Category: Geopolitical Strategy

On Liberalism and Empire – G. John Ikenberry

Synopsis:

G. John Ikenberry surveys the history of liberal internationalism in his book A World Safe for Democracy – as well as attempts to forecast its future. With its origins in nineteenth century European imperialism, liberal internationalism generates a novel international order – which tends to advance a fusion of national identity with global consent and consensus networks. Likewise, notions of modernity bond the networks – which catalyze a dynamic sense of shared experience across a wide spectrum of nations.

Excerpts:

“Empire has many different meanings and manifestations, but in essence it can be understood as a hierarchical form of order in which a leading state exercises formal or informal political control over a weaker polity.

“Liberalism offers a vision of political order based on restraint of power; its principles include the rule of law, separation of powers, protection of property rights, and guarantees of political rights and freedoms. In the same way, liberal internationalism offers principles and projects for the postimperial organization of the world.

“In the sweeping narratives of the liberal ascendancy, liberal democracies were vanguard states leading the world into a new political epoch. Liberal internationalists saw the world being reshaped by the forces of modernity: some states were leading the way and others were following.

“The European or Western order was dedicated to building relations based on mutual recognition, sovereign equality, and territorial independence. The extra-European order was dedicated to promoting a particular idea of civilization and transmitting its supposed benefits to the rest of the world.

“The fact that imperialism was increasingly brought within an international legal framework made it easier for liberal internationalists to reconcile empire (for the British, at least their own empire) with a vision of a world ordered by law and cooperation.

*All excerpts have been taken from A World Safe for Democracy: Liberal Internationalism and the Crises of Global Order, Yale University Press.

The Problem of Peace – JFC Fuller

Synopsis:

JFC Fuller’s The Conduct of War, surveys the evolution of warfare from the Napoleonic era into the post World War Two order. In the final chapter, Fuller analyzes the idea of peace within a bi-causal context of nuclear weapons and a clash of civilizations. According to Fuller, such a context tends to generate prime conditions for proxy warfare between the competing superpowers.

Excerpts:

“Clausewitz’s insistence that war is a political instrument is the first principle of all military statecraft, but his equal insistence on the complete overthrow of the enemy vitiates the end of grand strategy, which is that a profitable peace demands not the annihilation of one’s opponent, but the elimination or modification of the causes of the war.

“There is always a relationship between force and aim. The first must be sufficient to attain the second, but not so excessive that it cancels it out. This is the crux in nuclear warfare.

“A limited war is a war fought for a clearly defined limited political object, in which expenditure of force is proportioned to the aim; therefore strategy must be subordinated to policy.

“When both sides are equipped with nuclear weapons, that they will become deterrents on the tactical level, which reduces the idea of fighting a limited nuclear war to an absurdity. Thus it comes about that the stalemate is doubly assured, and except for wars other than those which directly involve the two great nuclear camps, such as wars by proxy or police operations.

“While Clausewitz failed to see that peace was the ultimate aim in war, Marx failed to see that in the steam age the ultimate economic and social aims were to create an industrial society through an evolutionary and not a revolutionary process.

*All excerpts have been taken from The Conduct of War: 1789-1961, Da Capo Press.

Hybrid Warfare – Curtis L. Fox

Synopsis:

In Hybrid Warfare, Curtis Fox attempts to define a strategic tradition of Russian hybrid warfare within a three century context. The strategy hinges on interlocking components – e.g. information operations, network-centric warfare et cetera – which advance Russian geostrategic interests vis-à-vis great power competition. Similarly, effective application of hybrid policies tend to elevate a dynamic of convergence between the ways/means – as well as ends – of Russian strategy.

Excerpts:

“Russia’s unique experience in repelling Napoleon engrained the necessity of strategic barriers and buffer states into the political class. Kutuzov, a star pupil of eminent Russian Field Marshal Suvorov, demonstrated the efficacy of defeating sophisticated and numerically superior armies using indirect methods.

“Russia does not see hybrid warfare as an independent doctrine that departs in any way from traditional military practice. To the contrary, when the Russians plan what the West has come to call ‘hybrid wars’, they are merely deploying all available methods that maximize the chances of success for their conventional military forces.

“Non-kinetic operations create space: an opening where someone capable of organization amid chaos can make gains. Kinetic operations seize this space, using SOF to probe for footholds which can then be occupied through the rapid maneuver of elite ground forces.

