ix Rear Admiral J.C. Wylie is a rarity among American naval
officers. He was the first serving officer since Luce and Mahan, half a century before him, to become known for writing about
military and naval theory. First and foremost Wylie was a sailor, a sea officer, and an accomplished ship-handler, but at
the same time he became a careful thinker about strategy.
xxii-xxiii [Admiral Richard L. Conolly quoted] Very few of us have even come to realize that there
are three types of knowledge to be had from military history. One is simple knowledge of events that took place;
the second is knowledge of how to fight better; and the third (and generally neglected)
is a knowledge of how to think more clearly in order to properly analyze the situations and assess and evaluate the
various factors that produce success or failure, victory of defeat.
xxxi-xxxii Wylie wrote Military Strategy while he was in command of the USS Arneb in 1953, but
he did not submit it for publication until 1966. After expanding and revising the book during those years, Wylie eventually
submitted it under the title The Military Mind to Rutgers University Press, which had recently published a number
of books on military subjects. They agreed to publish it as Military Strategy. The editor suggested the new title
so that libraries could more easily index it by its subject.
On 17 April 1967, Rutgers University Press published 2,500 copies of the 111-page Military Strategy
at four dollars a copy. In recommending the book, The Library Journal's reviewer commented, "Although the price is
slightly high for such a small book, the relevance of the topic to today's unstable world and Admiral Wylie's thoughtful discussion
of it makes the book essential reading for public and academic libraries."
Reviewing the book for The New York Times Book Review, defense correspondent Hanson Baldwin
noted: ... He has produced a simple but relevant little work in an attempt to promote order in the discussion of strategy.
p.2 What I have tried to do in this short book is
to indicate why I think our existing methods of thinking about strategy are superficial and inadequate
p.13 I do not claim that strategy is or can be a "science" in the sense of the physical sciences.
It can and should be an intellectual discipline of the highest order, and the strategist should prepare himself to
manage ideas with precision and clarity and imagination in order that his manipulation of physical realities, the tools of
war, may rise above the pedestrian plane of mediocrity. Thus, while strategy itself may not be a science, strategic
judgment can be scientific to the extent that it is orderly, rational, objective, inclusive, discriminatory, and perceptive.
p.14 let me give the definition of strategy that I prefer:
A plan of action designed in order to achieve some end; a purpose together with a system of measures for its accomplishment.
p.24
there are actually two very different kinds of strategies that may be used in war. One is the sequential, the series of visible,
discrete steps, each dependent on the one that preceded it. The other is the cumulative, the less perceptible minute accumulation
of little items piling up on top of the other until at some unknown point the mass of accumulated actions may be large enough
to be critical.
p.34 A governing degree of control rather than an absolute
control is probably all that need be striven for in most practical situations.
p.41 What kind of control is desired, and under what circumstances will destruction or the threat
of destruction bring about the desired measure of control? Judgments of this kind are among the most difficult and
speculative of all the problems of strategy.
p.42 "Terrain" as a word does not have deep meaning to the nonsoldier, but to the soldier
it is everything. It is the fixed field within which he operates. It is the limitation within which he must function...
It is the fact of terrain that establishes the field within which the soldier's professional intellect must generate its plans.
p.61 If any two theories of strategy are not compatible, then neither
of them is a valid general theory. Both of them have, somewhere in their structure, a limiting weakness; and these limitations
should be uncovered and identified in order to forestall attempts to apply the theory in situations where it will
not work, in situations where the underlying assumptions do not fit the realities
p.66-67,70-71,72 So, to set the foundations on which to erect the
outline of a general theory of war, four basic assumptions are offered.
The first assumption is that, despite whatever effort there
may be to prevent it, there may be war... The second assumption is that the aim of war is some measure of control
over the enemy. This is a deliberately general statement. It would be satisfying to state it more precisely,
but the more it is considered the more it appears that such precision would be unduly restrictive... The third basic assumption
for war planning is that we cannot predict with certainty the pattern of the war for which we prepare ourselves...
Our first requirement, rather, is for a spectrum of war-plan concepts, for the broadest possible conceptual span of strategies
for war, a spectrum that will embrace in both time and character any war situation that might conceivably arise... the strategist
should take up specific situations only after the requirement for provision of the spectrum of concepts has been met... the
requirement is for a spectrum of strategies that are flexible and noncommittal, a theory that by intent and design can be
applied in unforeseen situations... there is offered as a fourth basic assumption for strategic planning foundation the following:
The ultimate determinant in war is the man on the scene with a gun... Of these four assumptions
I think the first three are critical.
p.67 The specific requirements for the kind and degree
and intensity and duration and extent of control can be determined only when a specific situation presents itself
to the strategist and has developed to a point where specific decision is possible.
p.72 But planning for certitude is the greatest of all military
mistakes, as military history demonstrates all too vividly.
p.72 The ultimate determinant in war is the man on the scene with
the gun. This man is the final power in war. He is control. He determines who wins. There are those who would
dispute this as an absolute, but it is my belief that while other means may critically influence war today, after whatever
devastation and destruction may be inflicted on the enemy, if the strategist is forced to strive for final and ultimate
control, he must establish, or must present as an inevitable prospect, a man on the scene with a gun. This is the
Soldier.
p.84 So if this postulation of a general theory of strategy does have substance and validity and practicality,
it might be able to provide a common and basic frame of reference for the special talents of the soldier, the sailor, the
airman, the politician, the economist, and the philosopher in their common efforts toward a common aim.
p.88 the more sophisticated the strategic concept... the more elusive are the statistical measures of worth.
p.92 strategy, by the definition we have used, is not limited to a war situation or to military application.
