ix My purpose is simply to help readers better to understand modern strategy. The basis
for this text is my rather unusual, not to say eccentric, career as a strategic thinker.
x I have written reports for the US government on a wide range of topics that includes
nuclear strategy, arms control, the defence of NATO's then Central Front, ICBM basing, maritime strategy, strategy for airpower,
space strategy, strategic defence, and special operations.
xi Much of whatever merit this book may have is attributable to the educational effect of the writings
of Carl von Clausewitz... Clausewitz's On War has been my constant companion and by far the most heavily
used book in my library.
p.1 Modern Strategy is about the theory and practice of the use, and threat of use, of
organized force for political purposes in the twentieth century. My concern is to advance the understanding of strategy
by exploring the relationship between the ever-growing complexity of modern war and a general theory of war and strategy that,
when properly formulated, is indifferent to the specifics of history.
p.3 The most respected American strategic theorist of the nuclear era, Bernard Brodie, commented that strategy
pre-eminently 'is nothing if not pragmatic....Above all, strategic theory is a theory for action.'
p.8 There appears to be a unity to all strategic experience, regardless of period, polity, or technology.
The need to use or threaten force for political objectives, the need to behave strategically, is perennial and universal...
Strategic performance serves all masters and all 'political' purposes. Strategic effect is the currency that produces
political change, it matters little to the strategic theorist how that effect is generated.
p.12 The whole of this book is an extended exploration and test of the proposition that there is
unity in essentials among all strategic phenomena in all forms and in all periods.
p.12 strategy has many dimensions... all of those dimensions always are in play... superiority in one or
two dimensions does not guarantee success.
p.16 The dimensions of strategy presented here pertain to every conflict everywhere... the multidimensionality
of strategy limits the potential for superiority in one or even several of those dimensions to deliver success. Truly
poor performance in any of strategy's dimensions has the potential to offset excellence elsewhere.
p.16 strategic effect is unavoidable, which is to say that means and ends will conduct
a strategic discourse whether or not a polity has an explicit strategy (in the sense of a plan).
p.17 Strategy is the bridge that relates military power to political purpose... By strategy
I mean the use that is made of force and the threat of force for the ends of policy... In On War, Clausewitz
provides an admirably tight and terse, yet apparently narrow, definition: 'Strategy [is] the use of engagements for the object
of the war.' ...Freely translated, he tells us that strategy is the use of tacit and explicit threats, as well
as of actual battles and campaigns, to advance political purposes. Moreover, the strategy at issue may not be military
strategy
p.17 Both Clausewitz's original definition [of strategy] and my adaptation of it lend themselves
to expansion of domain so as to encompass policy instruments other than the military... any instrument of power in
action, is the realm of tactics. Strategy, in contrast, seeks to direct and relate the use of those instruments to policy
goals.
p.18 A second narrow definition, offered by J. C. Wylie, corresponds usefully to much commonsense usage
of 'strategy'. Wylie suggests that strategy is '[a] plan of action designed in order to achieve some end; a purpose
together with a system of measures for its accomplishment'.
p.18 It does not matter precisely which form of words are preferred for a working definition, but
the essence of strategy must be identified unambiguously. That essence lies in the realm of the consequences of actions for
future outcomes... The consequences of all military activity is the realm of strategy: the clearer that distinction,
the better the definition.
p.19 there is some merit in the relaxed wording offered by Gregory D. Foster, 'strategy is ultimately about
effectively exercising power'
p.19 Murray and Grimsley, as befits the editors of a path-breaking book on the making of
strategy, offer a dynamic process definition: 'Strategy is a process, a constant adaptation to shifting
conditions and circumstances in a world where chance, uncertainty, and ambiguity dominate.' [JLJ - sounds a lot like
Boyd's OODA loop]
p.20 People unfamiliar with the arcane world of defence analysis might be surprised to learn just how common
it is for imaginative, energetic, and determined strategic thinkers and defence planners to forget that the enemy too has
preferences and choices. Strategic effect for strategic performance should be treated as composite measures, albeit not usually
lending themselves to exact computation, that can provide net assessment. The course and outcome of a period of competition,
crisis, or war itself are the products of the net strategic performance of the contending parties. Fighting power and military
effectiveness are concepts derived from the same concern to find a currency common to different kinds of armed forces.
p.23 [Clausewitz quoted] The strategic elements that affect the use of engagements may
be classified into various types: moral, physical, mathematical, geographical, and statistical... the third includes the
angle of lines of operation, the convergent and divergent movements wherever geometry enters into their calculation
p.24-25 When one talks about the dimensions of strategy, it is sometimes difficult to convey
the proposition that these are only distinctive dimensions of a whole entity. Strategy is seriously incomplete if considered
in absence of any of them... the notion here is holistic... Every dimension discussed here will always be relevant
in principle... Because the dimensions, factors, or elements are distinctive aspects of a whole entity, they cannot be rank-ordered
for relative importance in a general theory of strategy... My argument is that strategy has many dimensions, each
of which is always in play to a greater or lesser extent.
p.44 To neglect strategy in defence planning or the conduct of war would be like trying to play chess without
kings on the board; there would be no point.
p.52 A strategist worthy of the name is a person who sees, even though he or she cannot possibly
be an expert in, all dimensions of the 'big picture' of the evolving conditions of war... Strategic expertise has
to imply educated familiarity with each of the dimensions of war.
p.81-82 Clausewitz... provides a system of thought on war and strategy... It can be difficult to convey
to those who are not strategic theorists a full appreciation of the true monumentality of Clausewitz's achievement... It [Clausewitz's
famous book, On War] is a book that can be used to help elucidate almost any problem in strategy, regardless of time,
place, and technology... we should take from Clausewitz what we find useful.
p.82 Strategy is an applied art or social science, and theory about it has merit in the
measure of its value to those who must meet the practical challenges of strategy.
p.86 It is instructive to consider the contributions of seven general strategic theorists of the
twentieth century. These seven are not unarguably the best that the century could offer, but my assessment of descending
order of merit of achievement in general theory ranks these authors as follows: J.C. Wylie, Edward N. Luttwak, Bernard
Brodie, Basil Liddell Hart, and Raoul Castex. Aside from these author-theorists, Reginald Custance and John
Boyd also warrant honourable mention. Each of these writers pitched their theories to transcend
limitations of time, geography, and technology. A case can be made for an eighth entry, Mao Tse-tung.
p.87 what works today in strategy may not work tomorrow, precisely because it worked today
p.120 Strategy is as difficult to perform well in a purposive manner as it is all too rarely performed
consciously at all... who, exactly, peoples the profession of strategists? Who professes strategy?
p.210 The purpose of strategy is to achieve physical or psychological control over an enemy.
Such control can be secured by the threat or use of any of the instruments of grand, or military, strategy.
p.354 the suggestion by Chris Brown that 'we need to pay serious attention to the implications of the view
that knowledge is constructed, not found, that it rests on social foundations and not upon some bedrock of certainty'.
p.358 It really does not matter whether strategy is 'done' by 'foot, horse, and guns', or by cruise missiles,
spacecraft, and cyber-assault. The tools change with technology, as must the dependent tactics. But strategy uses
'the engagement', and the military tools employed in it, at a level that is indifferent to the evolving terms of combat.
