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Penguin Press, N.Y., 2018, 368 pgs., index,
motes
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Reviewer Comment
The author has an unusual approach to his discourse on the nature of strategy -
and by 'grand strategy' of course he means the highest level in which strategic
considerations and actions directly integrate military concepts with the
political purposes desired. That is, military means with political ends. He
stresses this unity throughout the book in so many ways. His approach is to
meld:
- 1 description of the historical events
- 2 the strategic thought (and more important the actions) of the relevant
personalities
- 3 analysis of these with reference to what great thinkers about strategy did
or likely would have considered them positive or negative.
In particular he invokes St. Augustine, Machiavelli, Clausewitz, Isaiah Berlin,
and Tolstoy as the main commentators. But each chapter includes an interesting
and surprising roster of individuals in addition to the the official leaders
the reader might expect. The author's ability to find relevance to strategy and
to thought about strategy in the thought of so many individuals and integrate
it into the subject of that chapter is remarkable. I have listed a few relevant
sources on strategy below.
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Preface -
Professor Gaddis notes that his thinking about strategy has sources from his
students whom he taught "Strategy and Policy" at the US Naval War
College over the years; and from his teaching "Studies in Grand
Strategy" at Yale University. Indeed, nothing, in my opinion, sharpens
one's ideas about a topic than the experience of attempting to teach it. He
notes that his approach to writing is 'informal, impressionistic, and wholly
idiosyncratic" and it surely is. He continues:
"I seek patterns across time, space and scale". He repeatedly
draws attention to these three components relevant to strategy. He explains
that his authorities on strategic theory, such as St. Augustine and
Machiavelli, or Clausewitz and Tolstoy (and many more) will be talking to each
other throughout the book.
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Chapter 1 - Crossing the Hellespont
The chapter begins with Persian King of Kings Xerxes meditating on sending his
army into Greece in discussion with an advisor, Artabanus. It continues with
commentary on the strategy employed by both Persians and Greeks. The author
also includes discussion with Isaiah Berlin, something to which he continues to
return throughout the book. In particular, he repeatedly invokes the metaphor
of the 'hedgehog and the fox' to categories he
employs to differentiate methods of strategy. He also brings Tolstoy (War and
Peace) into this analysis. His method, continued throughout the book, is to
describe briefly but clearly the historical events that are subject to the
strategies being considered by the historic actors, the later commentators and
himself. In this example he jumps directly from Xerxes to Berlin to Tolstoy to
Herodotus and back. Artibanus is Gaddis's fox and Xerxes is his hedgehog, but
both ultimately fail.
In another remarkable shift Gaddis then jumps to the question of the possible
ability of humans to forecast the future. He references Philip Tetlock's
 experimental project to identify 'super forecasters'. Gaddis
categorizes Tetlock's individuals as foxes or hedgehogs. and that the foxes did
'better'.
In the following section Gaddis returns to Xerxes and Greece. He opens with
this wise comment. "The test of a good theory lies
in its ability to explain the past, for only if it does can we trust what it
may tell us about the future."
Unfortunately so many economists and political pundits today believe history,
the record of the past, began circa 1920 or later. Investment gurus deny that
the past has any relevance to the future outcome of investment choices today.
Gaddis' appraisal - "Xerxes' invasion of Greece was an early but
spectacular example of hedgehog - like behavior." ... "Xerxes failed,
as is the habit of hedgehogs, to establish a proper relationship between his
ends and his means. Because ends exist only in the imagination, they can be
infinite: ... But "means, though, are stubbornly finite." This is a
central theme Gaddis uses through out the book when evaluating specific
strategies and strategic thinking. He invokes Tetlock again by noting that
Xerxes was like Tetlock's hedgehogs and Artabanus was like Tetlock's foxes.
In another surprising jump Gaddis invokes F. Scott Fitzgerald's test that a
'first rate intelligence' must have the' - "the ability to hold two
opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to
function". In other words, be both a fox and an hedgehog simultaneously -
the critical ability Gaddis finds in 'great strategists'. For this he cites
Berlin's view that some people are indeed both.
The remainder of the book is an exposition of these concepts in the contexts of
specific historical examples, beginning (again unexpectedly) with Jane Austin
and Steven Spielberg.
Moving through more individuals, Gaddis comes to Daniel Kahneman and his
concept of 'fast and slow thinking' .
Then another key concept. "Which is what grand strategy is meant to
prevent. (making dumb moves). I'll define that term. for
the purposes of this book, as the alignment of potentially unlimited
aspirations with necessarily limited capabilities. If you seek ends
beyond your means, then sooner or later you'll have to scale back your ends to
fit your means. Expanding means may attain more ends, but not all because ends
can be infinite and means can never be. Whatever balance you strike, there'll
be a link between what's real and what's imagined: between your current
location and your intended destination. You won't have a strategy until you've
connected these dots - dissimilar through they are - within the situation in
which you're operating." Gaddis continues with an exposition on the term
'grand' in its context with 'strategy'.
