Grand Strategy, Strategic Planning, and Intelligence

The theory and practice of grand strategy and how intelligence informs the process of forming and executing it are examined. Begins with a historical view of grand strategy from the post-Napoleonic War period, the course then covers Interwar and Cold War grand strategy, post-Cold War grand strategy, and grand strategy today.

1. The Politics of Grand Strategy

Reading:

• Dennis M. Drew and Donald M. Snow, “Grand National Strategy” Chapter 3 in Making Twenty-First-Century Strategy: An Introduction to Modern

National Security Processes and Problems, (Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, 2006), 31-52.

• Colin S. Gray, “The Dimensions of Strategy,” Chapter 1 in Modern Strategy, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 16-47

• Foster, Gregory D. Foster, “A Conceptual Foundation for a Theory of Strategy”, The Washington Quarterly, 13: 1, (1990), 43-59

2. The Logic of Strategy

Reading:

• Harry R. Yarger, “A Theory Stated: Strategy’s Logic,” Chapter 2 in Strategic Theory for the 21st Century: The Little Book on Big Strategy, (Carlisle, PA; Strategic Studies Institute, 2006), 5-16.

• Arthur F. Lykke, “Toward an Understanding of Military Strategy” in Joseph R. Cerami and James F. Holcomb, (eds), US Army War College Guide To Strategy, (Carlisle, PA; Strategic Studies Institute, 1991), 179-185.

• Michael G. Roskin, National Interest: From Abstraction to Strategy, (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 1994).

3. Instruments of National Power

Reading:

• Gregory F. Treverton, and Seth G. Jones, “Measuring State Power” Chapter 2 in Measuring National Power, (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2005), 3-7.

• David Jablonsky, “National Power” in Joseph R. Cerami and James F.Holcomb, (eds), US Army War College Guide To Strategy, (Carlisle, PA; Strategic Studies Institute, 1991), 87-106.

• Richard J. Josten, “Strategic Communication: Key Enabler for Elements of National Power,” Joint Information Operations Center IO Sphere, summer (2006), 16-20.

4. Strategic Theory -1

Reading:

• Carl Von Clausewitz, “Book Three: On Strategy in General,” in On War, trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Oxford: Oxford University Press, (2007), 133-156.

• Thomas Waldman, “Politics and War: Clausewitz’s Paradoxical Equation,” Parameters, autumn (2010), 1-13.

• Thomas A. Drohan, “Bringing ‘Nature of War’ into Irregular Warfare Strategy: Contemporary Applications of Clausewitz’s Trinity,” Defence Studies, 11:3 (2011), 497-516

5. Strategic Theory - 2

Reading:

• Dennis M. Drew and Donald M. Snow, “The Political Environment of Grand Strategy” Chapter 4 in Making Twenty-First-Century Strategy: An Introduction to Modern National Security Processes and Problems, (Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, 2006), 53-75.

• Harry R. Yarger, “The Strategic Environment,” Chapter 3 in Strategic Theory for the 21st Century: The Little Book on Big Strategy, (Carlisle, PA; Strategic Studies Institute, 2006), 17-29.

• Brynjar Lia, Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of Al-Qaida Strategist Abu Mus’ab al-Suri (London: Hurst & Company, 2008),

• ,Abu Bakr Naji, Management of Savagery, Translated by William McCants, May 2006

• Carmine Cicalese, “Redefining Information Operations,” Joint Forces Quarterly, 69(2), 2013: pp. 109-112

6. The Utility of Force

Reading:

• Bart Schuurman, “Clausewitz and the “New Wars” Scholars,” Parameters, summer, (2010), 89-100.

• Colin M. Fleming, “New or Old Wars? Debating a Clausewitzian Future,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 32: 2 (2009), 213-241.

• Dennis M. Drew and Donald M. Snow, “Asymmetric Warfare Dilemmas” Chapter 13 in Making Twenty-First-Century Strategy: An Introduction to Modern National Security Processes and Problems, (Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, 2006), 231-248

7. Warfare and Violence in a Changing World

Reading:

• Colin S. Gray, “Why Strategy is Difficult,” Joint Forces Quarterly, 7:1 (1999), 80-86.

• Dennis M. Drew and Donald M. Snow, “Fog, Friction, Chance, Money, Politics, and Gadgets” Chapter 10 in Making Twenty-First-Century Strategy: An Introduction to Modern National Security Processes and Problems, (Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, 2006), 191-203.

• Harry R. Yarger, “Theory in the Real World,” Chapter 5 in Strategic Theory

• for the 21st Century: The Little Book on Big Strategy, (Carlisle, PA; Strategic Studies Institute, 2006), 31-64.

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Obligatory reading:

• Peter Paret et al., Makers of Modern Strategy, (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1989).

• Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: A History, (Oxford University Press, 2013).

Recommended reading:

• Clausewitz, Carl von, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds. and trans. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976).

• Sun Tzu. The Art of War, translated by Thomas Cleary (Boston: Shambhala).

• Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Martin Hammond. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Supplementary reading:

• E.H. Carr, The Twenty Year’s Crisis, (New York: Perennial, 2001), pp. 109-145

• Richard K. Betts, “Is Strategy an Illusion?” International Security 25, no. 2 (Fall 2000), pp. 5-50

• Paul Kennedy, “Grand Strategy in War and Peace: Toward a Broader Definition,” in Grand Strategies in War and Peace, ed. Paul Kennedy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), pp. 1-7.

• Richard H. Yarger, “The Strategic Appraisal: The Key to Effective Strategy,” ed. J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr, The U.S. Army War College Guide to National Security Issues Volume I: Theory of War and Strategy (Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA, (2012), pp. 53-66