Embracing a Void - The Comprehensive Approach to Strategy_LtColCS_MacGregor copy

Embracing A Void -
The Comprehensive Approach As A Collaborative Wrap to Strategy
Lt Col C S MacGregor KRH
(dq024353)
31 July 2012
Supervisor: Professor Beatrice Heuser
Word Count: 16428
The views expressed within this submission are mine alone and do not reflect the official views of the British Army
or the Ministry of Defence. I certify that all material in this dissertation which is not my own work has been
properly identified and that no material is included for which a degree has been conferred upon me.
CONTENTS
Abstract
Preface
Acronyms
Dedication
Introduction p. 7
Chapter 1 - Context p. 10
Chapter 2 - Strategy p. 24
Chapter 3 - The Comprehensive Approach p. 35
Chapter 4 - Reinvestment in Afghanistan p. 43
Chapter 5 - Embracing a Void p. 60

Chapter 6 - Conclusion p. 70
Bibliography p. 79
ABSTRACT
“The utility of a cup is in its void”
General Sir Rupert Smith, 2011
The objective of this thesis is to examine the interdependence of a comprehensive approach and strategy. Both are
required, ideally in collaboration with explicit foreign policy objectives, to achieve the successful creation of grand
strategy that meets national interests and benefits multiple stakeholders.
Tactically, UK forces, diplomats and development agents are excellent but at higher levels a lack of strategic
insight leads to incoherence. Military power has been the most significant instrument in the plan to clear, hold,
build and transition from Afghanistan, but the implementation of COIN doctrine has been wrought with difficulty
and may ultimately fail because the root causes of the grievances in Afghanistan have not been understood or dealt
with in harmony across all lines of operation or the region as a whole. A comprehensive approach and strategy
must be paired, and conducted as one, to be effective and enable a better peace.
The utility of a cup is in its void. If correctly constructed, the comprehensive approach should act as a
'collaborative wrap' to actively balance, challenge and discipline the components of strategy by providing the void
in which it is conceived and executed. If a comprehensive approach is not constructed at all, effective strategy will
not be conceived. If it is too small or cracked, strategy will overflow or leak out. Without policy and the
reconciliation of ends, ways and means that is good strategy, a comprehensive approach is futile. Both cup and
void are essential components of the other. These central principles explain the utility of the comprehensive
approach to challenge, contain and enable successful strategy.
Although the 2001 intervention into Afghanistan is well explained, there is much debate as to the veracity of the
UK’s strategic decision-making that accompanied the UK’s re-investment into Helmand Province in 2005/6. An
examination of these events provides the medium through which the thesis is demonstrated.
PREFACE
As a young officer, I knew I could serve others through leadership and command. I arrived in Macedonia in 1999,
with the King’s Royal Hussars (KRH) Lead Armoured Battlegroup, prepared to advance into Kosovo and fight if
necessary. Although eager and well prepared, we were not called upon to do so. Having coerced and deterred, our
mission was then to ameliorate. As subalterns and soldiers, we operated for the benefit of the population,
unconcerned by the tortured international politics above us.
Guided by Brigadier James Bashall, Commander 1 Mechanised Brigade, and Lieutenant Colonel James Swift, 2
ROYAL WELSH, I commanded D Squadron, KRH in Basra, Iraq in 2007. Like all those before us, my soldiers
gave selflessly all that they were asked to, and did so with professionalism and courage. It was on Operation
TELIC 10 that I began to question the strategic understanding of politicians and the utility of the force that we had
at our disposal. Although essential in large state-on-state warfare, and as a deterrent to others, the concepts and
equipment with which the war in Iraq was conceived, planned and conducted were already out of date. Had we a
comprehensive strategy in 2003, we may not have been distracted from Afghanistan and have entered Iraq, or we
may have not had to be become part of the problem of 2007. Many lessons were identified from our experiences in
Iraq, but many were not learnt by the time the UK reinvested in Afghanistan in 2006. This paper is an attempt to
further the cause of collaboration in context to prevent tactical excellence and treasury expenditure being wasted
through strategic inadequacy.

Given the character of the contemporary operating environment and the global challenges that face us if we pursue
a mindset that encourages self-interest, at all levels, over unity of effort, I am called to Colonel David Hackworth’s
epilogue:
“And if it appears odd that a self-professed warrior is now pushing the line for peace (or at least a better
way to resolve conflict), in fact I am only joining …[those who]… recognize that the stakes of war have
grown too high to be a viable problem solver”.[1]
Clear, decisive, military victories at the operational or even strategic levels as espoused in the Napoleonic
paradigm, are unlikely. Having reflected on strategy with Professors Colin Gray and Beatrice Heuser for a year,
and invested 9 months in ISAF Joint Command, I feel honoured to have started to understand what many have not
yet seen. The simplest lessons of all are that people do not rise up without a cause and that war is the continuation
of politics by other means. If the outcome is to be a better peace, strategy requires both a clear declaration and
understanding of policy and the ability to reconcile declared ends with the effective ways and available means to
achieve added value for the mutual benefit of all stakeholders. In order to be valuable, national strategy must be
conceived and implemented in a global context and through the collaborative interaction of all the levers of power
to generate a holistic effect. Only through a comprehensive approach can strategy offer a better and more aligned
future for all concerned.
ACRONYMS
AF-PAK Afghanistan-Pakistan
ANSF Afghan National Security Forces
AQ Al-Qaeda
ASG Afghan Steering Group, Whitehall.
CA Comprehensive Approach
CDS Chief of the Defence Staff
CGS Chief of the General Staff
DfID Department for International Development
DSACEUR Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe
FCO Foreign and Commonwealth Office
GIROA Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
HCSC House of Commons Select Committee
HMG Her Majesty’s Government
IO International Organisation
IJC ISAF Joint Command
ISAF International Security and Assistance Force
MOD Ministry of Defence
MFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs
NGO Non-Governmental Organisation
NSC National Security Council
NSCO National Security Council Officials
NSS National Security Strategy
OGD Other Government Departments
PASC Public Affairs Select Committee
PASG Pakistan-Afghanistan Steering Group
PCRU Post Conflict Reconstruction Unit

PJHQ Permanent Joint Headquarters
SU Stabilisation Unit
SDSR Strategic Defence and Security Review
SRAP Senior Representative for Afghanistan & Pakistan
DEDICATION
Major Matthew Collins IRISH GUARDS.
Husband, Father, Soldier, Friend.
Who died alongside L/Sgt Mark Burgan on 23 March 2011 in Helmand, Afghanistan.
We will remember them.
INTRODUCTION
Objective
The objective of this thesis is to understand better the symbiotic relationship between a comprehensive approach
and the creation and execution of strategy for mutual benefit, i.e. the protection or advancement of national, host-
nation and coalition interests through the use, or threat, of power to achieve a better peace.
Thesis
History indicates that when fuelled by the fear of conflict or war itself, militaries and the industrial, political and
media stakeholders that support them, have a collective momentum that can promote conflict and cause divergence
from the original strategic purpose(s). Without constant adjustment and constraint, this self-perpetuated
momentum has the potential to greedily absorb resources and negatively affect political decision-making through
an incoherent conflation of objectives and strategic interests. The sources of this misalignment are manifold, but
may include chance, complexity, the nature of war itself to tend towards the absolute[2], its non-linearity and the
accompanying political imperatives that drive short-term decision-making. Using the UK’s reinvestment in
Afghanistan in 2006 as a crucible for exploration, this paper argues that coherent strategy, defined as the threat, or
use, of force for the ends of policy[3], is an essential element of a comprehensive approach to stabilisation, and vice
versa. The two are united concepts. Without a holistic mindset, strategic understanding, a unification of effort
across stakeholders and an ability to pursue the methods and purpose of war with force as one instrument of power
alongside others, neither concept will offer success easily.
In describing the requirement of a senior military commander to forge the battlespace in which he fights, General

Sir Rupert Smith offered the idea that “the utility of a cup is in its void”.[4] This metaphor is developed to
illustrate the interrelated nature of a comprehensive approach and strategy. If correctly constructed, the
comprehensive approach should act as a collaborative wrap to actively balance and discipline the components of
strategy by providing the void in which it is conceived, executed and assessed. If a comprehensive approach to
policy is not constructed at all, effective strategy cannot be conceived in context. If there is no strategy, there is no
gravitational pull to hold the elements of the cup together and it may collapse through irrelevance. If the cup is
too small to provide sufficient constraint, or cracked through collaborative weakness, strategy will overflow or
creep out and the use of force will no longer be bound in magnitude or duration by the requirements of the original
political purpose.[5]
Outline
Although it is simple to see the world through Newtonian principles of cause and effect, a mechanistic philosophy
does not offer solutions for all thought. Given the increasing understanding of global interconnectivity and “the
non-linear reality of the problems posed by war”,[6] Chapter 1 addresses the context in which the UK and other
nations currently exist and outlines the importance in recognizing the broad and multifaceted nature of risk and
insecurity and the utility of force in stabilisation.
The difficulties of understanding and implementing a comprehensive approach are magnified by our failure to
develop and execute strategy. Chapter 2 examines the nature of strategy and how it is that we have lost our way.
The importance of military strategy is set against the requirements of grand strategy within the context of a
comprehensive approach and an evolved definition is offered.
Chapter 3 defines the Comprehensive Approach and highlights the requirement to conduct a collaborative analysis
of problems and planning that acknowledges the presence of multiple perspectives and instruments of power.
Despite multiple lines of comprehensive planning and some tactical excellence, Afghanistan will be remembered as
a cauldron of strategic illiteracy. The case-study of the UK’s reinvestment into Helmand in 2006 in Chapter 4 is
offered to examine the tension between Britain’s political intent and its manifestation as tactical execution and
highlights the requirement to reconcile ends with way and means.
Chapter 5 explains the theory of Embracing the Void. The comprehensive wrap provides unity of effort through the
collaborative weave of interagency stakeholders to create the void in which strategy occurs. The author suggests 5
key benefits of void theory: Raison d’être, Reference, Regard, Restriction and Response that, in combination,

