THE MAKING OF STRATEGY ee Uo eES Ke TIOM WET E raeog WILLIAMSON MURRAY, MacGREGOR KNOX, and ALVIN BERNSTEINFrom the Introduction: “{This] book focuses on the making of strategy at its highest level, a level that frequently ranges beyond the military high command. It deals with the use of military Fea No mM tet OMI TsOa IMT com ee CL eLeNCO cS) ENB ones com loser To gc ee rose Rema L res Coys Macon m sn cM oo canl coe tm Yet eae cocoa success cannot overcome defective strategic policy. The purpose of this book is...not to impart doctrine, but to offer its readers an introduction to the wide variety of factors that influence the formulation and outcome of national strategies. Nothing can provide policymakers with the right answers to the challenges that confront Liebe rela ur oie gmclereeeclom nme Le (cis (oa Matas uCelel Col ae ISBN 0-521 Seven ras WN UNIVERSITY PRESS 9 "7805219453899Most writing about strategy - the balancing of ends and means by rulers and states in conflict with their adversaries — has focused on individual theorists or great military leaders. That approach has its uses, but it normally ignores the messy process through which rulers and states have actually framed strategy. Understanding how that process has worked or failed to work in the past is nevertheless of vital practical importance to strategists, and of the greatest interest to students of strategy and statecraft. The Making of Strategy is about the strategic process. It consists of seven- teen case studies that range from fifth-century Athens and Ming China to Hitler's Germany, Israel, and the post-1945 United States. The studies ana- lyze, within a common interpretive framework, precisely how rulers and states have made strategy. The introduction emphasizes the constants in the rapidly shifting world of the strategist. The conclusion tries to understand the forces that have driven the transformation of strategy since 400 B.C. and seem likely to continue to transform it in the future.The making of strategyThe making of strategy Rulers, states, and war Edited by WILLIAMSON MURRAY Obio State University MACGREGOR KNOX London School of Economics and Political Science ALVIN BERNSTEIN George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESSPublished by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge ca rP 40 West 20th Street, New York, ny roort-4211, USA. 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1994 First published 1994 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ‘The Making of strategy : rulers, states, and war / [edited by] Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox, Alvin Bernstein. pcm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-5217-45389-5 x, Strategy — Case studies. I. Murray, Williamson. II. Knox, MacGregor, III. Bernstein, Alvin H. u162.M254 1994 355.02 —dezo 94-2520 cP. A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0-521-45389-5 hardbackTo those — comrades, friends, acquaintances, and strangers — who died in Vietnam because their leaders had no patience with history or with the imponderables that are the stuff of history.Contents Contributors Acknowledgments List of illustrations and tables 1 Introduction: On strategy Williamson Murray and Mark Grimsley 2 Athenian strategy in the Peloponnesian War Donald Kagan 3 The strategy of a warrior-state: Rome and the wars against Carthage, 264-201 B.C. Alvin H. Bernstein 4 — Chinese strategy from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries Arthur Waldron 5 The making of strategy in Habsburg Spain: Philip Il’s “bid for mastery,” 1556-1598 Geoffrey Parker 6 The origins of a global strategy: England from 1558 to 1713 William S. Maltby 7 Aquest for glory: The formation of strategy under Louis XIV, 1661-1715 John A. Lynn 8 To the edge of greatness: The United States, 1783-1865 Peter Maslowski vii page ix xi xiii 24 56 85 Ist 178 205viii Contents 9 Strategic uncertainties of a nation-state: Prussia-Germany, 1871-1918 Holger H. Herwig ro The weary titan: Strategy and policy in Great Britain, 1890-1918 John Gooch xr The strategy of the decisive weight: Italy, 1882-1922 Brian R. Sullivan 12 The road to ideological war: Germany, 1918-1945 Wilhelm Deist 13. The collapse of empire: British strategy, 1919-1945 Williamson Murray 14 The strategy of innocence? The United States, 1920-1945 Eliot A. Cohen 15 The illusion of security: France, 1919-1940 Robert A. Doughty 16 Strategy for class war: The Soviet Union, 1917-1941 Earl F. Ziemke 17. The evolution of Israeli strategy: The psychology of insecurity and the quest for absolute security Michael I. Handel 38 Strategy in the nuclear age: The United States, 1945- 199% Colin S. Gray 19 Conclusion: Continuity and revolution in the making of strategy MacGregor Knox Index 242 278 393 428 