Trouble with Strategy: Bridging Policy and Operations.

摘要

No subject generates more concern within the military than strategy. Yet policymakers are often indifferent to it. Some find the demand for more and better strategy to be naive resistance to inevitable ad hocery. Why is the subject never settled enough to allow leaders to get on with other business. Why do senior officers insist on clear strategy more than do civilian officials. What Clausewitz said of friction in war applies to strategy: it 'is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.' The trouble begins with the term strategy which is a buzzword that covers a multitude of sins. Many were content with a limited conception in earlier times planning and directing large-scale military operations. Clausewitz, however, injected politics when he defined strategy as 'the use of an engagement for the purpose of the war.' This wedge properly pushes the concept to higher levels. But some usages of the term become so broad that they are synonymous with foreign policy.