permit strategy to be conceived and executed in dynamic balance.
1
CONTEXT IS KING
“…the material culture of war
(the weaponry used and the associated supply systems)
which tend to be the focus of attention, is less important than
its social, cultural and political context and enablers”[7]
Jeremy Black, 2004
As Clausewitz identified, war has an enduring nature, but its character changes across time and space.[8] Those
that mistake one for the other may also misinterpret the requirements of strategy in an ever-changing operating
environment. In the last two decades Western military forces have been employed in a series of confrontations,
unilaterally and in coalition, that have demonstrated both awesome kinetic power and, paradoxically, the limitations
of military affect. General Sir Rupert Smith has questioned the utility of force in a world of conflict between armed
opponents seeking opposing military objectives and in the wider confrontation where the objectives sought can
only be “achieved through a combination of means - political, economic, humanitarian and possibly military”.[9]
The costly interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have been widely criticized and highlight “the problem of
formulating strategy and carrying it through coherently - a problem the UK now acknowledges that it has”.[10]
Despite the complexities of doing it well, the reconciliation of ends, ways and means remains essential to the
pursuit of power in the complex and rapidly changing contemporary environment in which political-military
decision-making takes place. To appreciate the magnitude and difficulty of strategy formulation, implementation
and measurement, aligned in a holistic approach, it is important to understand the circumstances in which these
activities occur. By outlining the complex, interrelated and yet often disconnected nature of the early 21st century,
this chapter seeks to paint a context to frame the discussion as to how and why a comprehensive approach is of
such importance to strategy, and vice versa. Although dealt with in detail in later chapters, a “comprehensive
approach” is initially defined as an holistic integration of civilian and military stakeholder perspectives,[11]
resources and activity to achieve dynamic balance and “strategy” as the use, or threat, of force to achieve the ends
of policy.[12]

It is impossible to discuss the interaction of every global, regional, national or domestic factor that affects how we
have, and might, act in the 21st century. However, if the purpose of the comprehensive approach is to harmonise
ambition, capability and resources it is necessary to highlight some of the broader ideas and realities that have
affected the environment in which decision-making and action have occurred; these range from the personal, to the
organizational, national and global. In terms of ambition, recent Western strategy has been caught between the
Napoleonic paradigm and wars of choice fought ethically. Kinetic capability has outstripped other means of
exercising influence, however, and is not in balance with the narratives enabled by modern communications and the
means of warfare. Military plans can be made and executed in isolation, but good strategy cannot; never has it
been more important to understand the utility of force within a dynamic comprehension of context.
“What is past is prologue”.[13]
The 21st century was conceived by those that preceded it. The Napoleonic paradigm of the 19th and 20th century,
where tactical and operational level military victory led directly to strategic success, was reinforced by rapid
technological advances that created weapons of mass destruction and the World Wars of the 21st century. The hot
wars and deterrence stalemate of the Cold War period contributed to the Realist belief that military might is
essential for security. The end of the Cold War, however, challenged these ingrained assumptions as it precipitated a
“strategic vacuum that was filled with revolutions in population, resource management, technology,
information and knowledge, economic integration, conflict, and governance as issues that embodied both
risk and opportunity”.[14]
Simultaneously, however, the declared military victories of Gulf War I, Bosnia and Kosovo, all perceived as
decisive, reaffirmed the American-led military philosophy that wars were a “crusade to be won quickly and
completely… using high technology and almost unlimited firepower”.[15] A belief in the utility of massed force
and manoeuvre was augmented, and militarily complicated, by an attraction to war as a just means to pursue
humanitarian and moral causes; thus requiring increasingly complex planning to align policy. Wars were re-
established as ethical and demanded, “that the purpose and practice of Western forces be governed by liberal
values”.[16] Of the NATO intervention in Kosovo, Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic stated proudly
that,
“…there is one thing no reasonable person can deny: this is probably the first war that has not been waged
in the name of ‘national interests’, but rather in the name of principles and values. If one can say of any war
that it is ethical, or that it is being waged for ethical reasons, then it is true of this war.”[17]
Despite the critical analysis that NATO’s war in Kosovo “broke international law in attacking a sovereign state
without seeking a UN mandate”[18], despite the hard lessons of the US intervention in Somalia, and despite the
international community’s subsequent failure to intervene in Rwanda gathering confidence in the new doctrine of

technological advantage achieving quick victory through shock and awe led to a kinetic philosophy that
underpinned the US-led interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. This demonstrated the “…last unfettered expression
of twentieth century thinking and language, misapplied to a twenty-first-century problem”[19] and explains why
those conflicts have proved so difficult to master.
In 1999, Chinese Army Colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui argued that strategists have incorrectly focused
“on the level of weapons, deployment methods and the battlefield… and [war plans] are also mostly limited to the
military domain and revel in it”.[20] They suggest that, if understood and embraced, the increasing complexity of
the world allows the possibility of “combining all of the means available … to play the ageless masterpiece by
changing the tonality of the war”.[21] This philosophy has been little understood or adopted by the majority of
western government departments or militaries. The understanding that states alone have a monopoly on the use of
violence[22] and that a sovereign is master at home and equal abroad[23] was challenged at the start of the 21st
Century with the bold and brutal Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on 11 September 2001.
The US President, George W. Bush, framed his response as a “war against terrorism”.[24] With similar statements
of military intent from the UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, the US President not only demonstrated a commitment
“to the central tenets of neo-liberalism per se, but [also] his willingness to deploy overt coercion to impose this
ideology”.[25]
By some resource margin, the US led the UK and coalition partners into two large-scale expeditionary wars in
Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003). Although now thought of as a distraction to the primary concern,
Afghanistan, the coalition fight in Iraq against Saddam Hussein’s Baath party and then resolute insurgencies,
consumed blood and treasure beyond all accepted expectations.[26] Despite significant planning and warnings to
the contrary from the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell,[27] the collective failure to plan for ‘Phase 4’ (the
stabilisation of the country following the defeat of the Iraqi armed forces) before campaign execution,[28] is now
widely accepted as the most significant lesson of the war.[29] Many of the coalition governments accepted that
their capacity to conduct stabilisation and reconstruction was outmatched by their capacity for war-fighting, and
debate arose once more as to the utility of force and the necessity of a more comprehensive decision-making
process. Post conflict expertise and coordination within and between civilians and military, coalition partners and
international organisations was also deemed to be insufficient or, worse, ineffective. The UK response was to
create the Post Conflict Reconstruction Unit (PCRU) in late 2004, as a cross-government, multi-disciplinary team,
to ensure that post-conflict recovery and stability was achieved through better, faster and more flexible design.[30]

Programmes across other capitals and within international organisations such as the United Nations (UN),
European Union (EU), the World Bank and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) were also
commissioned to achieve similar interagency results in the context of increasingly composite challenges.
In 2005, Sergey Ivanov, the Defence Minister of the Russian Federation, told the US Council of Foreign Relations
that the world had changed.
“We are now more aware of what a complex and interdependent world we live in, facing new threats and
challenges. We also come to a common understanding of the fact that global risks require an adequate
response, above all, through joint efforts by a world community. In other words, the world today has to
come up with such political, diplomatic, economic, and military tools that would eventually preclude any
threats posed both to regional and global security”. [31]
Dr. Jack LeCuyer, US Army War College, similarly argues that security can no longer be viewed through the
Realist lens of state-on-state military operations and diplomatic relations. He asserts that the dimensions of
national security must also be seen in relation to:
“the global issues of economic security, environmental security, homeland security, pandemics, networked
transnational terrorism and its appealing narratives, failing and failed states, rising states such as South
Sudan, regional instability, cyber-terrorism, and the potential use of weapons of mass destruction by state
and non-state actors.”[32]
The concept of security and stability has been removed from an isolated military line of operation and set within a
much broader system that attempts to reconnect previously isolated conditions as the root causes of instability are
sought. Biological, geophysical and environmental changes, governance, economic development, technological
advancement, financial liquidity, resource scarcity, social conditions, culture, religion, ethnicity and changing
expectations are all cited as fuelling hopes or grievances.[33]
There is an appreciation that the cause of insurgency is resentment of the current political order and thus its
objective is the removal of the ruling elite.[34] People do not rise up without a cause. The flare of protest that
spread from Tunisia to Egypt and beyond this Spring has, at its core, a desire for a just relationship between those
in authority and the rights of the people, i.e. good governance. A useful example of a similar multinational bush-
fire of popular revolution was the uprising against the arbitrary rule of the reigning monarchs in Europe that started
in Paris in February 1848. As is now occurring across North Africa and the Middle East, the 19th century European
public demonstrated for what they considered basic freedoms and rights; “the rapid sequence of events and the
spontaneity alone surprised contemporaries, alarmed governments and led to early capitulations”.[35] The wave of
protest extended to Vienna, Budapest and Milan. Revolution broke out in the streets of Berlin by early March. A
belief in the dawn of a new era saw an expectation for equal political rights regardless of religion, an independent