466 498 534 579 614 647Contributors Alvin H. Bernstein Director of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies Eliot A. Cohen Professor of Strategic Studies Johns Hopkins University Wilhelm Deist Research Director Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt Robert A. Doughty Chairman, Department of History United States Military Academy John Gooch Professor of History University of Leeds Colin S. Gray Professor of International Politics Director of Center for Security Studies University of Hull Mark Grimsley Professor of History Ohio State University Michael I. Handel Professor of Strategy Naval War College Holger H. Herwig Professor of Strategy University of Calgary Donald Kagan Professor of History Yale University MacGregor Knox Stevenson Professor of International History London School of Economics and Political Science John A. Lynn Professor of History University of Illinois/Urbana Champaign William S. Maltby Professor of History University of Missouri/St. Louis Peter Maslowski Professor of History University of Nebraska/Lincoln Williamson Murray Professor of History Ohio State Universityx Contributors Geoffrey Parker Arthur Waldron Professor of History Professor of Strategy Yale University Naval War College Brian R. Sullivan Earl E, Ziemke Senior Fellow Professor of History Institute for National Strategic University of Georgia Studies National Defense UniversityAcknowledgments Many individuals helped make this volume possible, and it would be churlish not to give them the thanks that are their due. The Mershon Center and its director Charles Herman provided the financial support that got this project off the ground and maintained it for six years; equally important was Chuck’s moral support of the editors. Along with the Mershon Center, as a co-equal partner, the Smith Richardson Foundation provided matching fund- ing and enthusiastic support. William Brodie and Devon Cross were invalu- able supporters as well as friends in keeping the project on course. Here at Ohio State a number of colleagues devoted considerable time and energy to various aspects of the project. Allan Millett and Don Lair orga- nized and ran the startup conference in Newport and provided support and help throughout the course of the project. At the Mershon Center, Joe Kreuzel and Paul Tiberi were especially helpful. Claudia Riser and Josie Cohagen ran the office of the Program in International Security and Military Affairs at the Mershon Center with efficiency and good humor. Several grad- uate students participated in making The Making of Strategy from its incep- tion through final editing: Steve Glick, Matt Oyos, Al Palazzo, Thomas Arnold, and David Thompson all provided valuable help. A number of stu- dent workers at Mershon did the interminable mailing, photocopying, tele- phone answering, and other duties: of these, Jessica Montgomery, Doug Plummer, Todd Miller, and Anita Limbacher were particularly helpful. We would also like to thank our contributors. They took our criticisms, editing, and deadlines with great good humor and patient attention to the task at hand. We are profoundly grateful to Cambridge University Press for its willingness to publish a manuscript of this size. And we thank Ronald Cohen, our manuscript editor, whose conscientious editorial hand and eagle eye smoothed out the rough edges in the text and corrected the occasional oversights that inevitably occurred in a work of this extent. We believe we have achieved a coherence within this volume that is un- xixii Acknowledgments usual in collective works. But we readily accept responsibility for whatever errors and weaknesses may have crept in during the book’s long gestation. This volume’s strengths are those of its contributors. Its weaknesses are above all our own. ‘WILLIAMSON Murray MacGrecor Knox ALVIN BERNSTEIN2.1 3.E 4r 42 5.r 7 8.1 9.0 10.1 IL 12.0 13.1 14.1 15.0 16.1 17.0 18.1 13.0 17.0 Illustrations and tables Maps Classical Greece/ Athenian Empire, ca. 450 B.C. Roman expansion China’s inner Asian frontiers: The Yellow River loop and the Ordos China’s inner Asian frontiers: The late Ming defense line Philip I’s European empire/Armada campaign Wars of Louis XIV U.S. Civil War The Schlieffen Plan World War I: The Western Front Italy/Mediterranean in World War I World War Il: German offensives, 1939-1942 Interwar Europe with 1936-1939 crises World War Il: Defeat of Germany, 1942—1945 French interwar strategy of defense: The Maginot Line and occupation of Germany The Russian Civil War, 1917-1922 Israel’s vulnerability Cold War Europe, ca. 1949-1989 FIGURES British perception of the German threat Comparison of the rate of growth of Israeli GNP and military expenditure as a percentage of GNP National defense outlays page 26-27 58-59 86 87 