Do Senior Professional Military Education Schools Produce Strategists?

[John T. Fishel]

and as Steve points out....

[Old Eagle]

As a former Army strategist (ASI 6Z back then), I wasn't "produced" anywhere. I was developed over a course of civilian and military education coupled with assignments where I plied the trade under the mentorship of some really remarkable folks.

Apropos resources -- Remember Art Lykke's formulation of Ends+Ways+Means, where means were resources, both tangible and intangible. (Don't get me started on Art's 3-legged stool; it's clear that Art wasn't and engineer.)

[slapout9]

Apropos resources -- Remember Art Lykke's formulation of Ends+Ways+Means, where means were resources, both tangible and intangible. (Don't get me started on Art's 3-legged stool; it's clear that Art wasn't and engineer.)

Old Eagle go ahead and get started on the 3 legged stool

[John T. Fishel]

just taught strategy at CGSC and did it in SOUTHCOM. As Gabriel Marcella says, we teach about strategy but not how to craft a strategy. And we still teach Art Lykke's version. Anyway, I do in my university classes and mostly I give him credit.

If I were designing a course for strategists, the major assignments would be to craft a series of strategies from Theater level thru the NMS to the NSS. In other words, I would ask my budding strategists to cover the full range of the strategic level of war thru the overlap with the operational. If I were dealing with civilian strategists, I would modify the assignments to reflect their institutional location.

Of course, what we rarely mention in discussing strategies is Lykke's FAS test: Feasibility, Acceptability, Suitability. But then who wants to know in advance if one's strategy has much of a chance of being successful?

Cheers

JohnT

[William F. Owen]

Apropos resources -- Remember Art Lykke's formulation of Ends+Ways+Means, where means were resources, both tangible and intangible. (Don't get me started on Art's 3-legged stool; it's clear that Art wasn't and engineer.)

Ends+Ways+Means, was Clausewitz's "paradoxical trinity." It's also the partial basis for UK Doctrines, 3 elements of Combat power

[zenpundit]

Grand strategy for the US is made (or the responsibility of) the President with the advice of his NSC. It is published as the National Security Strategy of the US supposedly annually according to the Goldwater-Nichols Act. Because it is unclassified, it is inherently a partisan political document - some more so, some less. (The best of these was the final one published by the Budh 41 Adminsitration.) The NSC includes the CJCS as a statutory advisor; therefore, the military has appropriately input to US grand strategy. Note that the NSS is, in reality, a bureaucratic product so the Joint Staff and OSD are players. Key players from both as well as the NSC staff often wear military uniforms.

All true but that may or may not really become a grand strategy, which to be operational, has to exist as a shared set of assumptions among the broad elite, not just among a few members of agovernment bureaucracy during a particular administration. Cranking out policy docs will not cut it. The grand strategy has to be accepted deeply by the American people, or at least their broad leadership, or it rests on sand.

Containment was a grand strategy. So was the Atlantic Charter. So was the Open Door and the Monroe Doctrine. They were grand strategies because their core transcended normal partisanship and, in practice, became a frame of reference with which partisans and officials understood, framed and debated policy options and strategic goals. The grand strategy represented a vital consensus.

America lacks a real grand strategy right now because it is deeply divided between Left and Right and between elite and masses and few politicians care to do the hard work of building such a consensus or have the longitudinal perspective to see the need to do so. Short term thinking prevails.

[Steve Blair]

America lacks a real grand strategy right now because it is deeply divided between Left and Right and between elite and masses and few politicians care to do the hard work of building such a consensus or have the longitudinal perspective to see the need to do so. Short term thinking prevails.

I would argue that when the older examples of grand strategy were framed, America was also deeply divided. The difference is that there wasn't a great deal of concern and/or recognition of the masses as such. Decision-making was much more insulated than it is today, making it easier to frame and carry out grand strategies. There's also the matter of overall context for the framing of those strategies. Obviously grand strategy is a flexible thing, but it's dangerous to draw historical comparisons without context.