judiciary, amnesty for political prisoners, freedom of assembly and political representation of the people.[36] King
Fredrich Wilhelm IV did grant pressefreiheit, but the
“main features of the modern state - the dependent bureaucracy and the standing armies - proved ultimately
to be superior to the social emancipatory processes [of the day]”.[37]
In one dimension, the revolutions failed as the insurrections were defeated through both violent reprisal and the
realization of the self-interested upper and middle classes as to what the changes they were petitioning for would
mean for them.[38] In another dimension, however, the uprisings precipitated changes that would later positively
affect governance across Europe.
Insurgency can, therefore, be degraded through the killing or capture of the protagonists; but can only be defeated
by addressing the root causes of the grievances.[39] This requires more than kinetic military action and has led to a
doctrine of counter-insurgency that combines the “military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and
civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency”.[40] Gen Sir Rupert Smith argues that “the skill is in
the way armed force is applied in conjunction with the other means available” and that only together do they
“work to build the narrative that exposes and isolates the armed opponent so as to allow his defeat in battle.
The desired result of this activity is to lead the people - amongst whom you fight - to make their unilateral
decisions to your advantage in the confrontation”.[41]
The coalition of US and 48 allies in NATO’s International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) continue to fight
terrorism in Afghanistan - and the US have started to directly intervene in across the border in Pakistan. The
strategic narrative as to why, how, where and against whom this fight should occur has meandered through the last
decade and has had to contend with a large-scale war in Iraq, the interplay of regional dynamics as China, Iran,
India and Pakistan leverage power on their geographic neighbour, ethnic rivalry, religious tension, gender issues
and a global financial crisis. The master narrative of the Afghan intervention was the denial of terrorist safe-
havens, yet the threat from Al-Qaeda (AQ) in Afghanistan has moved to other failing states such as Yemen and
Somalia. It has been replaced by a complex decentralized criminality and insurgency that includes the Taliban,
Haqqani and Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin networks.[42] Elsewhere in Northern Africa and the Middle East, uprisings
against staid and unresponsive autocratic regimes in the Arab Spring Revolutions have challenged crude
assumptions about the acceptance of democracy by those living in Islamic states.[43] These events have occurred
against a recent global backdrop of fiscal uncertainty and potential collapse[44], rapid shifts of power in a
networked society[45] and a wicked collection of shocking natural disasters leading to insecurity and human
suffering.[46]

The growing importance of transnational security threats emanating from non-state actors changed the perception
of the utility of military force in promoting national and international security. As the impact of global events
rationalized domestic thought, it also revealed a strategic incoherence between a values versus defence-based
determination of foreign policy. As the new UK coalition government sought to wrestle with these challenges, the
Foreign Secretary, Rt Hon William Hague, warned in mid 2010, that if Britain did not change with the world, its
role would decline. He specified five factors of change:
i. economic power and opportunity shifts to countries in the East and South;
ii. the circle of international decision-making becomes wider and more multilateral;
iii. protecting our security becomes more complex in the face of new threats;
iv. the nature [character] of conflict changes; and
v. the emergence of a networked world.[47]
It is in this context that in late 2010 serious questions were asked in Whitehall and beyond about how grand
strategy is conducted[48] and how a comprehensive approach to stabilisation can be formulated[49] in the
contemporary operating environment. In evidence to the House of Commons, Lt Gen Sir Robert Fry reflected on
how the Foreign Secretary had made ambitiously broad manifesto pledges for future foreign policy while
simultaneously stating that the Government “rejects the idea of strategic shrinkage”[50] despite the requirement to
cut public spending and force the departments to rigorously adhere to tighter budgets. The government has
declared that their primary responsibility is to reduce the public debt and are doing so to mitigate financial
mismanagement and inefficiency within departments and the population as a whole. This priority, although
accepted by a majority of the UK public as being prudent, has also caused great concern and domestic protest as
people have begun to understand what this new frugality means for them. The Comprehensive Spending Review
(CSR) and Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) may "disassociate completely the means of supporting
those [foreign policy] ends” and Sir Robert stated that he “[could not] think of a better example of the vacuum in
strategic thinking than that".[51] Given the constrained means of Eurozone countries and other NATO members in
an increasingly fragile economic union, and the limits of hard power that has “reduced considerably the ability of
any state to directly shape the world according to its wishes”[52], the requirement for other ways of pursuing
interests through power and influence has never been so apparent.
2

COMPOSITE STRATEGY
“The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is
to establish ... the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into,
something that is alien to its nature. This is the first of all strategic questions and the most comprehensive."[53]
Carl von Clausewitz, On War, 1828
In its simplest modern form, strategy is the reconciliation of ways and means to achieve desired ends, but the Greek
roots of ‘strategós’ and ‘stragegia’ refer to a General and the art or skills of Generalship respectively.[54] In the
Sixth Century, Justinian the Great defined strategy as “…the means by which the General may defend his own
lands and defeat his enemies”.[55] Usefully, he differentiated strategy from tactics, which he described as “…the
science that enables one to organize and move a body of formed men in an orderly manner”.[56] The hierarchy
and dimensions of strategy were further considered by Byzantine Emperor Leo VI, who wrote in the Ninth Century
of its relative position and context.[57] Translations of his work by Paul Gideon Joly de Maizeroy in 1771 and
1777 revealed the enduring requirement to embrace logistics, politics, human resources, the adversary and
geography in the broad formulation and conduct of strategy.[58]
Carl von Clausewitz and Baron Antoine Henri de Jomini have respectively defined strategy as “…the use of the
engagement for the purpose of the war”[59] and “…the art of making war upon the map, [that] comprehends the
whole theatre of operations”.[60] Clausewitz wisely noted that the “political object - the original motive for the
war - will thus determine both the military objective to be reached and the amount of effort it requires” and thus
“must become an essential factor in the [strategic] equation”.[61] Writing between the two World Wars, Captain
Basil Liddle Hart stated that strategy is incomplete without heed of politics. He defined strategy as “...the art of
distributing and applying military means to fulfil the ends of policy”.[62] In his latest work, Professor Colin
Gray defines military strategy as the “direction and use made of force, and the threat of force, for the purposes of
policy as decided by politics”.[63] He uses the metaphor of a “strategy bridge” to illustrate the connection that
strategy must make between “two distinctive entities or phenomena that otherwise would be divided” - political
purpose or policy and feasible military or other powerful action.[64]
The definitions so far presented have considered strategy in isolation due to the theoretical “incompatibility
between war and every other human interest, individual or society”[65] and as that created by the agency of a
coherent state actor. As Clausewitz acknowledges, however, this ideal (absolute) type rarely occurs in reality and

thus “now we must seek out the unity into which these contradictory elements combine in real life”.[66] Strategy
can only be as good as its political purpose. If the policy changes, wavers or fades then so will the strategy as
determined by it. If the policy is unclear, misunderstood or misinterpreted then strategy cannot intentionally reflect
the political goals sought. This effect may be observed where philosophical disagreement exists between policy-
makers and practitioners in their concepts of victory and winning. Where one’s view is grounded in the Napoleonic
paradigm of military victory as winning warfare at all costs, and the other’s view has evolved into a deliberately
restricted, limited, use of force which is complimented by arguments and incentives to persuade the enemy[67]
rather than crush it, strategic complications over the application of force will arise. Education and an
understanding of context (rather than merely the adoption of a stereotypical national or organisational perspective)
determines where one sits on this ideological spectrum - thus the requirement for the continued education of
strategists and the requirement for cross-governmental collaboration. In reality, policy is made by the political
interactions of multiple actors in a complex decision-making environment where individual and institutional
imperative betray cohesion and collaboration. Thus, to be understood correctly, strategy must account for the
potential interplay of numerous stakeholders (friends and foe) and the friction of bureaucratic politics.
In 1966, General André Beaufre believed that ‘total strategic manoeuvre’ consisted of “actions which may be
carried out in fields other than military in order to render maximum assistance to the military action”.[68] In 1972,
Michael Howard explained grand-strategy in the first half of the Twentieth Century as “the mobilization and
deployment of national resources of wealth, manpower, and industrial capacity, together with the enlistment of
those of allied and, when feasible, of neutral powers, for the purpose of achieving goals of national policy in
wartime”.[69] Michael Handle broadened the idea further, when he wrote in the 1980s, that strategy involves
interaction between several entities and thus the definition should include reference to national and alliance
policies. Political ends, therefore, should be clear and nested with those of allies, and be comprehensive in
thought, to accommodate the growing recognition that there are more tools available than military means alone to
achieve political aims. Sir Lawrence Freedman writes that strategy is “the art of creating power to obtain the
maximum political objectives using available military means” but acknowledges that power is created and
maintained through combination.[70] Gray also asserts this dynamic balance when he states that,
“…strategy seeks control over an enemy’s political behaviour, and that the threat or use of military force
will be more or less prominent among the instruments of power that strategists orchestrate in their bridging
function between means and ends”.[71]
Clausewitz also noted that committing troops with the prospect of using force on behalf of a state “…should never
be thought of as something autonomous, but always as an instrument of policy”[72] - established through a far-

reaching act of judgement by both statesman and commander.[73] The multiple levers of state power suggest that
strategy can no longer be the sole preserve of only the military or their political masters. In a complex world there
is need for all gatekeepers of public policy to understand military strategy and its place within the broader realm of
national strategy. Any decision that may consume the state’s physical, financial and human capital in pursuit of
policy must be made with reference to other instruments of power and weighed accordingly. Thus, a calculated
combination of diplomatic, social, economic, legal and technical instruments must be used collectively to achieve
policy goals as decided by politics. Although understood as the theory of Grand Strategy this is now presented in
the UK as National Strategy, and sits above Military Strategy in the doctrinal hierarchy. Despite these neat
theoretical structures, however, successful strategic practice has proved illusive and “largely absent within…
government”.[74]
Gray acknowledges that those charged with holding the metaphorical bridge
“…are tasked with the generally inordinately complex and difficult mission of translating… one currency -
military (or economic, or diplomatic, and so forth) power - into quite another (desired political
consequences)”.[75]
According to Hew Strachan, the word strategy has “…acquired a universality which has robbed it of meaning, and
left it only with banalities”. The difficulty of definition and much semantic change has provoked misunderstanding
and misinterpretation of its practice and strategy itself has thus been variously described as illusory or a lost art.
[76] In light of the blood and treasure lost in the western interventions into Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya this is
significant and deserves investigation.
Of the 2008 National Security Strategy (NSS), Paul Cornish stated that it “has much to say about 'security' (or
rather, 'insecurity'), rather less about 'national' and much less still about 'strategy'”.[77] He believes that strategy
has two components, neither of which were evident in the cross-government paper that lacked both vision and
purpose:
“At the highest level, strategy requires intellectual and moral leadership. In the case of national security, we
might expect a grand unifying vision of a way of life … to be celebrated, encouraged and developed. At a
more technical level, strategy should be about establishing priorities and objectives, as well as bench-marks
by which to measure progress”.[78]
In 2009, the then Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), Sir Jock Stirrup, stated that the UK had "lost an
institutionalised capacity for, and culture of, strategic thought".[79] More recently, Dr Patrick Porter states that the
Government’s decisions to intervene simultaneously in two separate theatres, beyond all planning assumptions, (of
Iraq and Afghanistan and then Afghanistan and Libya), demonstrates that the UK does not understand strategy.[80]