116-117 180 206 2.44 280 308-309 354 394 430-431 468 soo 536 580 410 548 586xiv 5-1 5.2 13.1 13.2 13.3 14.1 14.2 14.3 144 14.5 14.6 7.t 17.2 173, 7-4 Illustrations and tables TABLES The cost of Philip I's imperialism, 1571-1577 Military strength of Philip II and his enemies, 1587- 1588 Annual indices of manufacturing production, 1913- 1938 British balance of payments, 1933-1938 British balance of trade, 1929-1938 Interwar army and navy budgets Resources and military power, 1940 Production of motor vehicles Relative magnitude of munitions production, 1944 ‘Trend of combat munitions production of the major belligerents Mobilization of the labor force of the U.K. and the USS. for war, June 1944 Four possible combinations of offensive or defensive strategic and operational doctrines The Arab-Israeli balance of power: Different possible estimates according to fronts, coalitions, or worst case analysis (an Israeli view) Number of Israelis killed in road accidents and terror attacks, 1973-1987 ‘A summary: Israeli strategy in six wars 132 144 403 403 404 445 446 447 449 449 45° 535 538-539 566-569Introduction: On strategy WILLIAMSON MURRAY AND MARK GRIMSLEY ‘The concept of “strategy” has proven notoriously difficult to define. Many theorists have attempted it, only to see their efforts wither beneath the blasts of critics:B.H. Liddell Hart’s well-known definition ~ “the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy” — may suggest the limitations of the definitional approach, for this forthright but unhappy example restricts the word strictly to military affairs, whereas in practice strategy operates in a much broader sphere. In fact, such straightforward definitions go fundamentally astray, for strat- egy is a process, a constant adaptation to shifting conditions and circum- stances in a world where chance, uncertainty, and ambiguity dominate. Moreover, it is a world in which the actions, intentions, and purposes of other participants remain shadowy and indistinct, taxing the wisdom and intuition of the canniest policymaker. Carl von Clausewitz suggests that in such an environment, “principles, rules, or even systems” of strategy must always fall short, undermined by the world’s endless complexities. While models and categories may assist analysis, they can offer no formulas for the successful framing of strategy or conduct of war. Theories all too often aim at fixed values, but in war and strategy most things are uncertain and variable. Worse, such approaches deflect inquiry toward objective factors, whereas strategy involves human passions, values, and beliefs, few of which are quantifiable. Consequently, reality weds strategic planning tightly to its larger context. Political objectives play their role, of course, as do diplomatic, economic, and military resources. These elements are obvious, but other factors also influence strategic thinking in subtler but equally vital ways. Geography helps determine whether a given polity will find itself relatively free from 1 BH. Liddell Hart, Strategy (New York, 1967], P- 335+ 2 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. and ed. by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Prince~ ton, 1976), PP- 134, 136.2 Murray and Grimsley threat or surrounded by potential adversaries. Historical experience creates preconceptions about the nature of war and politics and may generate irre- sistible strategic imperatives. And ideology and culture shape the course of decision-makers and their societies in both conscious and unconscious ways. Not only may ideology and culture generate threats where a different per spective would see none, but their influence usually shapes perceptions about alternatives. Moreover, the nature of a government’s organization may largely determine the sophistication of its strategic assessments and the speed with which it can respond to new threats and opportunities. This essay will explore these factors, and others, later. For now it is enough to note that they exert enormous influences on strategic planning and on the implementation of plans in war. By probing the full dimensions of those influences, this book will attempt to illuminate how they affect the process of strategy. These essays originated at the U.S. Naval War College during the academic year 1985-86, when a number of the contributors met formally and infor- mally to discuss strategy and policy.3 The participants discerned a need for historical examination of the ways in which political and military leaders evolve and articulate strategies in response to external challenges. They felt that much of the existing literature focused on the influence of individual thinkers? or dwelled exclusively on a single polity. Neither approach pro- vided much insight into the various factors