Link to PPT on Grand Strategy at NDU early this year by Retired Colonel John Warden. Slap
http://www.ndu.edu/inss/symposia/joi...Warden-PPT.pdf
Grand Strategy
Link to PPT on Grand Strategy at NDU early this year by Retired Colonel John Warden. Slap
http://www.ndu.edu/inss/symposia/joi...Warden-PPT.pdf
Two thoughts on this:
1. The U.S. does not currently possess a "Grand Strategy," and that is an incredible obstacle to virtually everything we do as a nation. As many have said:"If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there."
2. This product by Warden, while interesting, shows the Cold War roots that most of us were grown from. It is far to "Threat-Centric." While there will always be threats, as Warden lays out, they are difficult to predict. Far better to base a Grand Strategy on understanding and shaping the environment to be favorable to ones own national interests, but doing so in a manner so as to not unneccessarily generate future threats as second and third order effects.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
Originally Posted by Bob's World
Hi Rob, I agree we do not have a Grand Strategy.
2-what you (and others) call the "environment" is what Warden calls the Largest system you will operate in and he has and does have quite a bit to say about how important it is but nobody ever reports that fact...except me
PS there is an article he wrote called "The Art of Targeting" that was published in a Foreign War Journal that shows just how current his thinking is...all with the same model he has had for years. I am trying to find an English translation of it...when I do I will post it.
PPS (To All) when he (Warden) gave the above speech a vigorous debate followed between him and General Van Ripper before the moderator stopped it. He (Warden) would like to continue the debate with Van Ripper. How could we make this happen?? It would be a great SWC event in my humble opinion
Ok Slap, I'll go through it again. I confess a bias to thinking that whenever an airforce officer puts an option on the table it will somehow work its way around to support buying more F-22s, or to call for "global strike" as the preferred COA for apprending one bad actor laying low in some sovereign nation. I keep trying to get over this, but everytime I get close to being cured I bump into a call for "Irregular warfare F-22s" or "Indirect Approach Global Strike" (ok, I haven't actually encountered that last one yet...)
I'll look for the targeting piece.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
Rob, while you are waiting read this one on how Warden was applied to Terrorism. Written some time ago but is still as valid today as then.
PS he is not a big fan of the F-22....Big believer in Unmanned Air platforms. Big believer in Special Forces for COIN/CT Ops.
[/url].http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/acsc/97-0393.pdf
Rob, here it is folks. Go to the website below and click PDF file in English edition. It is free no cost. Enjoy
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-L...06588&id=14518
There's a lot of that going around
The cliff-notes version of why many in the Air Force consider the F-22 so important is because air supremacy is viewed as the enabler for everything else the AF does, particularly the BAI role. There is, obviously, AF culture to consider, but I think that factor is overemphasized by many AF critics.
As for the Warden/Pape debate, it strikes me as quite similar to the so-called Gentile-Nagle debate. I see the idea that there is some kind of a zero-sum choice to be a false one. The Air Force needs a balanced capability to conduct strategic missions as well as direct support to ground forces. Like anything else, what capabilities are needed and when are situational. The price of diversity is that one is likely to find that some of your military capabilities are not useful for a particular conflict.
PS: Thanks for the links, Slap, good stuff to archive!
I once mentioned in passing that I was unconvinced by the idea that "strategic bombing" had a strategic effect. I was prepared to counter arguments about the effect of bombing on Germany and Japan in WWII and North Vietnam in that conflict.
I was given a hypothetical about the awesome persuasive ability of an airstrike to effect the decision making of a dictator. But there is no need for hypotheticals there. We have bombed a number of dictators and I am hard pressed to think of a single case where it had the desired effect. Not unless backed by Soldiers and Marines.
In the mean time we have acquired a large number of very expensive vehicles designed to drop bombs of authoritarian regimes.
The reason that I bring this up in because the piece from Warden is a reinforcement of this thinking. Long wars may be undesirable, but the Second World War resulted in a decisive American victory, and the order that came from it has served the world well for the better part of a century.