He argues strategy must contain resilience, “It is not just about crossing a bridge from A to B, but crossing a bridge
at a justifiable cost and pace that enables one to cross another bridge”.[81] Following the release of the new
coalition government’s NSS in 2010, Porter reasserted that, “…strategy’s virtual absence is reflected in the UK’s
National Security Strategy”. Fundamentally “it failed to deliver” and “…is thick with description and thin on the
main question: the dialectic between the country’s main aims and its abilities to meet them”. It does little ranking
or prioritizing and hardly acknowledges trade-offs or compromises.[82]
History has informed us that “the consistent execution over time of a preconceived strategic design” is fraught with
difficulty and that “…grand strategy is much more likely to be imputed retrospectively by admirers and critics than
developed and applied self-consciously…”.[83] However, where grand strategy can be demonstrated by the likes
of Bismark and Roosevelt, rather than being rigid, it is accompanied by the identification of broad guiding aims or
principles by which policies are dynamically formulated and executed, and most importantly for the arguments
later presented, it is “…grounded in an explicit analysis of the prompting challenge”.[84] Sir Rupert Smith
believes that the UK government was last strategic in the late 1950’s, “… and after that we atrophied in large
measure”.[85] This reflection chimes with report of the House of Commons Public Administration Committee in
late 2010[86] that concluded that, “As things stand there is little idea of what the UK's national interest is, and
therefore what our strategic purpose should be”.[87] Much like the response to similar findings in the US, the
answer to the Select Committee question of, "Who does UK Grand Strategy?" was: “No-one… This should be a
matter of great concern for the Government, Parliament and the country as a whole”.[88] This crisis of strategic
competency across government must, therefore, be challenged and adjusted.
Porter suggests that there are seven reasons for the lack of UK strategic ability: 1) Britain lacks an obvious enemy;
2) Britons hardly study it; 3) The fertile conditions for strategic philosophy are not there; 4) Britain abandoned
geography for global concepts; 5) Britain is part of an American grand design; 6) The age of spin confuses display
for statecraft; and 7) The question of Britain’s identity is unsettled.[89] Although relevant for an examination of
British strategic incompetence these criteria are unique to the UK and cannot be applied universally. There are
examples of strategic failure across the globe and the US is very open about its recent strategic incompetence.
Following President Obama’s immediate call for a review of strategic decision-making in 2010, former USMC
Colonel Frank Hoffman and US political advisor Dr Aaron Friedberg believe that the deficiency in American
strategic competency can be attributed to “a lack of any planning culture outside of Defense”[90] and a lack of any

one place in the executive to “bring all the pieces [of strategic planning] together and integrate them into anything
resembling a coherent, comprehensive whole”.[91] Hoffman suggests that it is challenges within organisational
cultures, cognitive styles and value systems that undermine strategic competence. In particular, he sees the
introspective culture of the military, as determined by its predilection towards an autonomous, apolitical and
absolutist frame of reference, to be critical in its professional orientation and character as “supreme in its technical
skills, but strategically autistic”.[92] Similarly, Betts categorizes the barriers to strategic effectiveness into three
areas: psychological, organizational processes and pathologies and political complications.[93] If competence is to
be developed, these barriers to strategic engagement must be overcome holistically.
In the conclusion of the 2004 Review of Intelligence on Weapons on Mass Destruction in Iraq Lord Butler stated
that,
“…we are concerned that the informality and circumscribed character of the Government’s procedures,
which we saw in the context of policy-making towards Iraq, risks reducing the scope for informed
collective political judgement”.[94]
Although not suggesting that “there is, or should be, an ideal or unchangeable system of collective Government”,
[95] Lord Butler offered a broad conclusion that there is a requirement for constructive challenge within
institutional policy-making procedures to prevent failures of judgement. It is in this recommendation, when
combined with both historical perspective and a requirement for a clear understanding of national principles and
priorities, that the author believes a new approach to strategy sits.
Noting the failures to understand, create and implement strategy, perhaps there is scope to refine its definition once
more to broaden its acceptance and ensure “that the whole of government identifies and acts effectively upon the
national interest”.[96] There have been recommendations not to look to business to learn lessons of strategy for
government. Three key reasons put to the Pubic Administration Select Committee[97] were: 1) Foreign Policy is
not conducted in competition[98], 2) Political imperative changes priorities in Government faster than in
business[99] and, 3) Government is much more sophisticated and bigger.[100] If not altogether wrong, these
arguments are highly questionable.[101] Strategy is continuing to evolve and business-centric definitions should
not be dismissed outright if potentially helpful in convincing wider collaboration. The traditional definitions so far
presented might be combined with that of Johnson and Scholes:
“Strategy is the direction and scope of an organization, over the long term, which achieves advantage for
the organization through its configuration of resources, within a changing environment, to fulfil all
stakeholder expectations”.[102]

There are interesting extensions here to the central idea of reconciling ends (creating advantage and meeting
expectations) with ways and means (configuration of resources) that make it of use to the broadminded. The
temporal and contextual reminders are as useful as the notion of ‘direction and scope’ as a long-term view must be
assumed from the start to overcome the challenge of political imperatives and constantly changing environments.
This requires the strategist to think in more than one plane - both length and breadth - for the purpose of self and
others. This multi-dimensional concept can be transposed to both the internal and external environment. Both
within and between organisations, and in addition to a description of its aims, this expression is a catalyst to
thinking of the correct alignment, within agreed boundaries, of resources and methods for policy goals and mutual
benefit (i.e. a better peace). The explicit requirement to fulfil all stakeholder expectations acts to reminds
strategists of their responsibility to account for multiple contexts and perspectives and cherish potential synergies;
within counter-insurgency, this also accounts for the protagonists and the causes of grievance. Within increasingly
complex global interactions, effective strategy must be designed through a comprehensive analysis of problems,
resources, consequences and solutions. All agencies that have access to levers of power, whether in a formal state
framework or not, must understand the meaning of the word strategy and their part in its creation, development and
implementation. A new definition, as an amalgam of the ideas presented above, and in an attempt to provide an
acceptable foundation for a change in mindset across government, might define a comprehensive strategy as “the
direction and scope of collaborative activity, within a changing environment and over the long term, to
achieve national advantage through the threat or use of power and fulfil stakeholder expectations in the
pursuit of a better peace”. If accepted across government and agencies this may help drive much closer
integration and thus unity of purpose and effort.
3
THE COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH
“Discovery of the rules of victory can deepen people's knowledge of the laws of warfare, and increase the standard
by which military arts are practiced.
But on the battlefield, the victor will certainly not have won
because he has detected more of the rules of victory.
The key will be which contender truly grasps the rules of victory in their essence”. [103]
Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui, 1999
In 2006, the MOD defined the Comprehensive Approach (CA) as; “Commonly understood principles and
collaborative processes that enhance the likelihood of favourable and enduring outcomes within a particular

situation”.[104] The same year, the UK’s Stabilisation Unit (SU)[105] formally noted the aspiration to:
“…bring together UK government departments and other stakeholders in international crisis management in
order to:
i. promote a shared understanding of the situation and common aims and objectives which will govern
HMG efforts in conflict situations, particularly when military action is foreseen;
ii. develop structures and processes to help align planning and implementation in conflict situations;
iii. establish relationships and cultural understanding, through common training, exercising, analysis and
planning”. [106]
According to Lou Perrotta, the former SU Head of Lessons, an integrated approach to cross-government
collaboration simply means:
“Working together - better, smarter, earlier and quicker through a more effective use of shared resources,
both in Whitehall and in the field”.[107]
NATO has issued some guidance in Summit Declarations but there is not yet approval for an official doctrinal
definition of the term. NATO’s HQ Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (HQ SACT) is, however,
developing a nested family of texts, written from a generic international-actor perspective, to enhance “…NATO’s
ability to utilize a CA in planning, operations and assessment in complex crisis”.[108] Indeed, NATO does not
own the concept and acknowledges that it is “…merely one actor among others attempting to operate more
effectively”[109] in a collaborative design process that recognizes the limits of each organization. The
comprehensive approach is, therefore, intrinsically “…multi-actor, multi-dimensional; with vectors running through
the private sector, inter-governmental, intra-governmental, non-governmental and national domains”.[110]
NATO’s contribution to a Comprehensive Approach can be seen as “…interaction in three domains:
· the horizontal inter-NATO dimension (how NATO interacts with the full range of national
capabilities made available to it),
· the horizontal extra-NATO dimension (how NATO interacts with other international actors), and
· the vertical extra-NATO dimension (how NATO supports local actors)”.[111]
Despite the apparent dominance of military theorising, the Comprehensive Approach is not a military-centric
planning philosophy but has been the subject of broad international and inter-agency discussion and, like strategy,
is evolving. Although there is some alignment as to the definition, role and practice of a Comprehensive
Approach, capitals and agencies of state within them differ in their interpretation of the concept, and thus the
implications for implementation. It is largely agreed that the Comprehensive Approach is not a mechanistic
process to be imposed by one organisation onto another and nor is it an end in itself. It is certainly not an
opportunity for the military to usurp the role of the UN, NGOs or other agents of governmental and developmental
change. As Liang and Xiansui advocate, it is not enough to know what a comprehensive approach should do, but

