Science, Strategy and War The Strategic Theory of ... - Boekje Pienter

vacuum: if the strategic function is lacking, strategic effect will be generated by the casual, ifperhaps unguided and unwanted accumulation of tactical and operational outcomes 23 .Strategy has both extrinsic and intrinsic value. The extrinsic merit in strategy lies inits utility for keeping the military assets of a particular security community roughly in balancewith the demands and opportunities that flow as stimuli from the outside world, or inorganization theoretical terms, in its utility to maintain organizational fitness. The intrinsicmerit in strategy resides in its role as conductor of the orchestra of military and other assetsso that they can be applied economically to serve political objectives. Strategy transformstactical performance into strategic effect for strategic performance in the service of policy 24 .Making good strategy is difficultStrategy is also very difficult, and may remain even an illusion the following reasons:• strategies cannot be evaluated because there are no agreed criteria for which are good orbad;• there is little demonstrable relationship between strategies and outcomes of war;• good strategies can seldom be formulated because of policymakers’ biases;• if good strategies are formulated, they cannot be executed because of organizations’limitations;• prediction and control is fraud with difficulties due to political and military complexity 25 .While strategy is necessary, it has proven very difficult to devise, implement and executemeaningful and effective strategy. Those who experience or study wars find strong reasonsto doubt that strategists can know enough about the causes, effects, and intervening variablesto make the operations planned produce the outcomes desired 26 . However, he concludes,there is no alternative to engage in strategy unless one is willing to give up the use of force asan instrument of policy 27 . Although sensible strategy is not impossible, it is usually difficultand risky, and what works in one case may not work in another that seems similar. All thisindeterminacy suggests some caution 28 .Colin Gray similarly warns of fundamental difficulties of strategy, some of whichmirror those mentioned by Betts. First, competence in strategy requires mastery of aparticular challenging complexity. The strategist needs to understand what is tactically andoperationally possible in all geographical environments; what success or failure in eachenvironment contributes to performance in the other environments; what that all means formilitary performance writ large; and what general military performance means to policy (andvise versa). Moreover the growing complexity of the subject renders it more difficult todaythan it was a century ago. As the character of force has diversified with the addition of theair, space, cyberspace and nuclear environments, the tasks of the strategist has grown evermore difficult in practice.Second, by its very nature strategy is more demanding of the intellect and perhapsthe imagination than is any structurally more simple activity - policy, operations, tactics, etc.Excellence in strategy requires the strategist to transcends simple categories of thought. The23 Gray Modern Strategy , p.50.24 Ibid, p.47.25 Betts, p.5.26 Ibid.27 Ibid, p.47.28 Ibid, p.48.17