Specific issues:
Consensus on Grand Strategy is a bit much to hope for.
Short wars sound great, and don't always work out. We all know a good example, and many of you have been there in the last seven years.
Lastly, the Air Force has an aging fleet of planes that may or may not be well suited to current and future conditions. As they replace them, there ought to be a strategy. There isn't. For instance, the money that is being spent on the new tanker could very well be spent on a new blended wing bomber that would reduce the need for tankers to the point that the demand for tankers would be around 10% of what it is now. Instead, the Air Force plans to purchase a large number of tankers to fuel planes that have been obsolescent since before their pilots were born.
Similarly, the F35 program is supposed to complement the F22 with a cheaper "low-end" plane. The problem is that like most programs it is over budget. When all is said and done, it may be cheaper to buy F22s. Or even the F/A-18, perhaps even reviving the land based version that was canceled in the developmental stage.
I should have posted this at the start but I didn'there is the speech by Warden that goes with the PPT slide presentation. Expands on the slide presentation a great deal...should have posted it at the start but.......Slap
http://www.ndu.edu/inss/symposia/joi..._Panel%203.pdf
Good evening everyone. This is a great topical area that warrants additional discussion. The lack of a "Grand Strategy" has been a strategic challenge since the collapse of the U.S.S.R. The strategy I am referring to is that called "containment," which focused all elements of U.S. national power on to the U.S.S.R. and ultimately resulted in the collapse of a 40 plus year adversary. The challenge today is that we do not have a nation state to focus an overarching strategy on. The only exception to this would be the Peoples Republic of China. The current administration must develop a "Grand Strategy" so that all other strategies can be properly developed and implemented to meet the strategic challenges that face our great country.
Last edited by Ken White; 02-19-2009 at 01:33 AM. Reason: Edited to remove Upper Case fo all text.
Hi, oda175. Welcome aboard. Good point but
it raises questions.
How do you propose to get a coherent and lasting Grand Strategy in a nation that has changes in its political character every two, four, six and / or eight years?
Your point on there being no nation or group of nations on which to focus our near term strategy is of course correct. How do we strategically address that situation?
Having lived through the Cold War, I can tell you that containment wasn't quite as neat as a lot of folks today like to think it was...
You don't have to have lived through the Cold War to understand that...just be able to actually read and analyze a number of sources (to include documents from the actual period and not just retrospective studies).it raises questions.
How do you propose to get a coherent and lasting Grand Strategy in a nation that has changes in its political character every two, four, six and / or eight years?
Your point on there being no nation or group of nations on which to focus our near term strategy is of course correct. How do we strategically address that situation?
Having lived through the Cold War, I can tell you that containment wasn't quite as neat as a lot of folks today like to think it was...
That said, I think it's quite possible to argue successfully that the US has never really HAD a grand strategy of any sort (prior to containment...which was something of a patchwork strategy that ended up working) aside from the 19th century concept of Manifest Destiny...and even that seems more clear in retrospect than it did during the time in question and was driven more by economic considerations than an actual political agenda. Our two year cycle of "perpetual revolution" was alive and well even then, and that has always hindered our ability to form any sort of lasting strategic consensus. I don't honestly see that changing, and we don't have the sort of civil service structure that would allow for them to carry the strategic torch (as it were).
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
Yes. Here's a good example:
LINK.
"I can do anything better than you..." as the old song says...
Really good question
This has always been my biggest issue with the idea of any real "Grand Strategy".
If you look at it in the simplest form I think you can probably keep it to Where do you want to be/have/exist in blank years.
Family planning
Career planning
etc.
Difference is in those you are truly limited to the realistic understanding that you probably only have control of what you do and outside influences will have to be dealt with as they come from where-ever you are on your path.
In governmental planning your not. Limited to you that is, you can also include influencers on a large scale which will work to affect the paths of others be it encouragement or discouragement of a given action or more often simply trying to enable political changes which you perceive to be more in line with your own.