why it should exist in essence. The Comprehensive Approach is collaborative and iterative dialogue and decision-
making that must be understood by all actors as “a method and a mindset… to the formulation and implementation
of policy”[112] and as such it links directly to the creation of composite strategy and should evolve together. It is
greater that whole-of-government, but must include whole-of-government. The Stabilisation Unit assess the
Comprehensive Approach to have arisen from:
“…the growing recognition of a need to combine together various approaches, whether civilian or
military, whether governmental or not, to improve the effectiveness of HMG activity through the conduct
of more coherent assessment, planning and implementation of conflict management or peace support
operations”.[113]
Like strategy, it is difficult to do well, but it is recognised as necessary. The Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS)
noted recently that “…there is an interdependence of military, diplomatic, development and information tools …
using one without the other is strategic illiteracy”.[114] The evolution of a comprehensive approach “reflects the
need to better exploit synergies between the various levers of hard and soft power and influence”[115] to achieve
mutually understood policy outcomes, in mutually beneficial ways, using mutually available or scarce resources. It
is thus the acceptance and absorption of holistic contextual understanding within political and practical decision-
making. Each actor must accept the perspective, planning and presence of other actors to achieve a pragmatic end-
state within broadly accepted ways and limited means.
One cannot simply execute the Comprehensive Approach.[116] No single organisation can write a plan and then
invite the other actors to come and implement it as a united activity. The House of Commons Defence Committee
notes that:
“It is crucial that, in all situations requiring the Comprehensive Approach, certain elements should be
agreed at the very earliest stage based on a thorough and all-embracing assessment of the situation. These
elements include leadership, objectives, a defined end-state, strategy, tactics and the nature of personnel
required”.[117]
At a national level, the UK has been formally exercising the concept since the creation of the Post Conflict
Reconstruction Unit (PCRU). Lou Perrotta argues that an integrated approach to planning that analyses the
situation from multiple perspectives permits much more bespoke solutions to problems, in any particular
environment, through the exploitation of relative strengths and mitigation of relative weaknesses,
“Rather than using the tools available to any particular organisation to fix a problem [i.e. with these military
tools, diplomatic tools or development tools in isolation I can do the following], it turns it on its head to
look at the situation itself to ask ‘What does this situation need?’ Looking in our joint tool-box encourages
the questions ‘What can we actually do, and how can we use those joint tools better together?’” [118]
A Comprehensive Approach can only be created through the dynamic interaction of several plans in harmony, and
this can only be achieved if the actors conduct the initial analysis together and agree on the metrics to measure the

successful impact of intervention - each looking at the problem and assessment through their own lens, but with
reference to the view through the lenses of others. Perhaps the key lessons is that,
“There really is a difference between a stapled-together matrix of deconflicted activities and a joint, shared,
understanding of the problem that we are, together, trying to solve.”[119]
The challenges of such activity cannot be underestimated. The basis of the comprehensive approach is that of
developing an empathic ear for our neighbours at every level, (e.g. personal, organizational, institutional or
national). Although this normative theory is relatively simple to understand, in practice the frictions of a “highly
diversified bureaucratic apparatus of modern states is itself a major obstacle to the implementation of any
comprehensive scheme…”[120] and makes “even the simplest things difficult”.[121] Trying to compromise or
align different cultures, objectives, priorities, budgets, interests, timeframes, and thus “the balance of resources for
the various activity streams”[122] of the stakeholder agencies, and potentially the host-nation, is extremely
difficult. The expansion of the concept to link national capitals and international organisations within multilateral
alliances is an enormous challenge, but both NATO and UN have stated their intention to benefit from the efficacy
of collaborative assessment and implementation to ensure better intervention in complex environments and a better
return on investment. After commanding in Iraq, General Andrew Salmon RM noted that this is only possible
with an improvement in unity and economy of effort and the resolution of short- and longer-term priorities. It
requires compromise and realistic, joined-up, development plans through better delivery skills, teamwork and
leadership[123] and is thus reliant on strategic literacy.
A practical example of where an integrated approach to foreign policy has provided better contextualisation is that
of intervention in Mali by the Netherlands. The Dutch are major donors to Mali, and gave the country €55 million
of development aid in 2008.[124] The Ministry of Defence, however, wanted to focus on strengthening the security
sector to counter both the growing presence of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and organised crime
across the Sahel region of North West Africa. In a cross-departmental analysis of the conflict, however, it was
found that reinforcing the security sector as it was, without broad social reform, would likely cause further conflict.
[125] The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) coordinated a change in strategy. The diplomatic line of
operations was called upon to initiate talks with the relevant actors identified by the initial assessment and the
development line was heavily reinforced while the military line was much reduced. Of a comprehensive approach,
Marije Balt, Security Advisor in the MFA, commented that, “A thorough collaborative conflict assessment makes
planning more difficult, but it does make you look twice, so that you draw the right conclusions from the right
intelligence at the right time”.[126]

Sadly, the positive Dutch progress in Mali may now have been undermined as a consequence of the US-Anglo-
French led intervention in Libya. The nomadic Tuaregs of General Gaddafi’s army relocated into their traditional
homeland in northern Mali following his downfall. Their limited rebellion for independence was seized and
sidelined by Salafi Islamists, aligned with AQIM and resourced with weaponry from Libya and Iraq, for broader
ends. The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) declared that Mali has descended into hell because of
the executions, rape, torture and cultural destruction now taking place in the north[127] and the Government of
Mali referred the war-crimes to the ICC in July 2012.[128] These consequences were not unforeseen.[129]
According to political academic Dr Alan Renwick, the UK’s decision to intervene in Libya was “made very lightly
and not part of a national Grand Strategy”.[130] The Prime Minister’s decision was made in spite of Stabilisation
Unit and senior military advice to the contrary.[131] Significantly, the military intervention undermined one of the
great diplomatic triumphs of the last few decades - the disarmament of General Gaddafi’s weapons of mass
destruction.[132] There will be little incentive for other states rich in nuclear, biological or chemical deterrents to
reduce their arsenals if the perceived result is vulnerability. For those involved, Libya exposed the FCO as short-
sighted, absent of policy and only interested in chasing the next media broadcast. It distracted from Afghanistan
and severely tested the UK’s military capacity and morale. It set unrealistic expectations in the region, and despite
an aim of demonstrating European strength in NATO, relied heavily on an unwilling USA. Finally, rather than
reinforcing the relevance of air power as some might have hoped at a time of impending defence cuts, it merely
confirmed the veracity of John Warden’s theory of five concentric rings.[133] Light strategic decision-making
demonstrates not just failure to think through long-term consequences, but also a failure to reconcile the short term;
it is this constraint to policy-making that is offered through a comprehensive approach to strategy.
There is not enough open-source information to examine the strategic decision-making prior to Libya, thus the
most obvious place to look for the failure to conduct a composite strategy that accounts for multiple perspectives
and acknowledges consequences is the intervention in Afghanistan. At the tactical and operational levels,
cooperation and coordination between national entities, through the daily interaction of their civil and military
personnel and funding streams, works well within most of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). Where
difficulties arise, it is failures of policy alignment, collaborative analysis of the problem and a shared agreement of
desired outcomes that normally precede them.

4
REINVESTMENT IN AFGHANISTAN
“My aim, incidentally, is not to get fixed in Afghanistan”.[134]
Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, 2001
“We got into a war without accepting it was a war
and without preparing a way out of it”. [135]
Michael Semple, on Afghanistan, 2011
In 1968, Stanley Hoffmann explained, as a particular lesson of Vietnam, that the US must learn to distinguish
between two types of intervention: marginal and massive. Marginal interventions, which can be decisive, “…
allow a threatened society to deal with its problems in a way that strengthens its cohesion but does not jeopardize
its autonomy and self-respect”.[136] On the other hand, massive interventions
“can be counter-productive either because they weaken the assisted partner (by spreading corruption,
disrupting his administration or his economy) or because that partner lacks the institutional ability and
social cohesion without which our intervention will be in vain”.
The enormous social, economic and political challenges of Afghanistan, although understood by those with
historical knowledge and area expertise were not given sufficient significance in the creation of the UK’s strategy.
This chapter examines the decision-making prior to the UK’s reinvestment in what is clearly a massive intervention
in Afghanistan conducted with minimal reference to the lessons of Vietnam or Iraq.[137] In Afghanistan, “strategic
clarity has been an elusive commodity”.[138]
In late 2001, the Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce gave prescient warning of the strategic
risks to the UK should it decide to either broaden the campaign or make a long term commitment to Afghanistan,
“…so it is not a question of whether we will trap our hand in the mangle, but of which mangle we trap it in”.[139]
He also noted that the collection of risks associated with intervention[140] might conflate to establish “an
unattainable exit strategy or end-state” and result in “inevitable strategic failure”.[141] To remain free from this
interventionist trap he advocated, “working in ‘agile partnerships’ - in essence flexible, conditional arrangements
that balance coalition needs, the common good and the national interest”.[142] He also foresaw the requirement to
“…plan and act concurrently across the political, diplomatic, economic, military, legal and information spectrum”
and “…re-examine what we require to achieve, develop key capabilities, and understand our strategic limits”.