that have actually molded the strategies of rulers and states. Consequently, discussions turned increasingly toward the making of strategy as the element crucial to understanding the ultimate meaning of that elusive word. Moreover, by the nature of their work as historians (or, in some cases, as historically minded political scientists), they were acquainted in some depth with a number of specific national examples. Consequently, it seemed that a book that included case studies would allow for instructive comparisons, especially if it covered a wide range of historical periods and types of polity. The resulting book focuses on the making of strategy at its highest level, a level that frequently ranges beyond the military high command. desdealsewith echomscto hanilitary powerithepursiinoMnational interests, but its authors arevasdnterested im” periods ofpeacerasimeperiods.ofwar It operates from the premise that even stunning operational success cannot overcome defective strategic policy. As a study of military effectiveness in the first half of the twentieth century concluded: 3 The authors of this essay are indebted to Eliot Cohen, Holger Herwig, Steven Ross, John Gooch, Alvin Bernstein, Stan Pratt, and the numerous visitors who came through Newport to lecture in the Strategy and Policy course at the Naval War College. + See in particular, two important volumes: Edward Meade Earle, ed. Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton, 1943); and its revised and expanded successor, Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton, 1986).On strategy 3 No amount of operational virtuosity . . . redeemed fundamental flaws in politi- cal judgment. Whether policy shaped strategy or strategic imperatives drove policy was irrelevant. Miscalculations in both led to defeat, and any combina~ tion of politico-strategic error had disastrous results, even for some nations that ended the war as members of the victoriouis coalition. Even the effective mobilization of national will, manpower, industrial might, national wealth, and technological know-how did not save the belligerents from reaping the bitter fruit of severe mistakes [at this level]. This is because it is more important to make correct decisions at the political and strategic level than it is at the operational and tactical level.«Mistakessin-operations:andstactics.cancbe.cos: tected,,but.political.and,steategiomistakessliveforevers The main lines of a state’s strategy are frequently easy to discern. But the process by which that strategy has evolved is often extremely complex, and the Mahanian notion that sound strategy might spring forth by the discovery and application of eternal principles falls short of reality. Strategic thinking does not occur in a vacuum, or deal in perfect solutions; politics, ideology, and geography shape peculiar national strategic cultures. Those cultures, in turn, may make it difficult for a state to evolve sensible and realistic ap- proaches to the strategic problems that confront it. One of the strangest aspects of the nineteenth and twentieth century strate- gic cultures of European states was the tendency of military men to dismiss the political dimension of strategy as something that got in the way of operational necessities. Sir Henry Wilson’s contemptuous dismissal of British politicians as “frocks” typified turn-of-the-century military attitudes. But of all the Europeans, the Germans exhibited the strongest predisposition to regard politics as something that ended when the iron dice rolled. There was, of course, considerable irony in this, for it had_beenthe.cx- traordinary political and strategic wisdom of Otto von Bismarck that_had allowed the Prussian state to unify Germany.with only minimal opposition. “from other European powers. Yet the senior military leaders of the new Reich failed to understand the complexities of Bismarck’s diplomacy and strategy. Fascinated by their victories at Kéniggriitz, Sedan, and Metz, they cham- pioned operational requirements above everything else. Moltke put it bluntly: “[I]n the case of tactical victory, strategy submits.”6 Ludendorff, for his part, saw no more than tactics. Questioned about the operational objec- tive of his great “Michael” offensive in March 1918, he commented, “I object to the word ‘operation.’ We will punch a hole in [their line.] For the rest, we shall see.”” The German defeat in World War I did not modify this 5 Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray, “Lessons of War,” The National Interest (Winter 1988}, which describes the main findings of a study that its authors edited: Military Effectiveness, 3 vols. (London, 1988) 6 Quoted in Hajo Holborn, “Moltke and Schlieffen: The Prussian-German School,” in Earle, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy, p. 180. 