I sometimes forget that I am not just writnig for an American audience here - mea culpa

While I agree with you that grand strategy should be the business of the civilian government, the civilians - particularly the non-defense civilians - are often terribly deficient in their knowledge of the strategy business, at least in the US. That, indeed, was one of the points I was trying to make. Where Michele Flournoy, as a civilian defense policymaker, was/is a strategist, most of her counterparts in State and elsewhere were/are not.

In our system, the military is not excluded from the grand strategy development process. By law, the CJCS sits as a statutory advisor to the National Security Council. By policy, he sits as a full member of the Principals Committee of the NSC. By policy, the VCJCS sits as a full member of the Deputies committee of the NSC and military members sit as full members of the Policy coordinating Committees, etc. The point is that in our system the military is fully integrated into the strategy and policy processes, Indeed, our civilian side of DOD integrates military officers as high as the level of Deputy Assistant Secretaries of Defense. (As an aside, when I first met Marine Gen. Chuck Wilhelm who later commanded SOUTHCOM, he was a 2 star DAS-D in the ASD/SO-LIC.) We also have civilians serving in positions on the Joint Staff (the military side). As I understand the UK system the Chief of Defence Staff and the MOD are separately structured with military members in the former and civilians in the latter. Coordination takes place in formal meetings as well as informal consultation but civilians and military are not normally integrated in the same staff.

When I was teaching strategy at Leavenworth we made similar distinctions to those you say current British doctrine has removed. Hope we haven't made the same mistakes.

Cheers

JohnT