[143] Given this accurate and timely forecast, with explicit reference to our intervention in Afghanistan, it is
concerning that over a decade later we remain locked in the mangle of Helmand, having also leapt into the
distractive mangle of Iraq in the meantime, and witnessing the risks of which he spoke to one degree or another.
For the UK, the most obvious period of strategic inadequacy in Whitehall and change in Helmand was 2006. The
Secretary of State for Defence, John Reid, had expressed his hope that that the mission in Afghanistan would be
achieved “…without firing one shot, because our job is to protect the reconstruction”.[144] Yet later that year, the
number of small-arms rounds fired by British forces were to be counted in millions. He was later pilloried for
doing so, but at the time he made that statement, Reid honestly believed in his advisors and had faith in their
implementation of the UK’s Plan for Helmand. The July 2011, the House of Commons Defence Committee
(HCDC) report on Afghanistan stated that,
“…after only a matter of months in Helmand, the nature of the UK mission changed - the UK forces
deployed to Sangin, Musa Qala and Now Zad in late May 2006 - with serious strategic implications… The
Committee considers it unlikely that this fundamental change was put to Ministers… The Committee
believes that, as the change put the lives of the Armed Forces personnel at much greater risk, it should have
gone to Cabinet for endorsement”.[145]
Military strategy, if left unchecked and to its own devices, may tend towards the absolute, and creep from its
original purpose. In an effort to explore the practical utility of a comprehensive approach as a vessel for strategy,
and the essential relationships between the two, this chapter examines how the creation of a comprehensive wrap
may have provided some strategic clarity and coherence to Whitehall decision-making in late 2005 and
reinvestment in Afghanistan in early 2006. Through the evidence of those involved in the creation of the UK’s
Plan for Helmand, this chapter seeks to highlight why a dynamic balance between strategy and a comprehensive
approach is necessary and how it may prevent tactical excellence and treasury expenditure being wasted through
strategic inadequacy.
The initial deployment to Afghanistan occurred immediately after the Al-Qaeda attacks in the USA on 11th
September 2001. The goals were clear and focused on interdicting and destroying Al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts
in southern Afghanistan. The strategic narrative was sound; a wounded USA roared to defeat its aggressor and
prevent Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist safe-haven once more. The military line of this task was complete
by 2002 with the Taliban removed and AQ in Afghanistan defeated. However, given the initial mandate, ISAF had
only secured an area around Kabul, which left vast tracts of unknown and potentially ungoverned space.[146] In
2003, US attention was drawn to Iraq and the main NATO allies followed in an intervention that proved profound
in the subsequent decision to later reinforce the ISAF mission. Despite the self-congratulation and over-confidence
generated by the British military’s early experiences in Iraq, it is now accepted that the UK under-resourced the

effort in Basra conceptually and physically and this ultimately led the USA to question Britain’s military capability
and ability to deliver.[147] The British decision to re-invest in Afghanistan in late 2005 must also be understood in
the context of a concern within NATO for its institutional survival and a growing discomfort in the much strived-
for the UK-US special relationship - created by a growing divergence of counter-insurgency philosophy and ability
in both theatres.[148] However, a special US-UK relationship flourished between intelligence agencies and this,
when combined with a clear need in Whitehall to demonstrate that the UK remained a willing and able ally of the
USA,[149] and protect the internal coherence and reputation of NATO, may have skewed the decision-making
process.[150] The lack of strategic clarity of the NATO role in Afghanistan “has been compounded by genuine
disagreement [through different national preferences] on what an ‘appropriate strategy’ might look like”.[151] The
US were keen on conducting kinetic counter-terrorism in Operation ENDURING FREEDOM (OEF) and,
alternatively, the remainder of the NATO/ISAF coalition were pushing for a population-centric, comprehensive,
counter-insurgency campaign or some mixture of both. It is generally accepted that intensive military activity
alone will not defeat an insurgency. The difficulty, therefore, has been “…how to coherently integrate the use of
force within a wider political, diplomatic, economic and development policy framework”.[152] This has proved
extremely problematic because although many rightly believe that strategy and the comprehensive approach are
difficult to do in isolation of one another, few understand the requirement to do them as one. Thus, much bilateral
and multilateral diplomatic debate and experiment has occurred to design coalition strategy, coordinate the various
lines of operation, approach policy dilemmas and “match contribution to rhetoric”.[153]
On a purely national level, confusion remains as to whether the UK military truly understood the mission asked of
it in 2006. It is strongly suggested by Brigadier Butler, Commander 16 Air Assault Brigade (16 Bde), that there
were insufficient troops and enablers on deployment for the tasks set.[154] However, there is contrasting evidence
that commanders did have enough resources to complete the tasks asked of them, but that these were
misinterpreted.[155] This debate is certain to persist but highlights a failure to identify and maintain a clear aim
and unity of effort. Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles insists that the UK’s decision to invest in Helmand was a
“misdiagnosis of the initial problem” combined with “military over-enthusiasm after Basra, and weak politicians
and civil servants who were unwilling to express their doubts publically”.[156] Ultimately, however, he reflects
that the decision to invest was flawed because it did not sit within a broader UK or US strategy for Afghanistan or
the region as a whole.[157]
Unchecked political imperative in Whitehall and military enthusiasm overwhelmed the requirements of a coherent

approach to stabilization. The British re-intervention into Afghanistan in 2006, and the independent actions of 16
Air Assault Brigade, demonstrate a failure of strategy. One could almost excuse poor strategy based on poor
intelligence (the “unknown unknowns”),[158] and these are often cited as the reason for inadequate planning
assumptions and why events tend to overtake planning. However, the UK’s reinvestment into Helmand in 2006
cannot be pinned on a misdiagnosis alone, for the problems were explained by those with responsibility, but not
heard by those with authority - it was a true case of ignoring the “known unknowns”. From Admiral Boyce’s
sagacious advice in 2001, to the investigations of those writing the initial Helmand Plan, the assessments of just
how different Helmand was to the model the UK reconstruction team had experienced in Mazar-e-Sharif were
accurate. Unfortunately, the fact that they chimed with neither the desired aims of foreign policy nor military
ambition, meant for a misrepresentation of a known initial problem. Given her experience in post-conflict states,
Minna Jarvenpaa was employed by DfID in 2005 to work within the PCRU as the Governance (and more broadly,
Stabilisation) Advisor to HMG. The PCRU carried a mandate from Sir Nigel Sheinwald in the Cabinet Office to
devise a joint civil-military plan to reach the objectives set out in the original Helmand 3-year plan. According to
Jarvenpaa, the objectives were broad, and “wildly ambitious” in that timeframe.
“They were about establishing functioning democratic institutions, economic development and poverty
reduction, creating a security environment and particularly strengthening the Afghan National Security
Forces (ANSF), especially the police, and counter narcotics”.[159]
Jarvepaa travelled to Afghanistan in 2005 and 2006 with a combined team of representatives from MOD, FCO and
DfID[160]. Their initial assessment, interim and final reports for HMG all stated that the objectives for Helmand
could be achieved, but over decades, not years, and were contingent on the right resources, “…the right political
will and the readiness to reform”.[161] In country, the PCRU reconnaissance team were given bleak reports of the
situation in Helmand as, “…one of the least developed provinces, in one of the poorest and least developed
countries, in the world”. The team witnessed the extraordinarily complex province as obviously poor with a very
constrained income generating capacity due to the limited nature of its human capital.
“Some estimates said that 80% of the population were illiterate, and that extended to many key functions in
government including the Director of Education [for the whole of Helmand] who could not read or write”.
[162]
Noting the rudimentary state of the province, it was thought that it would be extremely challenging to establish
western-style justice institutions, a credible governor’s office, the delivery of local services and a police force that
was neither predatory nor threatening.[163] It was immediately clear to the team that Helmand was not fit to
become quickly the beacon of reconstruction that was envisaged by the Afghan Steering Group (ASG) in Whitehall
and more time was needed in reconnaissance to establish the nature of the situation and requirements. When the in-
country team met virtually with the ASG in Whitehall through a video-teleconference (VTC) their initial headline

reports that “the objectives were not achievable within the time frame… [and that either] …the objectives be
modified or the timeline be extended”, were met with “universal hostility” from senior officials.[164] The ASG
told the in-theatre PCRU team that despite their intimacy with the situation,
“…it was not an acceptable conclusion and that [they] should go back and study it again… to come up with
a plan [in the next three weeks, i.e. by mid December 2005] around the objectives that had been set”. [165]
According the Jarvenpaa, there was a very clear purpose to the civil-military plan that the reconnaissance team
developed into the Joint UK Plan for Helmand.
“We felt that the effort needed to concentrate on urban areas, primarily Lashkar Gah, but also Gereshk and
the road in-between, and to create security around those urban centres that would allow for efforts … to
build up the government and incubate governance… [and support] the governor's office, giving it some
structure and helping it actually start managing the province, and getting the police up to speed… The idea
was never that the UK or any foreign troops would spearhead a movement outside of those two districts into
the rest of Helmand province”[166].
Although the MOD were conducting their own planning in late 2005 to meet the UK’s commitment to a
NATO/ISAF deployment in 2006, Colonel Gordon Messenger
“…very quickly recognised that it was useful to put his team's [PJHQ’s] efforts behind a joint plan and that
the military plan should follow after that, and he convinced his command structure that that was the way to
go”.[167]
In the UK’s Joint Plan for Helmand, the role of the military was not one of attacking to defeat the Taliban but
merely protecting the diplomatic and development lines of operation. In this way, the team saw the shoots of good
governance developing that would thereby increase the security and stability of the province by enabling the
government to establish control across all the districts and gradually remove the root causes of insurgency.
In the final report published in December 2005, the PCRU team highlighted the “severely deteriorating security
situation”[168] in Helmand, sensed by the analysts, contractors and the small US military detachment in the south.
Jarvenpaa also recounts the concern of Dr Ashraf Ghani that, should the British military intervention be insensitive
to the situation, it would not only strengthen the Taliban but, if seen as occupying troops, the British would become
the focus of resistance by the local population and, he warned, “…it would be a bloodbath”.[169]
It is significant to note that the UK Plan for Helmand, which was
“…cobbled together in five weeks [at the end of 2005] … was really just a skeletal outline… To be able to
actually deliver anything in that plan would require quite a bit more work, study and understanding [of the]
dynamics in Helmand.”[170]
However, PCRU requests to continue their reconnaissance alongside the military deployment in the first three
months of 2006 and produce more detailed plans on governance, policing and stabilisation were denied. There was

