I often wonder why the reverse never seems to occur. If tactical-level commanders are expected to take into account the strategic environment in which they operate, at what point do putative strategists need to understand the tactical or operational level implications of their strategic prognostications?

I used to wonder why those in the academic or bureaucratic community who advocated a Defence of Australia strategy were never asked to outline the impact of this approach on the army's ability to deploy and sustain itself outside continental Australia. Or, more recently, why those who advocate pulling Australian troops behind the wire in Uruzgan fail to address the impact of such a suggestion on the tactical environment outside the wire, and the impact on the ADF and OGA hunkered down inside the wire.

The military appreciation process, the means by which plans are formulated, requires those driving the plan to examine the intent of two levels of command above them and the impact of plans on two levels of command below them to ensure that both the higher level guidance and the lower level impact of decisions are understood.

I stand to be corrected, but I assume that strategic studies courses taught in universities don't spend much time discussing the second- or third-order effects of strategic plans at the operational or tactical level.

Photo by Flickr user avyfain.

It is hard to imagine volunteer soldiers in Afghanistan concerning themselves with these questions. While it's critical that field officers understand the strategic thinking of theatre commanders in taking tactical decisions, the political objectives of civilian leadership are of little relevance. As Sebastian Junger observes in 'War': 'Soldiers worry about those things about as much as farmhands worry about the global economy, which is to say, they recognize stupidity when it's right in front of them but they generally leave the big picture to others.'

The problem lies where civilian leaders fail, through lack of direction or oversight, to clearly communicate to uniformed commanders what the latter is expected to achieve with the resources they've been allocated. This criticism has been leveled by both civilian strategists as well as soldiers themselves.

This leads to Rodger's second question. On the one hand there are civilians who possess operational and tactical expertise, whose focus is on military doctrine or defence capability, but who are more likely to have direct operational experience and to have served either in uniform or embedded among soldiers. In this instance they are not so much civilian strategists as military experts, like Rodger Shanahan himself, who move between civilian and military circles, often acting as interpreters for both.

Ultimately, civilian strategists require a different set of skills than those of uniformed soldiers. Speaking only for myself, I will always defer to those with command experience when discussing operational matters.

I would also agree that while not a pre-requisite, knowledge of operations can profit a civilian strategist by helping them assess operational plans and its relationship to political objectives. Indeed, there were few civilian strategists to advise President Obama on General McChrystal's surge plan or capable of arguing alternatives. McChrystal gave his best advice as to what was likely to be effective, but not whether America's security interests justified such an investment.

I would welcome the opportunity to be deployed, expand my knowledge and earn the trust and respect of my military friends, but as ClosetIdealist points out, civilian strategists make a substantial contribution, whether or not they have been on the battlefield.

Image courtesy of the Department of Defence.

They should be looking at multiple lines of operation over differing time periods in order to achieve national aims. It is akin to being able to write a piece of music for an orchestra and then act as the conductor, a difficult task that requires a combination of vision, experience and understanding of how the elements of national power work in an Australian (and possibly international) context to achieve the best effect. I am not sure that Australia's political, diplomatic or security circumstances demand, or allow us to produce these types of people. 

Still, regardless of how many civilian strategists (or mere policy advisers) we produce, the nature of defence planning means that some strategic policy decisions will continue to be done the old fashioned way.

Photo by Flickr user peasap.

We – military, civilian, politicians and layman alike – very commonly get these decisions wrong, because we so often misunderstand the link between ends and means in war. Afghanistan provides an apposite case study. Mistakes happen at every point of the process; we muddle our objectives, mismatch objectives to means, and then mismanage the operations themselves.

Clearly, to make these decisions better, strategists need to know both ends of the link: they need to know about military operations and capability on the one hand, and political objectives on the other. And above all you need to understand as much as you can about the link itself – about the connections and disconnections between them. 

If this is a useful way to think about the word 'strategist', we can turn now to 'civilian'. What does one need to know to do strategy? Clearly I agree with the claim which I suppose Rodger to be making, that no one can call themselves a strategist who does not know a great deal about military operations and capability. I think most civilians who do strategy know far too little about these things. But no matter how hard they work, civilians will not know as much as military professionals who have been immersed in it from the start of their careers.

But equally, no one can call themselves a strategist (at least in my sense of the word) without knowing a lot about political objectives, and about the link between organised violence and political purpose. I think most military officers, even those of very high rank indeed, know far too little about these. And no matter how hard they work at it, any military officer who has spent the first ten or even twenty years of his or her career at the tactical and operational level will not know as much about these aspects of strategy as those who immerse themselves in strategic-level problems from the age of 20.

So we need both uniformed and civilian strategists, and they need to work together. The way to do strategic policy better is not for one 'side' or the other to claim a monopoly on strategic wisdom  and ownership of strategic decisions, but for both sides to educate themselves much better about all aspects of strategy, and to realise that both skill-sets are needed.

Photo by Flickr user The California National Guard.

I should add that, in many years of watching the play between civilian and military within Defence, and in playing around the edges, the stereotypes rarely came out as you would expect. I could name civilians and politicians who understood the use of military power far better than any military officer, and military officers who could work far better than their civilian counterparts at the political/strategic level. I used to refer to one civilian bureaucrat as the toughest General in Defence.

