Oxford UP 2011), 508.
20 See for example Max Gallop, ‘More dangerous than dyads: how a third party enables rationalist explanations for war’, Journal of Theoretical Politics 29/3 (2017), 353–381.
21 Ivan Arreguín-Toft, ‘How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict’, International Security 26/1 (Summer 2001), 93–128.
22 Justin Conrad, Gambling and War: Risk, Reward, and Chance in International Conflict (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press 2017), 46.
23 Steven J. Bram, Game Theory and Politics (Mineola: Dover Publications 2004), 1.
24 See for example John Stone, ‘Beyond Clausewitz: Better ways of thinking strategically’, Comparative Strategy 36/5 (2017), 468–478.
25 Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., ‘The Strategy-Tactics Relationship’, in Colin S. Gray and Roger W. Barnett (eds.), Seapower and Strategy (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press 1989), 47.
26 Colin S. Gray, Schools for Strategy: Teaching Strategy for 21st Century Conflict (Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute 2009), 6.
27 Colin S. Gray, ‘So What! The Meaning of Strategy’, Infinity Journal 6/1 (Winter 2018), 5.
28 Quoted in Peter Paret & Daniel Moran (eds.), Carl von Clausewitz: Two Letters on Strategy (Fort Leavenworth: US Army Command and General Staff College 1984), 21.
29 Lukas Milevski, ‘Choosing Strategy: Its Meaning and Significance in Context’, Infinity Journal 6/2 (Summer 2018), 12–16.
30 Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War (New York: The Free Press 1988), 122.
31 Schelling, Arms and Influence, 13.
32 Ibid., 22.
33 Carl von Clausewitz, On War Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds. and trans. (Princeton: Princeton UP 1984), 566.
34 Such as in Conrad, Gambling and War.
35 Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict¸122.
36 Julian Corbett, Lectures on Naval Strategy NMM CBT/31, Corbett Papers, Caird Library, National Maritime Museum, 117, 118.
37 Lukas Milevski, ‘Grand Strategy and Operational Art: Companion Concepts and Their Implications for Strategy’, Comparative Strategy 33/4 (September 2014), 342–353.
38 Edward N. Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard UP 2001).
39 Arthur F. Lykke, Jr., ‘Defining Military Strategy’, Military Review (May 1989), 6.
40 Aleksandr A. Svechin, Strategy Kent D. Lee ed. (Minneapolis: East View Information Services 1991), 69.
41 Ibid.
42 Edward N. Luttwak, ‘The Operational Level of War’, International Security 5/3 (Winter 1980–1981), 61.
43 Ibid., 63–65.
44 Rupert Smith, ‘Epilogue’, in John Andreas Olsen and Martin van Creveld (eds.), The Evolution of Operational Art: From Napoleon to the Present (Oxford: Oxford UP 2010), 233.
45 John Kiszely, ‘Thinking about the Operational Level’, RUSI Journal 150/6 (2005), 39–40.
46 David T. Zabecki, The German 1918 Offensives: A Case Study in the Operational Level of War (London: Routledge 2006), 11.
47 David Jablonsky, ‘Strategy and the Operational Level of War: Part I’, Parameters 27/1 (Spring 1987), 65.
48 Justin Kelly & Mike Brennan, Alien: How Operational Art Devoured Strategy (Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute 2009).
49 Strachan, ‘Strategy or Alibi?’, 177.
50 Ibid., 165.
51 Daniel Hughes (ed.), Moltke on the Art of War: Selected Writings (Novata; Presidio Press 1993), 44.
52 Ernest J. King, ‘Senior Class of 1933 Thesis: The Influence of the National Policy on the Strategy of a War’, Ernest J. King Papers, ‘Library of Congress, Box 23’, Naval War College Thesis 1932, 12.
53 Lykke, ‘Defining Military Strategy’, 3.
54 Ibid., 3–4.
55 Ibid., 4.
56 Ibid.¸ 6.
57 David Jablonsky, ‘Why is Strategy Difficult?’ in J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr. U.S. Army War College Guide to National Security Issues, Volume 1: Theory of War and Strategy (Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute 2012), 3.
58 Ibid.
59 Jacqueline E. Whitt, ‘Wrong and Useful: Models and Metaphors for Strategy’, USAWC War Room, 11 August 2017, https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/wrong-useful-models-metaphors-strategy/, accessed 6 December 2017.
60 Colin S. Gray, Perspectives on Strategy (Oxford: Oxford UP 2013), 28–31, 197–198.
61 Richard K. Betts, ‘Is Strategy an Illusion?’ International Security 25/2 (Fall 2000), 16.
62 Lukas Milevski, ‘Whence Derives Predictability in Strategy?’ Infinity Journal 2/4 (Fall 2012), 4–7.
63 Jeffrey W. Meiser, ‘Ends + Ways + Means = (Bad) Strategy’, Parameters 46/4 (Winter 2016–17), 82.
64 Antulio J. Echevarria II, ‘Is Strategy Really A Lost Art?’ Strategic Studies Institute Op-Ed, 13 September 2013, http://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/index.cfm/articles//Is-Strategy-Really-A-Lost-Art/2013/09/13, accessed 5 December 2017.
65 M.L. Cavanaugh, ‘It’s Time to End the Tyranny of Ends, Ways, and Means’, Modern War Institute, 24 July 2017, https://mwi.usma.edu/time-end-tyranny-ends-ways-means/, accessed 6 December 2017.
66 Jablonsky, ‘Why is Strategy Difficult?’ 3.
67 Gray, ‘So What! The Meaning of Strategy’, 5.
68 See for example Thomas G. Mahnken, Competitive Strategies for the 21st Century: Theory, History, and Practice (Stanford: University of Stanford Press 2012).
69 Antulio J. Echevarria II, Military Strategy: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford UP 2017), 6.
70 Christopher R. Paparone, ‘Beyond Ends-Based Rationality: A Quad-Conceptual View of Strategic Reasoning for Professional Military Education’, in Gabriel Marcella (ed.), Teaching Strategy: Challenge and Response (Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute 2010), 310.
71 Adam Elkus, ‘Beyond Strategy as a Means to an End’, Infinity Journal 3/4 (Winter 2014), 11, 12.
72 Echevarria, Military Strategy, 6.
73 Harry R. Yarger, Strategy and the National Security Professional: Strategic Thinking and Strategy Formulation in the 21st Century (Westport: Praeger Security International 2008), 8–9.
74 Lawrence Freedman, ‘Defining War’, in Julian Lindley-French & Yves Boyer (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of War (Oxford: Oxford UP 2012), 17.
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Lukas Milevski
Dr Lukas Milevski is an assistant professor at Leiden University, where he teaches security and strategy. Previously he was a Smith Richardson Strategy and Policy Fellow 2015-16, undertaking his fellowship at the Changing Character of War programme at the University of Oxford to research and write a manuscript on Baltic defense. His first book, The Evolution of Modern Grand Strategic Thought, was published in 2016 and his second book, The West’s East: Contemporary Baltic Defense in Strategic Perspective, was published in 2018, both by Oxford University Press. In 2019 he also published a monograph with the US Army War College Press, Grand Strategy is Attrition: The Logic of Integrating Various Forms of Power in Conflict.