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From Beirut (to Paris) to Jerusalem
Whew. It's been quite a whirlwind journey. After leaving Beirut on Thursday, I spent the weekend in Paris where, among other things, I paid a visit to my friend Etienne de Durand at IFRI and also lunched with another friend, Judah Grunstein (et fils). I am now south of the Blue Line staying with Charles Levinson, an old drinking buddy from Cairo who has gone all respectable of late. I plan to spend about two weeks here writing in coffeeshops, doing some tourism and conducting a few interviews. After spending almost three years in Beirut -- as well as stints in Cairo and Tangier (and, of course, Baghdad and Kuwait City) -- I have, incredibly, only spent seven days of my life in the Hebrew-speaking Middle East. So this next fortnight should be fun, and a great learning experience.
When I wasn't editing dissertation chapters in Paris, meanwhile, I was reading stuff for both fun (like this novel
The persistent recurrence of these strategy pitfalls argues that deciding in whose hands to place US strategy in the twenty-first century is a critical issue. The fact is, however, that few individuals — regardless of intelligence, education, credentials or experience — possess the necessary cognitive skills and insight to be competent strategists. The insight to see more deeply than one’s opponents into the possibilities and probabilities of a competitive situation is rare. Strategy may be a game anyone can play, but the evidence is strong that very few can play it well.
Krepinevich, of course, is a guy who has written brilliantly about counterinsurgency operations
Best STRATEGIC
Best STRATEGIC thinkers:
Whether you agree with him or not, on whatever issue, Stephen Martin Walt.
Enjoy life in Tel Aviv (or wherever you are).
ADTS
Best STRATEGIC
Best STRATEGIC thinkers:
Walt is, of course, a defensive realist - therefore doubly conservative in the classical sense of the word, perhaps. I'm trying to think of an equally impressive strategic thinker who is in favor of a comparatively more aggressive American foreign policy. I'm hard-pressed to think of one offhand, and now I'm wondering why.
ADTS
Wait a second...Levinson got
Wait a second...Levinson got all respectable??Walt? Are you joking? Isn't
Walt? Are you joking?
Isn't comparing Brimley to Cartwright a bit apples and oranges? There are a litany of people between 25-40 in DC that *might* be good strategists and who have written smart stuff. Unclear how they will pan out over the next few decades though.
He is (to my anonymous mind)
He is (to my anonymous mind) somewhat of a crazed neocon, but if you are thinking about a "comparatively more aggressive American foreign policy," the strategic thinker that comes to mind is Eliot Cohen.
Biddle!
Biddle!
With all due respect, isn't
With all due respect, isn't the framing of the question a bit problematic in a way that privileges a certain theory of the "right" way to do foreign policy/grand strategy? Mead's critique of many who write about US foreign policy (Kennan, realists, etc.) is the way they fetishize the notion of a "great man" who will run foreign policy. The problem, as John Gaddis is fond of saying in his talks on grand strategy, is that the world does not stop for any one person, including someone like Kennan (he's working on a book about Kennan part of which makes this very point). Another problem is that our system of government makes such an effort nearly impossible and for good reasons the Founders anticipated.
In the modern world -- honestly probably for the last century -- the "lighthouse" theory of foreign policy, that you can have one big strategist running the show, seems like a pipe dream. Instead, you need teams of smart people that reinforce each other.
The genius of the Prussian conceptual response to Napoleon was the recognition that while they could not match his individual battlefield acumen, they could, through the construction of a system, match the output. This was the Prussian general staff system and most observers think it worked very well (no, not perfectly, etc.).
So the task should not be to name some strategic thinkers and put them up on a pedestal. Besides, in today's DC, that will only accelerate how quickly they are torn down. The task should be to figure out a way to structure national security decision-making in ways that lets the "strategic" level of thinking into the discussion (as opposed to it always getting shoved aside for day-to-day crises) and actually institutionalizes efforts to do strategic thinking. Though maybe that's asking too much.
It *is* easier if you have one brilliant man or woman who has a good vision, the authority/power to implement it, and the political talent to stay in power. . .
All that being said, I am curious to see who people name.