In the end, we are an imperfect human team, and we depend for ultimate strategic success on the quality of our statesmen and a large measure of luck.

Photo by Flickr user malias.

And no matter how hard they work at it, any military officer who has spent the first ten or even twenty years of his or her career at the tactical and operational level will not know as much about these aspects of strategy as those who immerse themselves in strategic-level problems from the age of 20.

This sentence begs the obvious question: who (or where?) are these civilians purportedly immersing themselves in 'strategic-level problems' from the age of twenty? To my mind, doing the photocopying in a national security department, while immersive, probably delivers little more strategic insight and acuity than being a platoon commander in Oruzgan Province. And neither civilians nor the military have a monopoly on 'strategic studies' at universities. Baldly put, our current civilian and military employment and education paradigms are highly unlikely to produce an Alexander.

My other point is that, having offered a good definition of the space a strategist works in, Hugh does not fully tease out a subtle but significant factor that truly defines what a strategist (military or civilian) is.

Strategy is a practical activity. So the strategist must do something. A strategist is not only someone who can understand or master the bridge between organised violence and policy objectives; he or she is necessarily someone who can do something about it. That is, they have authority and ownership, responsibility and accountability for the sum of the ends, ways and means. This is an important distinction about strategists that has not come out fully in any of the posts to date.

So while 'strategy workers' (that is, people who understand and 'cross' the strategy bridge) are relatively commonplace, true strategists are a rare breed. This perhaps accounts for the confusion surrounding the topic, as people confuse 'strategy workers' (or even 'strategy commentators'...) with true strategists.

Photo by Flickr user illustir.

First there is an internal dimension where capabilities are developed. This dimension deals with fundamental uncertainty, almost always costs the most and paradoxically, requires the greatest flexibility from the most rigid elements of strategy — capabilities. The fundamental uncertainty is driven by the cost to acquire, time taken to introduce and the life span of capabilities fielded. We just can't know what the Joint Strike Fighter, for example, might be required to do in 2030. Likewise we might build and fund: industry priorities, dedicated educational institutes or negotiate free trade agreements as a part of a national strategy to better compete in our external environment or to protect us from potential external shocks. But we can't know with any certainty what the opportunities and threats will be in 2030 — we can only make informed guesses.

Having a capability changes the external environment. The advent of Chinese aircraft carriers, China's growing economic reach and influence through direct foreign investment, its increased wealth, its expanding technical skill base etc all change the strategic environment. These changes force others, including Australia, to change national perspectives, priorities, and expectations about their own interests. It is not just military capability development that is important. It is the development of a strong economy, ties to other countries, national wealth, an educated and technically literate workforce and good political leadership etc. These are strategic capabilities that take decades and cost billions of dollars to build.

The second dimension of strategy is the integrating role that bridges the internal and external environments. These decisions are not just about war, in fact they are mostly about peace. During peace, Australia decides who to forge alliances with, who to trade with, where to dispense aid and whose international causes to support. These are all strategic decisions that help shape the external environment to promote and or protect Australia's interests. It is at this level that the Executive decides what the national interest is, what resources are available and which ones to deploy into the external environment to pursue a particular interest. This area typically deals with shorter time-frames, involves moderate to high levels of uncertainty and cost very little in and of itself. It is usually the most flexible and creative area of strategy. The time-frames can be from the relatively immediate crisis to those that emerge over years. This level derives a 'yield' from the prior capability investments made, in some cases, decades ago.

The decisions at this level are constrained by oversights or shortfalls of capability-investment decisions made much earlier. Today's internal capability-development investment decisions constrain tomorrow's strategy. Only in the present can we accurately determine whether prior expectations of the longer term future were well balanced against the competing priorities of more immediate demands of government. Rarely do those who invest in a capability get to apply that capability, which unfortunately provides very little incentive to get the long-term capability investment strategy right.

The final level is what the US calls the 'theatre strategic' level. This is the best understood realm of strategy which can be costly, but deals with the shortest time-frames and has the least uncertainty. Essentially the strategist at this level, sometimes a military person, knows what interest he pursues, where to pursue it, what resources are available and who he is competing with. All three levels of strategy are interdependent to get to this point of use.

In our system, nearly everyone of these key strategic decisions is made by a civilian, which brings us back to the original question asked by Rodger Shanahan – what is a civilian strategist? Normally he or she is someone who doesn't call themselves a strategist, has little or no education in strategy, but has a working life full of strategic decision-making. They are called politicians.

What previous contributors to this debate call a 'strategist', civil or military, are usually a direct or indirect adviser to a politician in the Executive (cabinet) which is responsible for strategic decision-making. Strategic advisor's help fill in the technical and domain knowledge gap that lets politicians identify a national interest, understand what means are available and how they might be used to promote and protect our interests. In some circumstances these advisers also implement a strategy in a confined area and under defined conditions – usually overseen by a politician.

It is the politician who, in a democracy, is quite rightly responsible for strategy. The rest can only offer wise counsel.