Finally, this concept, "This, then, is a book about the mental
Hellesponts that divide such leadership, on one shore, from common sense,
on the other." Its all about the proper alignment of
means and ends. And one can learn how better to do this by the study of
great and not-so-great strategists.
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Tangental aside - Gaddis is describing 'grand
strategy' in the context of national security policy - the highest level of
concerns about political - military relationships as it was enacted by real
leaders. But many of his specific thoughts about excellent versus poor strategy
relate also to private as well as public efforts to achieve ends. This is
especially so with respect to means and ends. Not only do many people ignore
Gaddis' advice about their proper alignment but they also confuse the two and
treat means as ends.
What we have are several quite different categories of individuals (doers -
thinkers - and thinkers about thinkers) - 1 actual employers of strategies to
achieve real results - the kind of people Talib notes have 'skin in the game'.
then 2 academic theoreticians who conjure up strategies they attempt to sell to
leaders and deplore failures for not having done so, - then 3 authors who
attempt to evaluate the theories proposed by the #2 types.
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Chapter 2 - Long Walls
The title refers to the walls Athens constructed to connect the city with its
port, Piraeus, thus giving up its farmland in Attica in favor of basing its
strategy on naval power and its island empire. The principle strategist
initially is Pericles. But he died in the terrible plague and was replaced by
the vastly inferior Cleon. The author includes only the events and
political/strategic policies of the participants in the Peloponnesian War that
he considers critical and valuable with respect to analysis of strategy. But
his summary of the critical strategic episodes is excellent. Among his
reference theoreticians are Themistocles and Thucydides. His main actual
strategists are Pericles and Cleon (but unnamed Spartans and Corinthians are
noted as well)
He judges that, "Both Spartans and Athenians acted strategically, however,
in that they were aligning aspirations with capabilities." He considers
that both could have avoided war if they had 'trust' in each other, but that
such trust was 'strikingly shallow' in the 'character of the Greeks". A
typical shift in the chapter is commentary on the Korean and Vietnam wars with
class discussions comparing these to Thucydides' evaluation of Greek decisions
and Tolstoy's ideas in War and Peace.
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Chapter 3 - Teachers and Tethers
In this chapter the author switches to consider Sun Tzu and Chinese strategic
principles. These are both theoreticians, not practicing strategists. He then
abruptly brings in Shakespeare's Polonius. Back to Sun Tzu, he quotes the
famous admonition, "War is a matter of vital
importance to the State, not to be embarked on without due reflection.
(See my web page ) There is much more to consider about Sun Tzu and the context
of his ideas than Gaddis includes. His observation is that "Leadership in
The Art of War, then, is seeing simplicities in complexity."
With another abrupt shift Gaddis turns to Julius Caesar and then even more to
Octavian (Augustus). Plutarch is one of his sources. Antony, Lepidus, Sextus
Pomeius, Cleopatra, Agrippa, Tiberius, and Cicero make their appearances (all
of these were practicing strategists).
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Chapter 4 - Souls and States
In opening this chapter Gaddis mentions George Kennan (the younger) who
explored in Siberia and wrote about it in 1870. The context is the response of
primitive peoples to fear of the unknown and unknowable. But this brief tangent
is followed by one of Gaddis' main, lengthy discussions, that between St.
Augustine and Machiavelli, who were both strategists and theoreticians. The
contrasts and comparisons are central to his approach to what constitutes
effective 'strategy'. One of their main 'discussion' topics is the question of
what constitutes 'just war'. The chapter should be studied in detail. He again
references and quotes Berlin effectively.
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Chapter 5 - Princes as Pivots
Gaddis accepts the definition of a pivot as a turning point. The historical
context of the chapter is the conflict between English Queen Elizabeth I and
Spanish King Philip II, two consummate strategists. He comments that:
"Both monarchs would have absorbed Augustine from Catholic doctrine -
Philip avidly, Elizabeth grudgingly,,, and both may have read
Machiavelli." (Which was widely available to them). The contrasts between
the two are striking, especially in their thought processes and in their
strategic policies. Gaddis appraises both in terms of St. Augustine and
Machiavelli.