Great, great point Scott. I
Great, great point Scott. I suspect Krepinevich might agree with you. He, after all, recommends we set up a "strategic planning staff" of sorts within the NSC -- exactly the kind of system response the German high command set up when they started serious staff work.Is Krepinevich not famous
Is Krepinevich not famous (infamous) for writing a report, in February 2001 (just seven months before 9/11), entitled: "A Strategy for the Long Peace?"
Colin Gray
Colin Gray
Colin Gray
Colin Gray
We live in a world today in
We live in a world today in which the old 2nd World (Russia, China, India, et. al.) has moved over to the market side and where -- because of this -- we believe that there is the real potential that ALL of these nations might come to adopt a proper democratic form of government.
These are, after all, the hard-fought-for gains which we achieved in winning the Cold War. This, however, turned out to be only Part I of the job.
We soon realized that, in order to retain and sustain these hard-fought-for Cold War gains and potentials, we must better stabilize and reconfigure the 3rd World -- such that it might better provide for the ravenous needs of these new (and the old) market-nations. This soon came to be understood as the required Part II of the job.
What strategist (a) best acknowledges, understands and writes with clarity about this new context, these new dynamics and this new mission and (b) properly addresses what will be faced and what will be required to get Part II of the job done?
Why list the acolytes when
Why list the acolytes when the teachers are still alive?
You cannot mention Krepinevich without mentioning Andrew Marshall. Before Marshall and the 1950s RAND coterie, which included Albert Wohlstetter, strategic studies didn't really exist. In the Acknowledgments section of the new report, Krepinevich and Watts even credit Marshall with sparking their renewed interest in the topic, which pretty much says it all.
How about Richard Betts at Columbia? AM, I know you read him - so too does Brimley, who is apparently smart enough to know what to plagiarize.
To whoever suggested Colin Gray, I'll suggest the flip side: Scott Sagan at Stanford.
I guess I do not include
I guess I do not include people like Betts -- who, you are right, I read and greatly admire -- because they engage more in strategic *studies* than in strategy itself. Maybe that's unfair? Regardless, Andrew Marshall is another matter entirely.Visitor 9:26am(a): I would
Visitor 9:26am(a): I would think that you're right, Cohen would be a good "antithesis" to Walt.
Visitor 9:26am(b): I think of Biddle as lower on the ladder of abstraction, so to speak. He seems to concern himself more with military science than grand strategy, at least in what I see from him in the press, and obviously based (in part) off of "Military Power."
I think this is difficult to answer because it is difficult to know if one is supposed to talk of those inside the academy, outside the academy, or those who transit between the two. For example, Martin van Creveld is certainly prolific and, I would argue, eerily intelligent. Do people in Washington (or Jerusalem) ever open up "Command in War" though before making a decision? I place Colin Gray in the same category - brilliant scholars who are not in the policy world. Walt, however, I could easily see as having been head of S/P had he not written a certain book.
Travis, I'm assuming you've read "Should Strategic Studies Survive?" The RAND intellectuals are perhaps a good place to start that I had overlooked. I have no idea how much influence, or strategic wisdom, Seth Jones or Nora Bensahel have to dispense. I'd be interested if others could enlighten me. I respect Sagan's work, and think it's interesting, and that writes well, but haven't seen much by him on grand strategy.
I did just think of Francis Fukuyama, who I will add to the list.
ADTS
from Beirut to Jerusalem.
from Beirut to Jerusalem. Will we hear AM's take on the Saad-Ghorayeb/NATO college dust up? Details available at Helena Cobban's site.
Have to go with Colin Gray
Have to go with Colin Gray as well.
Thomas P.M. Barnett, and I
Thomas P.M. Barnett, and I say that not just because he has a regular WPR column, but also because he consistently forces you to think over some counterintuitive argument that, whether you agree with it or not, advances your understanding of the strategic stakes involved. Plus, in this time of doom and gloom, it's kind of refreshing to see someone defend a vision of how things might actually work out alright in the end.
See, I'd actually contrast
See, I'd actually contrast this list: when has a strategic thinker proven his value (and note the "his" -- Is Ann Marie Slaughter the only female strategist we'll discuss)?