7 Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, Mein Kriegstagebuch, ed. by Eugen von Frauenholz4 Murray and Grimsley obsession with the battlefield. Geyr von Schweppenburg, a leading panzer commander in World War II and the first military attaché to London in the 19308, admitted to Liddell Hart in 1949 that he had never read Haushofer or Delbriick. Clausewitz, he said, struck the German officer corps as too ab- stract to require serious attention. Even the general staff regarded him merely as “a theoretician to be read by professors.” This dismissive attitude toward strategy proved disastrous for Germany in two world wars. But even when policymakers take strategic analysis se- riously, their solutions can still fall well short of the mark. With the benefit of hindsight, of course, the correct course is usually easy to see: to recognize, for example, the flawed strategic visions with which the major powers con- fronted the outbreak of World War I. As the ensuing catastrophe made clear, something was terribly amiss. But when one views matters as they appeared through the lens of government and public opinion, and above all in the uncertain light of what was actually known at the time, it becomes harder to sort out reasonable from foolish courses of action. This process is not helped by the almost continual shift in currents of power and interest. It proved difficult enough for the United States to navigate in the relatively simple, bipolar world of the post-1945 era; earlier periods were far more compli- cated. Contrasting British strategic decision-making in the 1930s with that of the United States after World War II, Paul Kennedy has emphasized the “extraordinary fluidity and multipolarity” of the interwar period: ‘Ac the beginning of the 19308, the Soviet Union was widely regarded as the greatest and enemy of the British Empire, while in naval terms the chief rivals were the United States and Japan; Italy was seen as an old friend, France was unduly assertive and difficult (but not hostile), and Germany was still pros- trate. Five or eight years later Japan appeared as a distinct challenge to British interests in the Far East, Germany had fallen under Nazi rule and was assessed as “the greatest long-term danger,” and Italy had moved from friendship to enmity; whereas the United States was more unpredictable and isolationist than ever? The end of the Cold War has done much to restore this multipolar world. The great complexity of the new international arena has already begun to sup- plant the nuclear threat as a major world problem. The nature of international politics has been the subject of debate among historians since the ancient Greeks. Thomas Hobbes stated the most extreme position when he termed it one of permanent conflict and maintained that so (Munich, 1929), Vol. 2, pp. 322, 372n., quoted in Holger Herwig, “The Dynamics of Necessity: German Military Policy During the Great War,” in Military Effectiveness, Vol. r, P. 99. 8 Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg to B.H. Liddell Hart, 3.8.49, in Liddell Hart Papers, 9/24/61, Kings College Library, London. ° Paul Kennedy, “British Net Assessment and the Coming of the Second World War,” in Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray, eds., Calculations (New York, 1992].On strategy 5 long as “men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre.”2° Neither Thucydides nor Clausewitz would have gone so far; both per- ceived a much larger chasm between the rough-and-tumble of peacetime competition and the violent, blood-soaked reality of war. But Thucydides, whose writings greatly influenced Hobbes, also portrayed the core of inter- national relations as the naked exercise of power. As his Athenians say to the Spartans in 432 B.C ‘We have done nothing extraordinary, nothing contrary to human nature in accepting an empire when it was offered to us and then in refusing to give it up. Three very powerful motives prevent us from doing so ~ security, honour, and self-interest. And we were not the first to act in this way. Far from it. It has always been a rule that the weak should be subject to the strong; and besides, we consider that we are worthy of our power. Up till the present moment you, 100, used to think that we were, but now, after calculating your interest, you are beginning to talk in terms of right and wrong. ‘The international environment, then, is one in which struggle predomi- nates. A variety of factors shape that struggle. Clausewitz classified them into three: “a remarkable trinity — composed of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, which are to be regarded as a blind natural force; of the play of chance and probability within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and