Do Senior Professional Military Education Schools Produce Strategists?

[John T. Fishel]

Great additions You are right about even classified strategies being political to some extent. The are LESS partisan, however. Not non or bi-partisan, just less partisan. Part of what made the final Bush 41 NSS so good was that it was significantly less partisan then previous ones due to the fact that it was crafted to assist the incoming Clinton Administration. A second reason was that the managing editor was COL Geoff Jones on the NSC staff, one of the brightest Army officers I've ever met with a really good sense of the political.

I would also add to predictions, presumptions, and assumptions the notion of inferences. Inference can often be confused with presumptions and assumptions (as IMO Steve Metz does in his recent book). I would also note that inferences are less than predictions but may be a critical way station.

[Ken White]

I would also add to predictions, presumptions, and assumptions the notion of inferences. Inference can often be confused with presumptions and assumptions (as IMO Steve Metz does in his recent book). I would also note that inferences are less than predictions but may be a critical way station.

"Indications lead me to believe..."

Yep -- a very critical way station and where, as Slap alludes, one can and often does go wrong very easily...

[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.

[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.