Strategy

Lsn 11

Strategy

• Strategy is the pursuit, protection, or advancement of national interests through the application of the instruments of power

• Instruments of power (DIME)– Diplomatic– Informational– Military– Economic

Strategic FormulationNational Values

National Interests

Strategic Appraisal

National Policy

National Strategy

Component Strategies

Risk Assessment

Strategic Formulation

• Values– Represent the legal, philosophical, and moral basis

for continuation of a nation’s system and provide a sense of national purpose

• Interests– A nation’s perceived needs and aspirations in relation

to its international environment

• Strategic Appraisal– Identifies the interests the nation wishes to protect as

well as the threats and challenges to those interests

Strategic Formulation

• National Policy– A broad course of action or statement of guidance

and objectives that address the promotion and protection of the nation’s interests

• National Strategy– A plan to use all the elements of national power

during peace and war to secure the nation’s interests

• Component Strategies– Each component of the national organization (such as

the military) develops its own plan to use its resources to support the national strategy

Strategic Formulation

• Risk Assessment– Because no nation has unlimited resources with

which to pursue its objectives it must make tradeoffs based on conscious decisions that entail risk

• These risks must be weighed and if they are determined to be unacceptable, the strategy must be revised by…– Reducing the objectives– Changing the concepts, or– Increasing the resources

Strategy

• Strategy is about how (way or concept) leadership will use the power (means or resources) available to the state to exercise control over sets of circumstances and geographic locations to achieve objectives (ends) that support state interests

• Strategy = Ends (objectives) + Ways (course of action) + Means (instruments)– Ways to employ means to

achieve ends

Early Cold War Example

• George Kennan was a Soviet expert and director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff

• In the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs he wrote an article under the pen name “Mr. X” titled “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.”

• He described the USSR as being driven by an aggressive and uncompromising ideology that would stop “only when it meets some unanswerable force.” (Strategic appraisal)

Early Cold War Example

• Kennan wrote that the US must adopt a “policy of firm containment designed to confront the Russians with unalterable counterforce at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world.” (National policy)

Early Cold War Example

• Overall US strategic objective was to contain communism– Diplomatic: Truman

Doctrine– Informational: Radio

Free Europe– Military: NATO– Economic: Marshall

Plan

Radio Free Europe used balloons to carry leaflets over the Iron Curtain to provide information on RFE’s programming and messages targeted at specific events in the communist bloc countries.

Post- September 11 Example

• On Sept 11, 2001, 19 men affiliated with al-Qaeda hijacked four planes and crashed two into the World Trade Towers in New York City and one into the Pentagon

• The fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attacked the terrorists

• On Sept 20, President Bush addressed the nation and declared “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there.  It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated… Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes.  Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen.  It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success….

Post- September 11 Example

• … We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest.  And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism.  Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.  From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”

Post- September 11 Example

The National Security Strategy of the United States of America

(2002)

• champion aspirations for human dignity; • strengthen alliances to defeat global terrorism

and work to prevent attacks against us and our friends;

• work with others to defuse regional conflicts; • prevent our enemies from threatening us, our

allies, and our friends, with weapons of mass destruction;

The National Security Strategy of the United States of America

(2002)

• ignite a new era of global economic growth through free markets and free trade;

• expand the circle of development by opening societies and building the infrastructure of democracy;

• develop agendas for cooperative action with other main centers of global power; and

• transform America’s national security institutions to meet the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century.

US Instruments of Power in the post-September 11 Era

• Diplomatic– Movement away from multilateralism to unilateral

action

• Informational– Increased efforts to gather, analyze, and exploit

intelligence

• Military– Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom

• Economic– Significant increase in aid to Africa

Practical Exercise

• Go to the CIA World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html and any other source you’d like and research China

• Do an abbreviated strategic formulation for China (at least one comment for each step in the process)

National Values

National Interests

Strategic Appraisal

National Policy

National Strategy

Component Strategies

Risk Assessment

Next

• Instruments of Power: Diplomacy and Information

Russian Embassy, Washington, DC