of its element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to reason alone.”12 Although Clausewitz intended this trinity to describe the nature of armed conflict, it applies with equal relevance to the conduct of strategy in peace as well as war. The tension between ideology or religion on the one hand and rational calculations of power on the other, as well as the decisive role of chance, make accurate prediction an impossibility in the affairs of nations. Both internal and external pressures buffet policy- makers seeking to frame national strategies. Understanding this environment of struggle is essential to the formulation of any sensible strategic policy. And history offers the indispensable key to 10 n ‘Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 13, para. 62. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. and ed. by Rex Warner (Harmo- ndsworth, UK, 1976), p. 80. The theme is repeated even more starkly in the Melian Dialogue: “Our opinion of the Gods and our knowledge of men lead us to conclude that it isa general and necessary law of nature to rule wherever one can. This is not a law that we made ourselves, nor were we the first to act upon it when it was made. We found it already in existence, and we shall leave it to exist for ever among those who come after. We are merely acting in accordance with it, and we know that you or anybody else with the same power as ours would be acting in precisely the same way.” See ibid., pp. 404-5- Carl von Clausewitz, On War, p. 89; Thucydides likewise emphasizes the dominant role of chance. The numerical determinists of the social sciences disagree. Trevor N. Dupuy, for example, comments that “While there is some influence of chance on the battlefield, it generally affects both sides equally, and military combat is as close to being deterministic as it is possible for any human activity to be.” See Dupuy, Understanding War: History and Theory of Combat (New York, 1987), p. xxv; we are indebted to Barry Watts for calling attention to this passage.6 Murray and Grimsley that understanding. Thucydides justified his purpose in writing @B@URBI> (@@ponnesiamMamby declaring that past events — human nature being what it is — “will, at some time or other and in much the same ways, be repeated in the future.”13 Providing contemporary strategists with a general understand- ing of how the strategic policymaking process has worked in the past may help that process to work better in the present and future. But any such understanding will be far different from currently popular checklists of prin- ciples and overarching theories of international relations. Reality is far too subtle and complex to accommodate mere theory. At best, theory can pro- vide a way of organizing the complexities of the real world for study. Clausewitz, who thought long and hard on the virtues and deficiencies of theory, concluded: It is an analytical investigation leading to a close acquaintance with the subjects applied to experience — in our case, to military history ~ it leads to thorough familiarity with it. The closer it comes to that goal, the more it proceeds from the objective form of a science to the subjective form of a skill, the more effective it will prove in areas where the nature of the case admits no arbiter but talent. It will, in fact, become an active ingredient of talent. Theory will have fulfilled its main task when it is used to analyze the constituent elements of war, to distinguish precisely what at first sight seems fused, to explain in full the properties of the means employed and to show their probable effects, to define clearly the nature of the ends in view, and to illuminate all phases of warfare through a thorough critical inquiry. Theory then becomes a guide to anyone who wants to learn about war from books; it will light his way, ease his progress, train his judgment, and help him to avoid pitfalls.14 The purpose.of this.book-is.therefore.not.to.impart.doctrine,-but-to.offer its readers anjineroduiétion to the wide variety of factors’ tharinfluence:the! iformulatiomand outeomeofmationalistrategies: Nothing can provide policy- makers with the right answers to the challenges that confront them@Bu, chistonysuggests the questionsitheysshouldiask), Understanding the strategic choices that faced past decision-makers re- quires a grasp of the circumstances, opinions, and assumptions with which all strategists contend. Some of these factors have a definite, objective existence ~ a nation’s geographical position, for example. Others, like ideol- ogy or the weight of past historical experience, are intangibles. A few, such as estimates of economic strength, occupy an intermediate position between the two. Some elements may be amenable to quantification, while others resist it. The interplay of factors specific to a given polity will govern the way in which it formulates strategy, so that the way modern-day Israel makes strat- egy, for example, differs markedly from the way that Bourbon France made it. Yet the strategy-making-processes_of different states.do-have-substantial 15 Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, p. 48. 