an assumption in the ASG that because the UK had been in Afghanistan since 2001, there was “no need for further
PCRU-facilitated or led deployment to do more planning”.[171] It was assumed by the Cabinet Office that the
government departments that were responsible for the various elements of the plan would continue with the
planning but "…it turned out that the government departments couldn't actually find people to do that and field
[them] within the timelines”.[172] A few of the original five-person team were engaged as individual augmentees
to those departments,[173] but this did not have the coherence of the original PCRU team and thus crucially
affected their effectiveness.
Although the PCRU was a cross-functional creation, the mindset of developing a comprehensive approach within
all other departments was not universal. In addition to the lack of consideration by the ASG, the PCRU also faced
institutional hostility from within the FCO. The embassy in Kabul was openly sceptical of the newly formed
organisation and were not as supportive as the reconnaissance team had hoped in facilitating meetings with their
established contacts.[174] Although a specific example of the bureaucratic friction created when stovepipes of
excellence are forced to collaborate, Hoffmann argues that there is a general tendency, when challenged, “to be far
more concerned with proving ourselves than with finding out whether our objectives are worthwhile or reachable
and whether our involvement serves them adequately”.[175] Knowing ourselves better, and exposing and
mitigating the cultural weakness of each organisation is essential if benefits are to arise from their cooperation.
The transparency generated may overcome bureaucratic politics and promote unity of purpose and effort, but this
requires an understanding of strategy and a change in mindset within departments.
The UK’s objective was to “conduct security and stabilization operations within Helmand and the wider Regional
Command South, jointly with Afghan partners, other Government Departments and multinational partners”.[176]
The intention was to create a tight ‘lozenge of security’ around Lashkar Gar, Gereshk and Camp Bastion,
expanding only as conditions allowed to “…help create the right environment for governance, build Afghan
[institutional] capacity and create a capacity for economic growth”.[177] This was a complex task and required a
comprehensive assessment and understanding of the initial problem set. This did not happen. The military failed
to reconcile the politically directed ends with their limited ways and means. Brigadier Butler, told the HCDC that
the mission
“…was far from clear and straightforward because of the many players involved and a split in the planning
effort: the American plan… planning by the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, PJHQ, the MoD, the FCO, DfID
and [16 Air Assault Brigade, his own] headquarters plus those of allies”.[178]
According the General Sir Rob Fry, the key question was “how did UK forces get from the original plan to provide

security in a small area to fighting for their lives, no less than two months later, in a series of Alamos…?”.[179]
Commenting on the HCDC report in July 2011, the MOD states that the decision to deploy troops in northern
Helmand in 2006 was
“…part of a strategy to protect the Afghan Development Zone and the mission to support Afghan
governance and development objectives… This decision was made at the request of the Afghan
Government, in consultation with PJHQ and representatives from the FCO and DFID, and the Provincial
Reconstruction Team, and while keeping both the Coalition and the UK military chains of command fully
informed in the normal way”.[180]
Minna Jarvenpaa presents a different perspective:
“There were no angels in Sangin. There were two warring drug cartels… and here we were about the
deploy British troops in between those… I did everything I possibly could to engage anyone who had
decision-making authority to say [of the deployment of British troops into Sangin] that “this was madness,
it cannot be happening”. I was furious watching that type of decision-making that ended uprooting the plan
that we had devised”.[181]
According to Jarvenpaa, it was unsurprising that President Karzai and Governor Daud were pushing for British
troops to deploy further north, but this was not factored into planning on the ground. By various accounts,
President Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, was the drugs king-pin in Kandahar and Governor Daud's brother-
in-law was a major figure in the same network in Helmand.[182]
“What at first looked like the Afghan government fighting the Taliban transpired to be the government's
Popalzai/Noorzai/Barakzai drug cartel using UK troops as their hired guns to try to squeeze out a rival
Ichakzai drug cartel - that had enlisted the Taliban in its support. It just goes to show the importance of
understanding local politics and taking decisions on the basis of a political strategy”.[183]
Alas it also represents a failure of Brigadier Butler to understand that strategy as the reconciliation of ends, with
ways and means. Prior to deploying, he asked PJHQ about whether there would be an uplift in personnel or other
resources if 16 AABde became embroiled in serious fighting. According to Lt Col John Mead, PJHQ planner at
the time, the formal Treasury and MOD reply was that neither the troop numbers, nor the funding, would exceed
that which was outlined and the plan had to be worked within that.[184] Mead also acknowledges that there were
too many plans being created simultaneously: “We were all guilty of that – there was a huge mission analysis in
PJHQ that looked at the ARRC plan, the US plan for Op Enduring Freedom (OEF), - and working to US
battlespace - the ISAF plan and the UK’s Joint Plan”. This resulted in “…muddled command and control and no
single or nested planning”.[185] It was acknowledged by General Petraeus that only by 2010 were the inputs of
organizational structure, personnel, approaches and resources sufficiently connected to ensure unity of effort and a
comprehensive civ-mil COIN strategy”.[186] Between 2001-2006, these inputs were of “inadequate capacity to
meet Taliban resurgence” and pursued “differing approaches of the US to counter-terrorism and ISAF to stability
operations”.[187] In 2007-2008, the approaches remained “disjointed and insufficient… with bifurcated OEF and

ISAF command arrangements and the adoption of COIN-lite operations due to insufficient resources and
governance and development efforts”. [188]
In evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee, the former Principle Staff Officer to CDS, Commodore
Steven Jermy, stated that
“The fact that we were not concerned that there was not a coalition strategy in Afghanistan is a
demonstration to me that we must be more concerned. We are not going to win this campaign if there is not
an overall strategy”.[189]
After over a decade of fighting, there is now a unified Afghan-ISAF coalition strategy for transition to Afghan
Lead Security Responsibility by December 2014, and the writing of Operational Plan NAWEED is, for the first
time, being led by the Afghan security ministries with an open willingness to involve the Afghan Ministry of
Finance and the Independent Directorate for Local Governance, however engagement with UNAMA and the NGO
community remains weak. It should be noted that the campaign is in its eleventh year and has cost thousands of
coalition and Afghan lives and the US approximately $444 billion[190] and the UK nearly £12 billion.[191]
Serious questions have been asked within governments and academic communities about strategic weakness, return
of investment and the utility of force, with reference to the other levers of power in liberal interventions and the
prioritisation of increasingly scarce resources.[192] The rigorous application of a comprehensive and honest
analysis of the problem, with empathy for all stakeholders and concern for long-term outcomes, may have
contained the momentum of military strategy and reinforced the importance and relevance of other contributors.
In an attempt to regain some control on the UK’s Afghan strategy Prime Minister Cameron directly appointed
Ambassador Mark Sedwill as the UK’s Senior Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan (SRAP) in May 2011 on
his return from Afghanistan as the Senior Civilian Representative to NATO. Although this 3* star position is also
one of five Director Generals within the FCO, the SRAP and staff deliberately sit outside the formal hierarchy of
the FCO.[193] The SRAP has a mandate to focus on the UK’s AF-PAK strategy, with particular interest in
demanding ownership and outcomes of departmental tasks within government strategy.[194] Although the creation
of the National Security Council (NSC) and SRAP go some way to create a hub for strategic decision-making and
objective arbitration, neither provides a clear solution for improving strategic habit in Whitehall.

It is telling to note that the Americans have had a NSC for over 65 years and yet it is the subject of continued
criticism and now reform.[195] President Obama has “clearly identified the role of the NSC / National Security
Staff as strategic managers of the national security system”[196] and has set about a transformation that seeks to
“update, balance and integrate all of the tools of American power”.[197] There is also scope for much
improvement in the UK. The April 2012 Public Affairs Select Committee report determines that the NSC “…
demonstrates unfulfilled potential for driving strategic thinking across Government”.[198] It is too narrow in its
view of security, is unable to challenge orthodoxy and should develop greater capacity to analyse and cross-
reference departmental papers with independent research and oversee the creation of holistic National Strategy
rather than focussing on military and terror issues.[199] Its role could be enhanced through the creation of a
ministerial head with the authority to coordinate the activity of departmental strategic stakeholders.
The author believes that strategy and the Comprehensive Approach are complex and illusive because they are
mutually dependent and of the same. Without an understanding and acceptance of one, the other cannot exist in its
fullest form. If this thesis is correct, the reason that military strategy has been so hard to create and execute in
Afghanistan is due, in part at least, to a failure to adopt a philosophically comprehensive approach to policy
conception and implementation. Likewise, the difficulties of conducting a comprehensive approach are due in part
to the failure to create and implement composite and dynamically balanced strategy. Both are criticised and cast
aside because neither is done well enough to support the other. In searching for answers to the lessons identified
from Afghanistan, we would do well to look to the past and prepare to comprehensively embrace the void in which
strategy can be formed and regulated.