So in response to the question you pose I would postulate that although it's true those cycles in leadership here are guaranteed to affect things in relation to our actions it's not necessarily true that they have to affect our FP in as dramatic a fashion as they tend to. Perhaps the fact that so many leaders come in presuming that others really care what you do as much as how you do what you do.
Regardless it doesn't seem completely out of the realm of possibility for those parts of our greater defense community that don't change out as often to be able to help those that do come up with a given set of general directions which wouldn't change because its things that both sides could agree upon.
I know thats garbled but hopefully you get what I'm trying to say
Any man can destroy that which is around him, The rare man is he who can find beauty even in the darkest hours
Cogitationis poenam nemo patitur
I not only understand, I agree
with you. That is, the idealist and even the pragmatist that is I agree. The cynic that 45 years of Guvmint service has made me OTOH says "I wish..."
Egos. I think it's egos, Ron. They just can't help thinking they can do it better ...You'd think so. Perhpas there are two parts to that. First, most of the parts of the defense community do change over perhaps too rapidly. Even on the civilian side where you'd expect more continuity. In a little over 15 years of Civil service I had six distinct jobs in four pay grades in three locations (and directly under under six Colonels and four three stars...). So the presumed continuity is not always there; we probably move people too often.Regardless it doesn't seem completely out of the realm of possibility for those parts of our greater defense community that don't change out as often to be able to help those that do come up with a given set of general directions which wouldn't change because its things that both sides could agree upon.
Secondly, it's been my observation that most Administrations I've seen in the 50 plus years I've been paying attention are not really comfortable with the Armed Forces. Eisenhower was an obvious exception and in his own way, Bush 43 was also. All the others were basically uncomfortable with the military and that includes Truman, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford and Bush 41 who were all junior officers in one war or another. Kennedy and Ford were less uncomfortable than the others but Truman was almost anti-military in many respects. Notice I left out Johnson and Reagan whose 'service' doesn't really count.
Long way of getting to the point that most admins don't interface well and the Pentagram likes it that way -- gives them more freedom. Plus we have a culture that (quote)encourages speaking out(unquote) and will crucify you all too often if you do that too regularly or loudly. That does not encourage unbiased advice and one grows up in the system inclined to be circumspect. Few are willing to be outcasts for being outspoken. That's wrong but is unlikely to change.
Add to that the major problem: At what point, even if you give bold and accurate advice only to see that advice discounted and you get told to just do it, do you accept that the guidon is planted and execute the order?
Monroe Doctrine
Given its broad interpretation and the span of time in which it guided US policy... might we consider the Monroe Doctrine as the earliest US Grand Strategy???
Just a thought
Hacksaw
Say hello to my 2 x 4
Possible, I suppose. My question would be
Is it a Grand Strategy -- or a subset and one of the earlier implementations of the policy of not tolerating threats?
I would say that it was a subset more than anything else. Our early period was focused mostly on border defense and/or expansion (depending on the time period); something of a preview of our internal focus on most things with the outside world coming into consideration only when it threatened that focus.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
a good book
There is a nice small book on grand strategy in early American history that I would recommend, John Lewis Gaddis- "Surprise, Security and the American Experience."Given its broad interpretation and the span of time in which it guided US policy... might we consider the Monroe Doctrine as the earliest US Grand Strategy???
Just a thought
Robert Kagan's "Dangerous Nation" is also a good read on the topic.
Ionut C. Popescu
Doctoral Student, Duke University - Political Science Department
It is a good book...
The first one; I don't have and have not read the second.
Gaddis uses the word strategy and policy almost interchangably. I believe that the book essentially agrees with what I was saying about 40 years before he wrote the book -- the US has never tolerated threats. The US likes disruption as a technique, he and I also agree on that (I've even been able to have fun in some of those disruptions.).
So. Are those two things strategy or policy?
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