“In a crisis and corresponding intervention, as envisioned by Gerasimov, Russia employs a wide variety of military and non-military measures, which are closely coordinated to achieve operational objectives… Likewise, subordinate doctrines like asymmetric warfare, reflexive control, information operations, low-intensity conflict, network-centric warfare, and fifth generation warfare fit neatly into Gerasimov’s model as a tool kit for escalating or de-escalating a crisis as needed.

“Russia would formulate the hidden-hand (fait accompli) strategy: establishing information dominance (both intelligence and propaganda), using intelligence operatives to raise friendly local partisans and militias, using special operations forces to quickly eliminate key targets and seize terrain; rapidly maneuvering heavy ground forces into the battlespace to entrench gains before the enemy can react.

*All excerpts have been taken from Hybrid Warfare: The Russian Approach to Strategic Competition and Conventional Military Conflict, -30- Press Publishing.

Nature of International Change – Robert Gilpin

Synopsis:

Robert Gilpin’s analysis of international affairs in War & Change in World Politics tends to hinge on two vital benchmarks. First, consensus operates as a cohesive glue for constructing equilibrium between the most powerful states. Second, hegemonic influence is the most potent prime mover for developing consensus vis-à-vis international politics. In this way, equilibrium within international affairs is dynamic and fluid relative to change.

Excerpts:

“A precondition for political change lies in a disjuncture between the existing social system and the redistribution of power toward those actors who would benefit most from a change in the system.

“As is the case with domestic society, the nature of the international system determines whose interests are being served by the functioning of the system. Changes in the system imply changes in the distribution of benefits provided to and costs imposed on individual members by the system.

“In a diplomatic conflict the country which yields is likely to suffer in prestige because the fact of yielding is taken by the rest of the world to be evidence of conscious weakness… If they show want of confidence, people infer that there is some hidden source of weakness.

“Yet, even the most ruthless dictator must satisfy the interests of those individuals and groups who also wield power in a society. Powerful groups set constraints on and may even determine the actions of state authority. They constitute the society that is protected by the state; their particular concept of justice reigns.

“The maximization of efforts to attain economic and welfare goals entails the diversion of resources from national security. In a world of scarce resources, where every benefit entails a cost, societies seldom, if ever, choose guns or better, at least over the long run.

*All excerpts have been taken from War & Change in World Politics, Cambridge University Press.

Diplomacy and War in Livy – Niccolo Machiavelli

Synopsis:

Niccolo Machiavelli’s discourses on Titus Livy’s history of Rome offers a full spectrum examination of Roman statecraft. In book two, Machiavelli submits his analysis of war and diplomacy vis-à-vis Rome’s interaction with its allies – as well as enemies. Proximity, clarity, and swift resolve are features recognized as desirable for an ally.

Excerpts:

“Leagues made with rulers who lack either the means to help because they are too far away, or the power to help because they are disorganized or for other reasons, bring rather repute than assistance to those who trust in them.

“The advice which Hannibal gave to Antiochus, when this monarch was contemplating a war with the Romans. The Romans, he argued, could only be beaten in Italy, for others might there be able to avail themselves of their arms, their riches and their allies… he ended by saying that Antiochus had better first try to take Rome before attacking the empire, and Italy before attacking the other provinces.

“The Cimbri broke up a Roman army in Germany, and the Romans had no way to repair their defeat. But, when the Cimbri arrived in Italy, and against them the Romans could bring all their forces to bear, they were undone.

“I say again that a ruler who has his people well armed and equipped for war, should always wait at home to wage war with a powerful and dangerous enemy, and should not go out to meet him; but that one who has ill-armed subjects and a country unused to war should always meet the enemy as far away from home as he can.

“Slow and tardy decisions are no less harmful than are ambiguous decisions, especially when the point at issue is whether support is to be given to an ally; for by such slowness nobody benefits and to oneself it does harm.

*All excerpts have been taken from Machiavelli: The Discourses, Penguin Books Ltd.

The Death of Persia, and the Death of Alexander the Great – Frederick the Great

Synopsis:

Frederick the Great devotes a small corner of his Anti-Machiavel to answer why the Persian Empire of Darius III did not rise again following the death of its conqueror – Alexander the Great. Rather than destroy the empire Alexander in a sense co-opted it, and used the institutions of the Persian Empire for his new Macedonian Empire. Frederick also keenly compares from a cultural/political context the nation-states of Europe in his own era with those of Alexander and Darius.