This is where record matters -- whether Barnett using his first two books to salivate over which countries in the world to invade, or Andrew Bacevich writing off al Qaeda as a minimal threat just months before 9/11. We're quite unwilling to examine whether our thinkers are right or not, seemingly satisfied with whether or not they sound good while speaking.
The short paper at Small
The short paper at Small Wars Journal by Elkus and Safranski diagnosing our "conceptual muddle" may provide a useful framework for this discussion. I was quite impressed by their summation of the problem at a high level of abstraction, but sorely disappointed by their (self-confessed) weak conclusion: rather forced optimism for the State Department’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, and/or a bipartisan commission of elder statesmen. In line with Scott’s comment, perhaps this sort of structural or institutional solution is the most that can be hoped for, not merely for political reasons, but for fundamental reasons of epistemology in an irreducibly uncertain world.
Travis: In what way is Scott Sagan the flip side of Colin Gray? I agree with ADTS that Sagan is great in his subject, but that grand strategy encompasses much more than just nukes, however vital counter-proliferation is.
AM: Your distinction on Betts is escaping me. Scholars vs decision-makers? How many decision-makers at this level are not also scholars?
Visitor 2:37pm: Hear! Hear! for remembering the historical record. However, being wrong in the past does not preclude being right in the future, so where does this leave us?
As for the strategic implications of the evolution of the state system, any votes for Philip Bobbitt? I found his incorporation of the concerns of constitutions and legitimacy into the strategic discourse highly illuminating.
Hunter S. Thompson.
Hunter S. Thompson.
I'm here, too. Maybe we'll
I'm here, too. Maybe we'll run into each other at the American Embassy.
another visitor passing
another visitor passing through:
I'm confused by your post, too. :-)
My reference to Betts was simply in reference to an article he wrote for World Politics (before 9/11 and Iraq), "Should Strategic Studies Survive?" (the apologia seems a bit anachronistic, does it not?). You may be aware of it; apologies for being pedantic if you are.
That's a great point about how many decision-makers are not also scholars. Once more, I'll go to SM Walt. In one of his pieces (I think it's his "Policy Relevance" piece in the Annual Review of Political Science), he - unfairly in my opinion - notes the decline of PhDs among the wonk/think tank community, and says it ain't like it used to be (I think he cites James Steinberg as a sign of the community's decline, and John Steinbruner and Yahya Sadowski as a sign of the community's former glory). Again, your point is well-, well-taken. I think one has to define the universe of "decision-makers" or "strategists" or "wonks" or "think tankers" and then proceed from there, and decide whether it's OK to have "just" a master's or "just" a law degree, and work from there.
There are, of course, decision-makers who are not scholars. I think it depends on on what level of government you aim to focus. My sense is the higher the level of government, the lower the level of scholars, and vice versa, at least within that range just below the top principals. But I'm outside the Beltway, ignorant of its way to a large degree, and could well be wrong.
ADTS
The coal town PA wonder...
The coal town PA wonder... Ralph Peters.
Somalia's Harakat al-Shabab
Somalia's Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahideen Pledge Allegiance to Bin Laden in New Video, & Show Rapid Media Evolution
Michael Hardt and Toni Negri
Michael Hardt and Toni Negri
"Michael Hardt and Toni
"Michael Hardt and Toni Negri"
Hahahahahahahahaha -- very good!
Barry Posen - "Command of
Barry Posen - "Command of the Commons"?
ADTS
The best strategic thinkers
The best strategic thinkers aren't the ones that write blogs, put out op-eds every month and write think tank reports. If you're thinking at a strategic level, you're thinking BIG -- COIN is not that interesting because it deals with tactics and operations, not strategy. So most strategic thinkers are not putting out a ton of work because it takes a long time to formulate thoughts on a grand scale.
The best strategic thinkers we have: Robert Jervis, Thomas Schelling, Kenneth Waltz.
If you're looking for someone younger, try Charles Glaser, University of Chicago.
Beirut paris jerusalem..
Beirut paris jerusalem.. Bully :)
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