PURE STRATEGY This book is animated by the recurring question of whether there are enduring principles of strategy. In the process of isolating and interpreting the fundamentals of strategy, the reader is confronted with a startling realization: the concept of strategic victory must be summarily discarded. This is not to say that victory has noplacein strategy or strategic planning. The outcome of battles and campaigns are ever-present variables within the strategist’s plan, but victory is a concept that has no meaning there. The pure strategist accepts that war is but one aspect of social and political competition, an ongoing interaction that has no finality. Strategy therefore connects the conductof war with the intentof politics. It shapes and guides military means in anticipation of a panoply of possible coming events. In the process, strategy changes the context within which events will happen. Pure Strategy is thus an inquiry into the fundamental truth of strategy; its purpose, place, utility, and value. It places the classic works of strategy into a framework informed by the modern physical and biological sciences as well as the military ones. While it is more properly a philosophy of strategy than a utili- tarian investigation, and is meant to be heuristic rather than deterministic, it is nonetheless intended for practicing strategists. Ultimately, Pure Strategymakes a case for an innovative approach to security policy decision-making, one that reverberates into issues of space weaponization, information operations develop- ment, and key methods for waging an international War on Terror. This book will be of interest to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of strategic theory, security studies, and twenty-first century politics. Everett Carl Dolman is Associate Professor of Comparative Military Studies at the US Air Force’s School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. His published works include Astropolitik: Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age and The Warrior State: How Military Organization Structures Politics, and he is co-founder and editor of Astropolitics: The International Journal of Space Powerand Policy. CASS SERIES: STRATEGY AND HISTORY Series Editors: Colin Gray and Williamson Murray This new series will focus on the theory and practice of strategy. Following Clausewitz, strategy has been understood to mean the use made of force, and the threat of the use of force, for the ends of policy. This series is as interested in ideas as in historical cases of grand strategy and military strategy in action. All histori- cal periods, near and past, and even future, are of interest. In addition to original monographs, the series will from time to time publish edited reprints of neglected classics as well as collections of essays. MILITARY LOGISTICS AND STRATEGIC PERFORMANCE Thomas M. Kane STRATEGY FOR CHAOS Revolutions in military affairs and the evidence of history Colin Gray THE MYTH OF INEVITABLE US DEFEAT IN VIETNAM C. Dale Walton ASTROPOLITIK Classical geopolitics in the space age Everett C. Dolman ANGLO-AMERICAN STRATEGIC RELATIONS AND THE FAR EAST, 1933–1939 Imperial crossroads Greg Kennedy PURE STRATEGY Power and principle in the space and information age Everett C. Dolman THE RED ARMY, 1918–1941 From vanguard of world revolution to US ally Earl F. Ziemke BRITAIN AND BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENCE, 1942–2002 Jeremy Stocker THE NATURE OF WAR IN THE INFORMATION AGE Clausewitzian future David J. Lonsdale STRATEGY AS SOCIAL SCIENCE Thomas Schelling and the nuclear age Robert Ayson WARFIGHTING AND DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES Disguising innovation Terry Pierce PURE STRATEGY Power and principle in the space and information age Everett Carl Dolman FRANKCASS LONDON and NEW YORK First published 2005 by Frank Cass, an imprint of Taylor & Francis 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Frank Cass 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Frank Cass is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2005 Everett Carl Dolman All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Dolman, Everett C., 1958– Pure strategy: power and principle in the space and information age/Everett Carl Dolman.–1st ed. p. cm.– (Cass series–strategy and history; 6) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Strategy. I. Title. II. Series. U162.D65 2005 355.02–dc22 2004017855 ISBN 0-203-33705-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0–7146–5605–4 (Print Edition) To the students, faculty, and staff of the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. CONTENTS List of illustrations xi Acknowledgments xii 1 The path of pure strategy 1 2 The end of victory 5 3 The elements of strategy 18 4 War and strategy, games and decisions 41 5 Principles and rules 76 6 Chaos, complexity, and war 94 7 Adaptation and emergence in strategy 114 8 Principles of war 139 9 Making strategy 167 10 Is strategy an art? 187 Notes 195 References 206 Index 213