A general theory of strategy should be applicable in any conflict situation.
p.96 what they [Professor John von Neumann of Princeton and Professor Harold Lasswell at Yale] had told
us [Wylie and his colleague Eugene L. Burdick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Burdick, seeking advice in 1950 on planning a course of study on "why we need a navy" at the Naval War College], each in
his own fashion, was this: we needed a theory, and we needed a vocabulary with which to talk about it. With these
two intellectual tools we could then address the problem of why we needed a navy.
That was the genesis of what turned out to be, several years later, this book.
p.96 I turned my hand to devising a general theory of strategy, valid anytime, anyplace, and under
any circumstances. And I invited anyone interested to alter or amend or replace it.
As far as I know, no one has ever paid any attention to it. I don't know whether
this is because it is so clear and obviously valid that no one needs to, or because it is no use at all. I suspect it could
be the latter, but I really do not know.
p.97-98 a strategy is a plan for doing something in order
to achieve some known end... The aim of any strategy... is to exercise some kind or degree of control over
the target of the strategy... I have used the word "control" because I can't find a better. The vocabulary is not
wholly adequate to the need. In many cases "influence" might be more nearly the word; less often it could even be
"dominance."... I have settled on "control" simply as an umbrella to cover the full span of possibilities... the
strategist needs some leverage to induce or force the other fellow to accede, wholly or in part, to what the strategist wants...
The correlation between destruction and control, which varies widely from one situation
to another, has been essentially neglected in public discussion of military strategy.
p.99 What are the relationships, the correlations, between
destruction and control? What will this show of force (which is potential destruction) or
that segment of actual destruction contribute, directly or indirectly, now or later, to the control we seek
as our aim in peace or war? Only by facing up to that kind of question... can we move from profligacy [being overly
wasteful or extravagant] toward efficiency in the planning and conduct of war.
p.100 Much of the writing [of this book] was done in the middle fifties
when I was at sea in a single-screw low-speed amphibious cargo ship; an AKA is not as demanding of a captain's attention as
is, for instance, a destroyer. [JLJ - in July 1953 Wylie took command of the attack transport USS Arneb (AKA-56).
It was during long passages at sea that Wylie wrote the basis for what, fourteen years later, was to become his book Military
Strategy.]
p.101 Over the last two decades I have come to believe that cumulative strategies are probably more important
and can be more accurately addressed than I believed. I now think that the information-management revolution has probably
made cumulative strategies more readily subject to analysis... I now sense that this particular form of cumulative strategy
could be a far more predictable one, and thus a more precisely employable one, than it was some years ago. But it
still functions within the limits of the assumption that destruction can be equated with control.
p.124 The aim of any war is to establish some measure of control
over the enemy. The pattern of action by which this control is sought is the strategy of the war.
p.138 the purpose of destruction in war must be the achievement of control. Other than that it has
no point... The relationship between destruction and control in war is one critical measure of the efficiency of
the conduct of war.
p.151-152 The first assumption is that the aim of war is some
measure of control over the enemy... The key... is the idea that control, in one fashion or another, is the
distant strategic aim... A primary and central problem in warfare is the sensing of what kinds and degrees of control
may result from this or that action in this or that situation... There are several methods by which control may be
sought... control by immobilization or paralysis... may be an area worth considerably more thought than has been given
it in the recent past... A control of sorts may be exercised by the announced or tacit threat of destruction,
or perhaps by the threat of occupation... control-by-threat... is often politically and militarily the most advisable method
of applying force.
There are, of course, the more indirect forms of control by... pressures
p.153-154 The second basic assumption for war planning is that we
can not with certainty predict the complete pattern of war for which we prepare ourselves... Our first requirement is
for a planning concept that covers a spectrum of possibilities... Then, after we have in mind a full span of concept, we can
take up specific situations... The requirement is for strategies of depth and breadth, flexible and adaptable, which
by intent and by design can be applied to unforeseen situations. Planning for this kind of uncertainty is not as dangerous
as it might seem... planning for certitude is the greatest of all military mistakes
p.155 In general, our control of the seas imposes on the enemy a very real limitation on his freedom
of action and this pervasive stifling operates quietly but continuously to project our control onto the land.
p.161 it is the nation with the maritime strength that has the freedom of action. The maritime
power need not irrevocably commit itself to any single course of action. Once the war is stabilized, it can
pick and choose its opportunities.