Excerpts:

“The same policy which carried the King’s ministers to the establishment of an absolute despotism to France, also taught them to distract the nation by using its lightness and inconstancy, to make it less dangerous: a thousand frivolous occupations, the trifles and the pleasures, was given in exchange for their rights and their power.

“France’s powerful armies, and a very large number of fortresses, ensure that the French Sovereign will possess the throne forever, and they do not have anything to fear now concerning internal wars or their neighbors invading France.

“The author (Machiavelli) considers these things from only one point of view. He does not discuss the structure each government has: he appears to believe that the power of the empire of Persia and the Turks was founded only on the general slavery of these nations, and on the single rise of only one man who is the absolute ruler. He is of the idea that a despotism without restriction, established well, is the surest means that a prince has to ensure reign without disorder, and resist its enemies vigorously.

“The difference of the climates, the peoples’ diets, and their level of education, establish a total difference between their way of living and of thinking – like the difference between an Italian monk and a Chinese scholar. The temperament of the English, stout-hearted but hypochondriacal, is completely different from the proud courage of the Spanish; and the French have as little resemblance to the Dutch as the promptness of a monkey-cry has with the phlegm of a tortoise.

“It was noticed from time immemorial that the custom of the Eastern people was a spirit of constancy in their practices and their old habits, of which they almost never depart. Their religion, different from that of Europeans, still obliges them in some way, for fear of trouble visiting their Masters, the company of not to consort with those which they call the infidel; and to avoid carefully all that could pollute their religion and upset the structure of their government. Here is what, in their countries, makes for security of the throne, rather than that of the monarch: the Emperors are often dethroned, but the empire is never destroyed.

*All excerpts have been taken from Anti-Machiavel, Newark Press.

American Strategic Culture – Colin S. Gray

Synopsis:

Published in 1988, Colin Gray’s The Geopolitics of Super Power examines the cultural and political dimensions of late Cold War era American geostrategy. Context, as well as comparison guide Gray’s analytical framework – which synthesizes geography and history. According to Gray, political geography catalyzes a vital feature of national strategic culture.

Excerpts:

“It is commonplace to observe that dictatorships maintain systemic political strength only in the context of a public aura of success; that is, given that it is the lot of all governments to receive and be responsible for both good and bad news, a dictatorship dares not admit that it has failed.

“The roots of American strategic culture lie in a frontier tradition, an experience and expectation of success in national endeavors, experience with an abundance of resources for defense, a dominant political philosophy of liberal idealism, and a sense of separateness – moral and geostrategic – from the evil doings of the Old World.

“But statecraft is at least as much a matter of discovering and exploiting effective ‘work-arounds’ for national weaknesses and vulnerabilities as it is of exploiting national strengths. Substantially, though not exclusively, the effectiveness of a particular security community in defense of its interests is a function of the quality of strategic guidance provided for sustained collective action.

“Strategic culture – the socially transmitted attitudes, habits, and skills of a community in its approach to issues of national security – is very much the product of geopolitical factors as they are locally interpreted.

“Technical fixes in defense organization, and even changes in military tactics and at the operational level of war, will be unlikely to have the desired effects if they affront important strands in American culture.

*All excerpts have been taken from The Geopolitics of Super Power, The University Press of Kentucky.

Perpetual Peace – Immanuel Kant

Synopsis:

In his essay on the development of peace-groups within international politics, Immanuel Kant advances an institutional approach which features consent and consensus networks among nation-states, as well as republican government as the institutional locus providing the binding glue of lasting peace. The Kantian peace-group is generated bottom-up from republican states – which institutionally extend transnationally via consent and consensus mechanisms.

Excerpts:

“The state of peace among men living in close proximity is not the natural state (status naturalis); instead, the natural state is one of war, which does not just consist in open hostilities, but also in the constant and enduring threat of them.

“Without a contract among nations peace can be neither inaugurated nor guaranteed. A league of a special sort must therefore be established, one that we can call a league of peace (foedus pacificum), which will be distinguished from a treaty of peace (pactum pacis) because the latter seeks merely to stop one war, while the former seeks to end all wars forever.

