|
|
Strategy on the International Stage
| Article
# : |
11620 |
|
|
Section : |
BOOK WORLD
|
| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1986 |
4,052 Words |
| Author
: |
Donald J. Senese
|
ON THE MEANING OF VICTORY: ESSAYS ON STRATEGY
Edward N. Luttwak
Simon & Schuster, 1986
335 pp., $18.95
Asserting that the essential nature of strategy embraces a knowledge of the art of war and tactics, scholar and military analyst Edward N. Luttwak laments that the United States, which has allowed its armed strength to decline beyond the limits of tolerable risks, puts too much emphasis on bookkeeping (efficiency) over strategy (effectiveness).
The result of this misplaced emphasis and failure to devise a long-range strategy for effective action in the international arena allows potential threats to become actual (the Persian Gulf) and consequently will increase strategic and tactical problems for the United States. "What this republic badly needs in its defense establishment," Luttwak asserts in On the Meaning of Victory: Essays on Strategy as he warms to his theme is "the wisdom of strategy and certainly not better 'management' or yet more 'efficiency'" (p. 115).
Luttwak brings impressive credentials to his task: Senior Fellow at the Center for strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University, a consultant to the U.S. Defense Department, and author of numerous articles and books on military issues and strategic analysis. His style is direct, clarifying some of the more complex issues for the defense and foreign policy specialist as well as for the uninitiated novice in the field. His essays seek to shape the question: Where does strategy belong in the arsenal of a nation's foreign and defense policies?
The Strategic Concept
The origin of the term "strategy" comes from the Greek word strategos meaning the "art of the general," reflecting a direct link to military battle but in a broader context to national policy carried on by military means. Although strategy has played some role in the activities and plans of various nation states throughout history, the eighteenth century gave it a more precise meaning reflecting the stratagems, by which a general sought to deceive an enemy, that is, the way he planned to deplore his forces in war.
Strategy soon began occupying a greater role as the plan for the battle, occupying and even preempting the whole field of generalship short of the battlefield while tactics assumed the role of executing plans and handling military forces. Strategy moved from the realm of military commanders to the prerogative of the nation's rulers as nation states emerged and warfare became more complex and more highly developed.
There have been no end to philosophers on the art of war and peace in history. Nicollo Machiavelli (1949-1517), the political philosopher who may well have been the first theorist of the modern state, in his work The Prince and the Art of War, recognized the larger aspect of war and the close relationship between the civil and military spheres. In a broader context strategy gives tactics its mission for the field commander or the nation state.
We are far removed from the time that Napoleon could ride to the crest of a
...
Read Full Article
|
|