5
EMBRACING A VOID
“…while the horizon of strategy is bounded by the war, grand strategy looks beyond the war to the subsequent
peace. It should not only combine the various instruments, but so regulate their use as to avoid damage to the
future state of peace - for its security and prosperity”[200]
Captain Sir Basil Liddell Hart, 1954.
General Sir Rupert Smith described his responsibility, as a divisional commander, to generate an environment in
which battle could occur successfully. The metaphor that he used to do so, began with a statement: “The utility of
a cup is in the void”.[201] In his view, senior leaders have to design and construct a vessel sufficiently robust to
contain the battle that occurs in its void. Careless construction would result in either cracks that permit leakage or a
void too small to contain the actual battle and thus overflow dangerously. As General Smith applied this to battle
in warfare, so too can the metaphor be used to explain the relationship between the composite cup of a
comprehensive approach to policy and the dynamic interplay of strategy within its void. In both cases, the creation
of an appropriate metaphysical environment, through the creation of potential in which to conduct activity, is
paramount - and one is nothing without the other. Strategy must occur within a policy embrace that gives it both
regard[202] and restriction, in order for it to develop with discipline.
Captain Sir Basil Liddell Hart’s often-espoused political purpose of war is that of achieving “a better peace” that
will prevent the contagion of it by the germs of grievance.[203] [204] In order to achieve this, a holistic
understanding of the root causes of conflict must be gained so that a comprehensive solution can be found using the
full-spectrum of the instruments of power. For Sun Tzu, writing in the Warring States period of Chinese history,
the objective of war was re-establishing order in the turmoil of the times, by “winning the Heaven [the unity of all
China] with ‘preservation’”.[205] According to Roger Wing, Sun Tzu believed that “to employ this premise, no
one part of the system can triumph if it destroys another part, for this will damage everyone”.[206] In this way, it
can be claimed that Sun Tzu understood that his national strategy could only be created through a comprehensive
approach to policy formulation and implementation. Through such holism, as Liang & Xiangsui suggest, more of
the rules of victory can be understood. Because, “there is more to war than warfare”,[207] the context in which
the military tool is used has to be appreciated for it to add appropriate value with the preservation of all other
parts. This can be achieved with an “understanding that what we can do with others is more important than what
we can do ourselves”.[208] The comprehensive approach is thus a “combination method”[209] that seeks to “…

develop the strengths of each [element of national power] to their greatest limits”[210] without harming the other
elements. To achieve a dynamic balance between diplomatic, informational, military and economic instruments,
for the purpose of coherent policy directed at achieving common goals, it is imperative that each proponent
understands not only the intent of the actors involved, and the local realities that demand their combination, but
also the nature and character of the other instruments and ourselves, particularly, “…the specific limitations that our
history, our style, and our institutions impose on our effectiveness”.[211]
Although a theoretical ideal, a comprehensive approach should be seen as a collaborative wrap that both nurtures
and disciplines strategy to propagate yet prevents it spinning off to meet the needs of the immediate political
imperative or military absolutism. It is created by the fusion of different perspectives to inform decision-making;
without such constraint a void cannot be conceived. Liang and Xiangsui note that,
“The existence of boundaries is a prerequisite for differentiating objects one from another. In a world where
all things are interdependent, the significance of boundaries is merely relative. The expression "to exceed
limits" means to go beyond things which are called or understood to be boundaries”.[212]
The paradox of the comprehensive approach is that it is in itself a requirement to go beyond boundaries, to create
opportunity by breaking down the stove-pipes of excellence within and between organisations and share
perspectives through different lenses. However, the necessity of a comprehensive approach as a wrap to house
strategy is exactly the opposite - it must exist to restrict, challenge and constrain strategy through the reconciliation
of ends, ways and means so that it does not explode towards the absolute, escape or wither. To protect against
leakage or spillage, the void must be robust enough to house what is created and yet be resilient to change. It
cannot be brittle or based on the lowest common denominator; it must have an elasticity that enables it to change
shape to accommodate events or else the environment in which strategy should occur will not exist. This elasticity
is created through the mutual knowledge, consultation, cooperation and collaboration between actors that results in
a genuine unity of effort toward a common goal.
In 2010, General Sir Richard Shirreff KCB, then Commander Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC), noted in a
speech to Chatham House that:
“Success in war… depends on the achievement of unity of purpose and effort with other non-military
players in the theatre of conflict, for there can be no purely military solutions. Hybrid conflict needs hybrid
solutions… So command of joint operations… will depend as much on the more traditional attributes of
generalship, as on an understanding of, and a willingness to build, partnerships and work alongside the
critical non-military actors on the stage”.[213]
There are of course many cultural differences that must be overcome. The different sizes, structures or styles of
groups needs to be resolved by developing common understanding and the implementation of an agreed

mechanism to connect and balance different systems. Michael Stibbe, a Senior Political Advisor within the Dutch
MFA, notes that “Institutionally, the MOD gets its act together well before the MFA. Civilians must act quicker
and the military must adapt their thinking and approach to take account of the civilian actors”.[214] To some
extent, effective collaboration only occurs by developing an empathic ear for the concern of neighbours. A recent
social science experiment investigated the connection between power and empathy and found that
“…while most people seem naturally inclined to take the other’s perspective, providing people a dose of
power correlated with their being less likely to [do so… Thus,] a surplus of power seemed to be connected,
and perhaps even led, to a deficit of empathy”.[215]
This may help explain the decision-dominance of states and organisations that are more powerful in terms of age,
budget, personnel and the size and immediacy of their physical effect and influence. Relative to the FCO and DfID
in Whitehall, the MOD is extremely powerful. Internationally, expenditure on defence far outstrips that for either
diplomacy or development aid and its physical effect is both more immediate and attractive to media. This may
contribute to an oft-perceived overbearing and self-confident military campaigning for kinetic effect and assuming
control of all elements of stabilization operations - especially when combined with a relatively fast decision-action
cycle generated through a mechanistic tendency to reduce complex problems to manageable issues, “…without
questioning the realism of the ends and therefore the adequacy of the means”.[216]
Despite the changing conditions in the use of force in the 21st century, there remains in the UK (as there was in
USA in 1968) an imbalance between spending on the military and other power-generating instruments. As
Hoffmann asserted, “…there is an excess of the power to deny over the power to achieve gains”.[217] Our greatest
and most immediate ability to directly affect another state remains that created by destruction. Although the
military can champion moderate reform, it is not capable of transforming desperate internal situations alone. As
demonstrated over the last decade of US expenditure in Afghanistan, there is an extremely low ratio of spending on
diplomatic operations and foreign aid when compared to military activity.[218]

The utility of force in confrontations is broadly questioned, and in the current financial climate there is now a
significant cost-benefit analysis ongoing in capitals to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of military force
and campaign spending.[219] Michael Semple argues that the UK’s over-militarisation of the Afghanistan problem
enabled the military mission to usurp what should have been an assistance mission.[220] Embracing a void
through a composite approach to strategy seeks to dynamically rebalance the influence of the departments and thus
give more weight to the subtler instruments of power. This may provide a purer understanding of their interaction
and the long-term consequences of their combined effects. Any approach that seeks to determine the application of
power more holistically and thus, ultimately, more beneficially to all, should be grasped tightly. The author
believes that there are five critical attributes of composite strategy through embracing a void:
1) Raison d’être: unless it is embraced, a void does not exist. Principally, the raison d’etre of an embraced
void is to create clear purpose. Crucially, the metaphor also offers a philosophy that, if understood, can be
accepted and utilised across all agencies of government, and the stakeholders that they represent, to permit
the dynamic balance of policy and strategy.
2) Reference: In 1968, Stanley Hoffmann summarized the broader implications of the US intervention in

Vietnam in one formula: “…from incorrect premises about a local situation and about our abilities, a bad
policy is likely to follow”.[221] False premises led to a similar catalogue of mistakes in the UK’s
reinvestment in Helmand and this was due, in large part, to a failure of a comprehensive approach to strategy.
An embrace by a collaborative wrap of elements in combination provides clearer context of the situation in
all aspects (i.e. political, economic, social, technical, legal, environmental, martial, informational, intellectual
and temporal). Its creation demands an initial analysis of the problem through multiple lenses and permits
the weaker elements to remain apparent as a weave through the body of the cup.
3) Regard: The US Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, believes that it was the 1986
Goldwater-Nichols Act that forced the military to move in a joint direction - although he admits it was a
difficult process that has taken between 10-15 years to get right - it is now joint thinking that gives the US
military its strength.[222] The creation of the cup acts as a catalyst that through mutual recognition and
empathy empowers the capacity to act comprehensively. It unites effort and exploits the relative strengths of
those that contribute to it in combination and provides the environment for strategy to prosper by offering
collective concern and collaborative energy to overcome institutional inertia.
4) Restriction: Embracing a void controls that within it. If what is formed tends towards the absolute, the cup
restricts its growth and retains it within comprehensive policy walls. Similarly, if one component seeks to
influence more than it should, the comprehensive nature of the cup disciplines that element, and therefore the
strategy within. A comprehensive approach embraces all perspectives and in doing so provides a degree of
strategic constraint, as each department or agency provides a unique perspective on how ends are to be
reconciled with means and ways. Like petals around a receptacle of strategy, a comprehensive approach
protects, contains and intensifies the essence of the flower. Far from reducing decision-making to the lowest
common denominator and permitting a reduction in standards through contrived consensus, the challenge and
discipline of a comprehensive approach provides decision-makers with a more complete perspective, and
probably outwith those often found in Whitehall, thus has the potential to constrain the ambition of
politicians and departments alike with another’s reality. A senior Cabinet Office official revealed his belief
that the two key aspects of this theory are the discipline it applies to the ambitions of individual departments
and a focus on the tight budgetary constraints under which all should be working.[223]
5) Response: An embrace cannot occur if it does not take into account the size and movement of that within
its grasp. In ever changing circumstances, the act of embracing strategy requires the comprehensive cup to

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