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Chapter 6 - New Worlds
Gaddis contrasts the Spanish and English colonization in the New World and
beyond. This is preliminary to his lengthy discussion of the American
Revolution. The major thinkers appear, John Adams, Thomas Paine, John Locke,
Edmund Burke, King George III, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington,
Samuel Johnson, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and then
John Quincy Adams and James Monroe, several were both strategists and
theoreticians. Gaddis discusses their strategic thinking in terms of aligning
limited means and far reaching ends. And he refers to time and scale. British
politicians (strategists) Canning and Churchill appear later.
His final appraisal: "There, unforgettably, was the compromise
characteristic of the age: freedom in principle, perhaps even partially,
eventually, in practice. But Union - and its requirement
that great ends be kept within available means - came first. Only a
state at peace with itself could save its soul. For now."
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Chapter 7 - The Grandest Strategists
Gaddis opens with Tolstoy who 'evokes the gap that
exists, at all levels, between theory and practice." He continues
by noting that Clausewitz filled his writing with the same concept. "few
if any others have thought more deeply or written more perceptively about time,
space, and scale." Clausewitz writes in On War, leaving not the
slightest doubt that he knows his subject". But so does Tolstoy. Gaddis is
not a fan of Napoleon or his marshals and generals.
He quotes Clausewitz again: "War's 'grammar', Clausewitz writes in On
War, 'may be its own, but not its logic'". Both Clausewitz and Tolstoy
disparaged theories that sought to be laws. Gaddis discusses Clausewitz's
central concept that war is a means to achieve a political end and must be
subordinated to political policy. He writes that Napoleon lost sight of this
critical reality. And Tolstoy reached a similar conclusion about Napoleon.
Gaddis focuses also on Clausewitz's conception of 'friction' in war as a cause
of asymmetries between aspirations and capabilities. He notes that Xerxes and
Napoleon failed for the same reason. There is much more in this chapter.
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Chapter 8 - The Greatest President
Gaddis begins here with an appraisal of John Quincy Adams' failures as a
president despite having more designed training for the role than practically
any other president. He begain with his first annual message to Congress by
"mismatching his aspirations and capabilities on a Napoleonic scale".
But Adams rehabilitated himself by being the only former president to serve in
the House, where he continually championed the abolishment of slavery and
suffered a death dealing stroke while speaking. From, J .Q. Adams Gaddis turns
to Abraham Lincoln as a master strategist, always evaluating the possibilities
of achieving significant ends with the means available and biding his time
while seeking to create those means. He recognized, without having read it,
Clausewitz's definition that war is 'an act of force to
compel our enemy to do our will'. For example, Gaddis notes Lincoln's
careful preparation and approach to issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.
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Chapter 9 - Last Best Hope
The chapter is about FDR as a skillful strategist. Berlin gives him high marks.
"Over the next four years, it was Roosevelt, more than anyone else, who
rescued democracy and capitalism - not everywhere and in all respects, but
sufficiently to stabilize both so that the setbacks they'd suffered in the
first half of the twentieth century cold reverse themselves in the
second". And "Roosevelt, in striking contrast, (to Wilson) was one of
those politicians equipped with 'antennae of the greatest possible delicacy,
which convey to them ... the perpetually changing contours of events and
feelings and human activities'."
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Chapter 10 - Isaiah
The chapter begins with Berlin's activities during and after WWII. It includes
his visit to Anna Akhmatova and her influence on him. As usual, the author
leapfrogs from topic to topic, including FDR, Fitzgerald, Tetlock, Machiavelli,
Clausewitz, Xerxes, Pericles, St. Augustine, and Octavian; and topics such as
liberty, freedom, and morality. Yet, it is all about the purpose of grand
strategy
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Some references
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Philip Bobbitt - Shield of Achilles
His description of the function of strategy is based on practical assessment of
its role for the modern state - It is the external counter part for
Constitution which is the internal manifestation of policy.
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Philip Tetlock - Super forecasting The
author's experiments show that it is possible for a few individuals who have
developed special skills at analyzing data to gain unusual ability at
prediction
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David Kahneman - Thinking fast and
Slow The author received the Nobel Prize in economics for the application
of his psychological insights to the way humans process data and reach
decisions including those about investments
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Niccolo Machiavelli - My web site devoted to
description and analysis of his works
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Karl von Clausewitz - On War
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Peter Paret - Clausewitz and the State
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Victor David Hanson ed - Makers of Ancient
Strategy
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Christopher Bassford - Clausewitz in
English
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Ken Mondschein, ed - The Art of War and
Other Classics of Eastern Philosophy
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Beatrice Heuser - The Evolution of
Strategy A huge study with very large bibliography. The author includes a
huge number of theoreticians about strategy in her historical narrative
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Lukas Milevski - The Evolution of Modern
Grand Strategic Thought The author begins with the Napoleon era.
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Lawrence Freedman - Strategy Another
massive study in which the author expands his description of the application
into many fields apart from the military.
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