[Ken White]

Living through the period and being a borderline adult when it began and assisting in small ways with its implementation for 45 years, I can only say that:

- Steve is right, there were divides between policy elites and the mass of the nation; rich and poor, the various armed forces, Congress and the WH, members of the punditocracy and political ideologies that were just as deep as they seem today -- the difference today is simply that we are less restrained in our speech to the point of egregious incivility and significantly improved and easier mass communication lets everyone know that.

We also seem to have not learned much history...

- Containment was not a strategy, it like the Monroe doctrine was a Policy that was generally followed when it suited (and was ignored when it did not) and a series of Strategies -- and stratagems -- were developed by all the eight Presidents who served while the policy was in being. Each mostly different; most, in hindsight, not as useful as many thought. ADDED: After some thought, I'd even say that some if not most of those strategies were really counterproductive.

[John T. Fishel]

but disagree on the latter.

But first, a digression. There is not much agreement on what constitutes Grand Strategy. Steve Metz uses Barry Posen's definition which is not really different from a definition of foreign and security policy. Of course, Steve modifies the definition he has chosen to use toward the end of his book to bring in the "Ways and Means" - especially the latter. Some Grand Strategies are effective, some are not - just like military strategies and theater strategies. I see GS as how a state chooses to organize its resources (both tangible and intangible) and employ them to achieve its objectives in face of the objectives of others (which may or may not be threats). Usually, these are written as documents - the NSS is an attempt, imposed by Congress, to force the Executive to produce and puiblish a GS.

Containment was, indeed, a policy. Kennan's Long Telegram - later published as the X Article - was less than a strategy. It stated a goal in line with an assessment of the threat and argued that if the USSR's expansion were "contained" (a shorthand description of a "way"), the goal would be achieved. NSC 68 turned the policy into strategy and GS at that. It spelled out the ways and the means (resources) and served us well throughout the Cold War with some tweaking. Did it have to be written? Not in theory but in practice writing it out was necessary and functionally so to achieve an effective GS.

Cheers

JohnT

[Bob's World]

At the Duke Conference on Grand Strategy that I was fortunate enough to attend a comment was made and widely concurred with that:

"Grand Strategy is typically crafted by some speech writer, and then discovered 20 years later by some historian looking back for a way to explain or describe what had transpired" or words to that effect.

Most appear to be built around some threat as a focal point and are more a naming after the fact of what has been done then any cogent scheme going in.

You'd think we be smarter than that. But as mentioned above, if Grand Strategy is some "vital consensus;" that's virtually impossible to get on the front end. Far easier to describe what the majority position actually did post facto.


But here we are today. I am intrigued by FDR's approach to Grand Strategy, and he had one that he was prepared to employ following WWII, but died before he could implement it. I think it makes a great point of departure for looking at what a Grand Strategy might look like today (tailored for the new realities, of course):

1. The "Four Freedoms": Of Speech, of Religion, from fear, from want

2. The "Four Policemen": The United States, Great Britain, Russia, and China

3. The End of Colonialism

4. The promotion of Self Determination


Churchill blanched at any partnership with Russia or China; and was adamantly opposed to ending colonialism.

There must be greater shared responsibility for world order today, though the number may be more than 4, the states have changed, and "policeman" may not be the best role; and certainly the remnants of colonialism are at the heart of so many conflicts; as is the denial of self determination.

So my vote is we put FDR's position on the table and move forward from there. We could do a lot worse.

[George L. Singleton]

Overall I find William F. Owen's comments best synthesize the practical and textbook facts and history of "strategy."

National strategy or goal setting by the President as supported by the NSC is good on paper, but the interpersonal direct influence of the SECDEF and SECSTATE have disproportionate implications. I used to say the same about the Director of the CIA but not too sure about that these days.

As from slamming Senator McCain over a beer discussion I find that tasteless and rude and totally unnecessary, perhaps pandering to political correctness with another as our now new President.

We all owe our allegiance to whoever our President is and if we differ with him or her (future tense thinking) we work our disagreements through our Congressmen and Senators and at the next Presidential election.

My two cents.

[slapout9]

Wilf,Ken as Gomer Pyle would say Thank Ya,Thank Ya,Thank Ya for proving my points! I have to go do stuff but I will respond later and perhaps I can splain stuff mo better better