1. The document discusses the challenges of developing and implementing sound strategy. It defines strategy as connecting military means and tactics to the political objectives of a conflict. 2. Several experts are cited who note that strategy is more difficult than tactics or acquiring new weapons. Strategy requires understanding an enemy's capabilities as well as one's own national interests and capabilities. 3. The document aims to provide conceptual tools for strategic thinking rather than set rules. It will analyze historical case studies and cultivate critical thinking skills over prescriptive lessons.

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(1.5L, 2.0 S) Instructional Period 6401
Title: Strategy: What is it? Why is it difficult? OPR: CDR Bob Poling, DES
…our peace strategy must formulate our war strategy, by which I mean that
there cannot be two forms of strategy, one for peace and one for war without
wastage – moral, physical and material when war breaks out. The first duty
of the grand strategist is, therefore, to appreciate the commercial and
financial position of his country; to discover what its resources and
liabilities are. Secondly, he must understand the moral characteristics of his
countrymen, their history, peculiarities, social customs and systems of
government, for all these quantities and qualities form the pillars of the
military arch which it is duty to construct.
J.F.C. Fuller, The Reformation of War, 1923.
Introduction: Presidents, diplomats, generals, and scholars from the disciplines of history, political
science, and international relations all stress that creating and implementing sound strategy is both more
difficult and more important than perfecting tactics or purchasing improved, more capable weapon
systems. Without sound strategy, one can win the overwhelming majority of tactical engagements and
still lose a war. Without sound strategy, one can conduct brilliant campaigns and still fail to achieve the
political objective for which the war was waged. In short, sound strategy trumps both operational and
tactical brilliance in that it connects the “how” and “with what” war is fought with the purpose of the war.
Put differently, strategy is the bridge connecting the means, ways and ends of war.
This simple idea has been articulated in various ways over time. For Baron Antoine Henri de Jomini
writing during the Napoleonic period, strategy encompassed the whole theater and was “the art of making
war upon the map.” (Jomini, Art of War, 69). His contemporary Carl von Clausewitz belittled this
definition, insisting instead that “Strategy is the use of the engagement for the purpose of the war,”
cautioning that the aim of any particular war should determine the series of actions intended to achieve it.
The most recent joint US doctrine publications on the matter, JP 3.0 (11 Aug 2011) & JP 1-02 (15 March
2012) offer the rather ponderous definition of strategy as “A prudent idea or set of ideas for employing
the instruments of national power in a synchronized and integrated fashion to achieve theater, national,
and/or multinational objectives.” The US Air Force defines strategy in slightly different terms as
“Strategy is the continuous process of matching ends, ways, and means to accomplish desired goals
within acceptable levels of risk” (AFDD 1 14 Oct 2011). Finally, the other services either lack a
comprehensive definition of strategy or have a different definition all together thus complicating the
understanding of strategy.
If coming up with a common definition of strategy can be complicated, selecting, formulating, and
implementing strategy is even more complicated. Colin Gray, in a brilliant little essay which you will
read titled “Why Strategy is Difficult” (JFQ, Summer 1999) made the following claims:
“First, Strategy is neither policy nor armed combat; rather it is the bridge between them…
Neither experts in politics and policy nor experts in fighting need necessarily be experts
in strategy.”