14 Clausewitz, On War, p. 141.On strategy 7 ‘similarities: we do not live in a universe where all.the variables are.indepen- dent, Consequently, while -variables-have-different effects from.one.nation.to the next and from.one.era-to-another,-some-of-them.recur with impressive regillarity,. GEOGRAPHY The size and location of a nation are crucial determinants of the way its. policy-makers think about strategy. The importance of these two factors is overwhelmingly obvious, yet their influence can be subtle. ‘In Israel, for example, the pressures of geography have been so overwhelming as to pro- duce an obsession with security. By contrast, the United States was for most of its history so removed from major external threats that it could ignore, and even reject,most of the tenets of balance-of-power politics. The location of the British Isles offers a convenient case through which to explore many of the ramifications of the geographical factor. The British are close enough to the European continent to participate fully in its economic and intellectual developments, but stand apart behind the shields of the North Sea and English Channel, which since 1066 have successfully barred invaders — although the bloodless 1688 invasion of William III forms a partial exception to the rule. Proximity to the continent made Britain’s gov- ernments acutely conscious of the threat of invasion. That fear spurred, in part, the development of its navy; it also dictated its historic policy toward the Low Countries, a policy aimed since the days of Elizabeth I at keeping that region outside the control of any major power. Britain’s geographical position also encouraged development of the spec- ious but attractive conception of a “British way in war,” argued with great eloquence (and even greater bias) by Liddell Hart. The nub of his argument was that over the centuries Britain had been most successful when it had eschewed heavy land commitments on the continent in favor of a peripheral strategy that maximized the Royal Navy’s ability to project power against the enemy's weak points. Liddell-Hart was, of course, trying to avert a repeat of the 1914-1918 continental commitment that had cost over 700,000 military dead. But in so doing he ignored or distorted a number of vital facts. First, Britain had not in the past avoided continental commitments, as the ghosts of Marlborough and Wellington might have assured him. Second, the extent to which Britain had been able to limit its forces on the European mainland depended pri- marily upon whether it had major continental allies capable of maintaining pressure on the enemy. Third, the peripheral strategy owed much of its success to the exposed position of valuable enemy overseas colonies, which had given the Royal Navy easy targets and the Foreign Office powerful bargaining chips in negotiations. But fourth and most important, Germany, the major continental threat to Britain in the first half of the twentieth8 Murray and Grimsley century, fit none of the conditions’ for a peripheral strategy. As Michael Howard has pointed out: It was . . . precisely the failure of German power to find an outlet and its consequent concentration in Europe, its lack of any possessions overseas, that made it so particularly menacirig to the sprawling British Empire in two world wars and which make so misleading all arguments about “traditional” British strategy drawn from earlier conflicts against the Spanish and French Empires, with all the colonial hostages they had offered to fortune and the Royal Navy.15 Even so, it is worth noting that Liddell Hart’s reaction against World War I fit within a larger national pattern of British antipathy to continental commit- ments. Jonathan Swift’s biting essay, On the Conduct of the Allies, had denounced Marlborough’s strategy as fiercely as Liddell Hart had attacked Haig’s. If geography has exerted a dominant influence on threat-assessment and strategy, it can also shape critical doctrinal decisions. In the r920s and 19308, both British and American airmen articulated a pervasive, even dog- matic thesis that air power could gain decisive results independently of ground and naval forces.16 The Germans, by contrast, developed a substan- tially different approach. German airmen did not dismiss the idea of “strate~ gic” bombing because of some misbegotten belief that air forces should be tied