“Now the republican constitution is the only one wholly compatible with the rights of men, but it is also the most difficult to establish and still harder to maintain, so much so that many contend that a republic must be a nation of angels, for men’s self-seeking inclinations make them incapable of adhering to so sublime a form of government.

“That kings should be philosophers, or philosophers kings is neither to be expected nor to be desired, for the possession of power inevitably corrupts reason’s free judgment.

“Both the love of man and the respect for the rights of man are our duty; the former is only conditional, while the latter is a unconditional, absolutely imperative duty, a duty that one must be completely certain of not having transgressed, if one is to be able to enjoy the sweet sense of having done right.

*All excerpts have been taken from Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, Hackett Publishing Company.

The Relation of Diplomacy to War – Antoine-Henri Jomini

Synopsis:

The American military has long been bewitched operationally and strategically by Antoine-Henri Jomini’s formulaic approach to warfare. The universality of the Jominian consciousness is so well established other strategic schools usually operate beside it – or as a passing veneer above its perpetual architecture. Likewise, Jomini’s geopolitical and diplomatic wisdom is usually less pronounced – but does offer some strategic bull’s-eyes.

Excerpts:

“War is always to be conducted according to the great principles of the art; but great discretion must be exercised in the nature of the operations to be undertaken, which should depend upon the circumstances of the case.

“In an offensive movement, scrupulous care must be exercised not to arouse the jealousy of any other state which might come to the aid of the enemy. It is a part of the duty of a statesman to foresee this chance, and to obviate it by making proper explanations and giving proper guarantees to other states.

“…if the principles of strategy are always the same, it is different with the political part of war, which is modified by the tone of communities, by localities, and by the characters of men at the head of states and armies.

“All history teaches that no enemy is so insignificant as to be despised and neglected by any power, however formidable.

“The love of conquest, however, was not the only motive with Napoleon: his personal position, and his context with England, urged him to enterprises the aim of which was to make him supreme.

*All excerpts have been taken from The Art of War, BiblioBazaar.

The Closing of the Muslim Mind – Robert R. Reilly

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Synopsis:

In his somewhat polemical book on early Islamic history Robert Reilly analyzes the dichotomous relationship between the Sunni theological schools of Mu’tazila and Ash’ari Islam. Mu’tazila held early primacy, and centered on rationalism as well as a sort of Monophysite understanding of the Godhead. By comparison, the Ash’arite school favored orthodoxy and dogmatism. Ultimately, Ash’arism triumphed, and historical counterfactuals abound relative to how Sunni Islam may have evolved had the Mu’tazila school prevailed.

Excerpts:

“In 750, the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads, along with their doctrine of predestination. The Abbasids had cause to embrace the Mu’tazilites, who succeeded to the Qadariyya position. The Mu’tazilites agreed with the Qadariyya that, without man’s freedom, God’s justice is unintelligible. To be held justly accountable for his acts, man must be free. The political implications of this position favored the Abbasid attempt to rein in the power of the ulema (Islamic jurisprudential scholars), whose monopoly on the interpretation of the Qur’an gave them great influence.

“The freedom to interpret revelation was based upon the Mu’tazilite teaching, shocking to the traditionalists, that the Qur’an was created in time. The standard orthodox belief was that the Qu’ran is uncreated and exists coeternally with Allah.

“The Mu’tazilites held that man’s freedom is a matter of God’s justice, as is reason’s ability to apprehend an objective moral order.

“How does reason lead man to the conclusion of God’s existence? It is through his observation of the ordered universe that man first comes to know that God exists, says ‘Abd al-Jabbar. As he sees that nothing in the world is its own cause, but is caused by something else, man arrives at the contingent nature of creation. From there, man reasons to the necessity of a Creator, an uncaused cause; otherwise one is caught in an infinite regress of contingent things, a logical impossibility. (This was a familiar argument from both Greek philosophy and Christian apologetics.) It is through the observation of nature – the ways in which the world seems to move according to certain laws – that man comes to know God. God’s laws are the laws of nature (tab’), which are also manifested in divine law, the shari’a.

“The Ash’arites were particularly offended by the Mu’tazilite claim that unaided reason could discern good and evil. They vehemently denied this, and said that the Mu’tazilites were undermining the need for scripture by saying all men had access to this knowledge. If this were so, what would be the need for the Qu’ran (even though the Mu’tazilites held that revelation was necessary for God to make His way clear to man)?

*All excerpts have been taken from The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis, ISI Books.