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“Second, strategy is perilously complex by its very nature. Every element or dimension can
impact all others.”
“Third, it is extraordinarily difficult, perhaps impossible, to train strategists.” Quoting
Napoleon, Gray notes that “knowledge of the higher conduct of war can only be acquired
by studying the history of wars and the battles of great generals and by one’s own
experience. There are no terse and precise rules at all… a thousand other circumstances
make things never look alike”
“Finally, it is critical to flag an under-recognized source of friction, the will, skill, and means of
an intelligent and malevolent enemy.”
Creating strategists may indeed be extraordinarily difficult, but this course aims to give you key
conceptual tools, offers the opportunity to learn from others by applying these tools to analyze how
strategy was crafted and implemented in various historical contexts, and lastly challenges you to assess
contemporary strategies drawing upon both theory and historical understanding. Our aim, echoing
Clausewitz, is not to construct a model of war which provides rules and answers that you can take and
apply whatever the battlefield but rather to instill critical thinking skills which will enable you to think
strategically across a wide range of geopolitical contexts and settings. We mean to “educate the mind of
the future commander, or, more accurately, to guide [you] in [your] self-education.”(Clausewitz, “Theory
should be study, not doctrine” p.141)
With this in mind the readings selected for this IP come from some of the giants of strategic thought.
Colin S. Gray, Michael Howard, Carl Builder and Hew Strachan, all eminent scholars, have devoted a
significant portion of their long and distinguished careers to the study of strategy. These readings are
designed to stimulate thought and perhaps reevaluate your understanding of strategy. Ultimately, you
should come to realize that there is not an all-encompassing understanding of strategy, but countless
understandings with subtle differences and nuance, which you may draw on to create an understanding of
strategy that resonates with you.
Lesson Objective: Analyze the meaning of the term strategy, assess the interaction between the various
dimensions of strategy, and evaluate the challenges of crafting strategy.
Joint Professional Military Education Learning Areas (JPMELA) covered in this IP:
1. National Security Strategy
2. National Military Strategy
3. Joint Warfare, Theater Strategy and Campaigning
6. Joint Strategic Leadership
Phase II JPMELA: 1a, 2a, 3e, 6c
SAE: 9
Nuclear Enterprise Objectives: none
Desired Learning Outcomes:
1. Analyze the concept of strategy. (Phase II JPMELA: 1a, 2a, 3e, 6c)
2. Assess the dimensions of strategy. (Phase II JPMELA: 1a, 2a, 3e, 6c)
3. Evaluate the challenges of crafting strategy. (Phase II JPMELA: 1a, 2a, 3e, 6c)
Questions for Study and Discussion:

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1. Drawing upon the lecture and the Builder and Howard readings, how has strategy been defined?
Which definitions do you find most compelling? Least compelling? What do the various definitions
have in common?
2. Having defined strategy, let us turn to analyzing what the selection, formulation, and execution of
strategy entails. What are the dimensions of strategy as defined by Howard? To what extent can
anyone master these multiple dimensions?
3. Why is strategy difficult? Who is responsible for strategy? If Gray is correct that it is
“extraordinarily difficult, perhaps impossible, to train strategists,” how can one educate oneself and
increase one’s knowledge of strategy so that one has a firm understanding of the subject?
4. One of the methods we will use in this course is analyzing the success and failure of strategies in past
conflicts. How can these historical examples help decision-makers? Should we be trying to derive
strategic principles and “lessons learned”? Or are we after something more subtle, the cultivation of
critical thinking skills?
Assigned Readings:
1. Carl H. Builder, The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis (Baltimore,
Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), pp. 47-56.
2. Michael Howard, “The Forgotten Dimensions of Strategy,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 57, No. 5 (Summer
1979), pp. 975-986.
3. Colin S. Gray, “Why Strategy is Difficult,” Joint Force Quarterly 22 (1999), pp. 6-12.
4. Stephan Fruhling, “Uncertainty, Forecasting and the Difficulty of Strategy,” Comparative Strategy
Vol. 25, No. 1 (2006), pp. 19-31.
5. Hew Strachan, The Direction of War: Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2013), chap. 1.
Suggested Readings:
John Baylis, James Wirtz & Colin Gray, eds., Strategy in the Contemporary World (Oxford UK: Oxford
University Press, 2010).
Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 1999).
Colin S. Gray, Airpower for Strategic Effect (Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, 2012).
Michael I. Handel, Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought, 3rd ed. (London: Frank Cass, 2001).
Beatrice Heuser, The Evolution of Strategy: Thinking War from Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge UK:
Cambridge U. Press, 2010).
Paul Kennedy, Grand Strategy in War and Peace (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991).
Edward Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1987).
Thomas G. Mahnken and Joseph A. Maiolo, eds., Strategic Studies: A Reader (New York: Routledge,
2008).
Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox and Alvin Bernstein, Making Strategy: Rulers, States and War
(Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1986).
Hew Strachan, The Direction of War: Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2013).

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Harry R. Yarger, Strategic Theory for the 21st Century (Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute, February,
2006).