Strategy and Policy

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STRATEGY AND POLICY
8802A

Course Overview
(Composition and Organization)
• Part I
• L1: Grand Strategy: Theory and • • • • •

• Part II
• L7: WWII: Pre-war Strategy and • •

Practice L2: National Security Decision Making L3: Economics and Policy L4: Intelligence and Policy L5: Total Force L6: National Strategic Planning

• • •

Planning L8: WWII: Why the Allies Won L9: National Security Strategy during the Cold War (with Vietnam Case Study) L10: The UN and NATO in PostCold War Era L11: Post-Cold War Contemp. Issues: China L12 Post-Cold War Contemp. Issues: Middle East

Course Overview
(Composition and Organization)
• Multimedia • DOCNET • Digitized lectures • Video interviews • Radio-style interview (audio CD included) • Exam linkage to educational objectives (EOs) • Cover EOs • Cover material on the exam

STRATEGY AND POLICY (8802A)
Lesson 1 Grand Strategy: Theory and Practice

Agenda
• Strategic Constants and Norms • International Relations Theory • Instruments/Elements of National Power • The Limits of Military Power • Strategy as a Concept and a Process • National Interests • The National Security Strategy (NSS) 2002

Requirements
1. 2. 3.

Strategic Environment Means Elements of national power

Requirement 1
• The environment
• Objective 1. Describe the various

characteristics that make up the strategic environment. • Objective 2. Explain International Relations (IR) theory and relate it to our understanding of important security issues that shape strategy.

Strategic Constants and Norms
• Physical Environment • National Character • Relationship between war and state • Balance of power mechanism

Strategic Constants and Norms
(Strategic Characteristics)
• Physical Environment: • Traditional elements: land forms, terrain, ocean and seas, climate • Spatial elements: natural resources, lines of communication • Political, economic, and social makeup of a nation results in part from physical environment • Location of international borders (land-locked vs. island nation)

Strategic Constants and Norms
(Strategic Characteristics)
• National Character: • Character derived from: location, language, culture, religion, societal politics, historical circumstances • Always evolving • Psychological profile” of each nation or political group involved in the conflict:
• Enemies • Allies • Potential enemies and allies • One’s own nation

Strategic Constants and Norms
(Strategic Characteristics)
• The Relationship between War and the State: • A state will almost always become involved • States are normally replaced by other states or groups • Generally, a state is remarkably tough and enduring
• Context of the state system(s) • No political entity is permanent

Strategic Constants and Norms
(Strategic Characteristics)
• The Balance of Power Mechanism: • “status quo” in the distribution of power • no one dominant entity or group of entities • more than one political power center • Breaks down if:
• One or more of the participants rebel • A power vacuum occurs

International Relations Theory
• Main schools • Realism • Idealism/liberalism • Characteristics
• Problem • Actors • Characteristics

International Relations Theory
• Realism: • Central problem: war and the use of force • Central actors: states interacting with other states ( • Anarchic system of states
• Hobbs, “Just as stormy weather does not mean perpetual rain, so a

state of war does not mean constant war.” • Thucydides, “The strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept” (Penguin translation).
• View: International politics is a jungle dominated by the

exercise of power and power politics

International Relations Theory
• Idealism/Liberalism: • Views a global society that functions alongside the states and sets part of the context for states • Trade crosses borders, people have global contacts, and international institutions (UN, NATO, etc.) create a context in which the realist view of pure anarchy is insufficient • International system: community • State of war focuses only on extreme situations and misses the growth of economic interdependence and the evolution of a transnational global society • Views international politics as a garden

Requirement 2
• Objective 3. Describe how national-

level strategy and policy incorporates the instruments of national power as a means of exercising power and influence.

Instruments/Elements of National Power
• Diplomatic/political • Informational • Military • Economic

Instruments/Elements of National Power
• Diplomatic/Political: The use of a country’s

international diplomatic skills and political position to achieve national interests • Informational: The use of a country’s information systems to achieve national interests • Military: The extent a country’s armed forces can be used to achieve national interests. • Economic: The application of a country’s material resources to achieve national interests

The Limits of Military Power
• Political and psychological limits • Legitimacy and the credible capacity to coerce • Physical limits

The Limits of Military Power
• Culminating points • Strategic and operational culminating points: • Culminating points short of victory:

Requirement 3
• Objective 4. Determine how the full

dimension of strategy as a concept and as a process relates to the policy, strategy, and military operations relationship.

Strategy as a Concept and a Process


The Strategy Process:
1. Determining national security objectives 2. Formulating grand strategy 3. Developing military strategy 4. Designing operational strategy 5. Formulating battlefield strategy (tactics)

Strategy as a Concept and a Process
• Strategy • the bridge between policy and operations • Effective strategy must integrate political and military criteria rather than separate them • Civilian and military leaders may tend to polarize toward opposite sides of the bridge

Key Points
L1: Grand Strategy: Theory and Practice (continued)

POLICY
Democracy

Strategy Grand

OPERATIONS

Strategy as a Concept and a Process

• • • •

Complicating factors
steps not neat or compartmentalized but blend and flow from national security objectives to tactics reverse flow or feedback system within the process Numerous external factors have influence where and by whom are decisions decisions made

Strategy as a Concept and a Process


Characteristics of political/policy strategic objectives:
First step in making strategy is deciding which political objectives a strategy will aim to achieve • These objectives should establish: • Definitions for survival and victory for all participants in the conflict • Whether the nation is pursuing a limited or unlimited political objective


Strategy as a Concept and a Process

• • •

Characteristics of military strategic objectives:
Military objectives flow from political/policy objectives Use of military power should not produce unintended or undesirable political results Must consider centers of gravity and critical vulnerabilities

National Interests


Vital national interests:
An interest on which the nation is unwilling to compromise • An interest over which a nation would go to war




Sometimes interests are categorized
Survival • Vital • Major • Peripheral


Requirement 4
• Objective 5. Discuss how the current U.

S. National Security Strategy integrates the various elements of national power to achieve its goals and objectives.

National Security Strategy
(September 2002) Goals
• Champion aspirations for human dignity • Strengthen alliances to defeat global terrorism and

work to prevent attacks against us and our friends • Work with others to defuse regional conflicts • Prevent our enemies from threatening us, our allies, and our friends with weapons of mass destruction

National Security Strategy
(September 2002) Goals
• Ignite a new era of global economic growth through

free markets and free trade • Expand the circle of development by opening societies and building the infrastructure of democracy • Develop agendas for cooperative action with other main centers of global power • Transform America’s national security institutions to meet the challenges and opportunities of the twentyfirst century

Summary
• Agenda • Strategic Constants and Norms • International Relations Theory • Instruments/Elements of National Power • The Limits of Military Power • Strategy as a Concept and a Process • National Interests • The National Security Strategy (NSS) 2002

Points to remember
• The Notions of the IR Theories • Characteristics of the strategic environment • Aspects of the “M” instrument • Themes of the policy and strategy relationship and

process • Political/policy and Military Objectives • NSS 2002 Objectives and Elements

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