to the ‘eoatstailsofthearmye” Rather they, unlike their Anglo-American counterparts, had to contend with the real and constant threat of land inva- sion. American and British airmen could rhapsodize about leaping over bat- tle lines and tearing the heart from the enemy’s society, but German airmen had to deal with such prosaic matters as the possibility of losing their air- fields. Bombing factories and sowing terror in Prague, Warsaw, and Paris was all very well, but such exploits would avail little if the German army concur- rently lost the Rhineland and Silesia. Luftwaffe planners.recognized.thevalue ~of strategic” bor indehuicchercouildenotaliosd- to, it “proper role locales ower, For. -asoacanic seasons ec airmen had.to think bout sup) 2 d.Ameri- ‘Yet the influences straints 2 caphy e can place severe limits on the achievements of national strategic aims.18 Philip II of Spain clearly aimed at a hegemonic position in Europe; yet his far-flung domains exposed Spain and its possessions to pressures from so many sides that it often seemed 15 Michael Howard, The Continental Commitment (London, 1972), p. 32 16 For the mindset of American airmen, see Michael Mandelbaum, ed., America’s Defense (New York, x989}; and Williamson Murray, Luftwaffe (Baltimore, 1985), Appendix I. 17 Williamson Murray, “The Luftwaffe Before the Second World War: A Mission, A Strat- egy?” Journal of Strategic Studies (September 1981): pp. 261-70. 18 See Geoffrey Parker, “The Making of Strategy in Habsburg Spain: Philip II's ‘bid for mastery’, 1556-1598,” in this volume.On strategy 9 beleaguered. In the Mediterranean, the Ottoman Turks were a constant and powerful threat; in the north, the Dutch rebellion presented a persistent economic and ideological threat that the English delightedly exacerbated; and in the center, the French, despite their internal fractures, represented a latent rival. Finally, as Drake’s voyage around the world was to demonstrate, the wealth of the Americas, on which so much of Spain’s position in Europe depended, was vulnerable to attack. Admittedly, many of Philip’s problems stemmed from his inability or unwillingness to make the diplomatic conces- sions that might reduce the number of his opponents, but the merest survey of a map (not to mention any knowledge of the realities of communications and travel in sixteenth century Europe) should suggest the severe limitations that geography exerted on Spain’s strategic choices. Finally, the size of a state is a central element in its strategic situation. Israel’s compactness and lack of territorial depth have made an offensively oriented preemptive strategy almost imperative; conversely, Russia’s sprawl- ing expanse has made possible its historical strategy of trading space for time in a protracted defense. By the same token, doctrinal preferences based on one set of geographical circumstances can prove dangerous when extended arbitrarily into another. For example, interior lines and the relatively short distances and advanced transportation network of central and western Eu- rope shaped the German operational approach to war. But when confronted by the vast steppes of the Soviet Union, that approach soon led to disaster, in part thanks to its cavalier attitude toward logistics. German planners never learned the healthy respect for distance that characterized the ambitious and highly sophisticated manner in which the Americans, for instance, projected and sustained power over great distances.19 _ But geography has an impact, beyond.that.of mere physical distance. In their war against the rebellious American colonies, the British found it im- possible to control the military forces they projected across the Atlantic. Admittedly the political preconceptions with which the British embarked on this war made it a dubious proposition almost from the outset. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that of Lord Germaine’s approximately sixty-three letters of instruction to General Sir Henry Clinton during the period from 1778 to 1781, six took less than two months to arrive in North America, twelve took approximately two months, twenty-eight took two to three months, eleven took three to four months, four took four to five months, and two took five to seven months.29 While the wonders. of. modern.technology-have-removed. some of the difficulties involved in communicating orders.and.projecting power, time and distance and weather still exercise enormous influence.on thé Strategic options and capabilities of states... 19. See Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 142-81; and Klaus Reinhardt, Die Wende vor Moskau, Das Scheitern der Strategie Hitlers im Winter 1941/42 (Stuttgart, 1972). 20 Piers Mackesy, The War for America, 1775-1783 (London, 1975), P- 73+