Progressive Management - Advancing Strategic Thought Series: Defense Planning For National Security: Navigation Aids for the Mystery Tour, Black Swan Events, Clausewitz, Futurology, Strategic History

Advancing Strategic Thought Series: DefensePlanning For National Security: Navigation Aids for the MysteryTour, Black Swan Events, Clausewitz, Futurology, StrategicHistory

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CONTENTS

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Advancing Strategic Thought Series

Colin S. Gray

The United States Army War College

The United States Army War College educatesand develops leaders for service at the strategic level whileadvancing knowledge in the global application of Landpower.

The purpose of the United States Army WarCollege is to produce graduates who are skilled critical thinkersand complex problem solvers. Concurrently, it is our duty to theU.S. Army to also act as a "think factory" for commanders andcivilian leaders at the strategic level worldwide and routinelyengage in discourse and debate concerning the role of ground forcesin achieving national security objectives.

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

The Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) is partof the U.S. Army War College and is the strategic-level study agentfor issues related to national security and military strategy withemphasis on geostrategic analysis.

The mission of SSI is to use independentanalysis to conduct strategic studies that develop policyrecommendations on:

Strategy, planning, and policy for jointand combined employment of military forces;

Regional strategic appraisals;

The nature of land warfare;

Matters affecting the Army's future;

The concepts, philosophy, and theory ofstrategy; and,

Other issues of importance to theleadership of the Army.

Studies produced by civilian and militaryanalysts concern topics having strategic implications for the Army,the Department of Defense, and the larger national securitycommunity.

In addition to its studies, SSI publishesspecial reports on topics of special or immediate interest. Theseinclude edited proceedings of conferences and topically-orientedroundtables, expanded trip reports, and quick-reaction responses tosenior Army leaders.

The Institute provides a valuable analyticalcapability within the Army to address strategic and other issues insupport of Army participation in national security policyformulation.

Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army WarCollege Press

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DEFENSE PLANNING FOR NATIONAL SECURITY:

NAVIGATION AIDS FOR THE MYSTERY TOUR

Colin S. Gray

March 2014

The views expressed in this report are thoseof the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy orposition of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense,the U.S. Government, Her Majesty's Government, the UK Ministry ofDefence, or the Royal Navy. Authors of Strategic Studies Institute(SSI) and U.S. Army War College (USAWC) Press publications enjoyfull academic freedom, provided they do not disclose classifiedinformation, jeopardize operations security, or misrepresentofficial U.S. policy. Such academic freedom empowers them to offernew and sometimes controversial perspectives in the interest offurthering debate on key issues. This report is cleared for publicrelease; distribution is unlimited.

FOREWORD

Defense planning unavoidably must be in thenature of a mystery tour. The inability to know the future is apermanent condition for defense planning, but it is one with whichwe must cope. This monograph by Dr. Colin S. Gray explores andexamines the implications of our irreducible ignorance about thefuture. His purpose is to identify an approach to this criticallyimportant subject of security that leans heavily upon what we canand should know about the past and present, in order to anticipatefuture conditions.

The monograph finds that, although the pastdoes not repeat itself in detail, there are profound persistingreasons why it is repeated approximately in the challenges anddangers that security communities must face. Dr. Gray concludesthat notwithstanding the facts of contextual change in strategichistory, the "great stream of time" from the past, through thepresent, into the future commands critically significantcontinuities in history that yield an approach to the future inwhich some confidence can be placed.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army WarCollege Press

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COLIN S. GRAY is Professor ofInternational Politics and Strategic Studies at the University ofReading, England. He worked at the International Institute forStrategic Studies in London, UK and at the Hudson Institute inCroton-on-Hudson, NY before founding the National Institute forPublic Policy, a defense-oriented think tank in the Washington, DC,area. Dr. Gray served for 5 years in the Ronald Reaganadministration on the President's General Advisory Committee onArms Control and Disarmament. A dual citizen of the United Statesand UK, he has served as an adviser to both the U.S. and Britishgovernments. His government work has included studies of nuclearstrategy, arms control, maritime strategy, space strategy, andspecial forces. Dr. Gray has written 26 books, including: TheSheriff: America's Defense of the New World Order (University Pressof Kentucky, 2004); Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare(Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005); Strategy and History: Essays onTheory and Practice (Routledge, 2006); Fighting Talk: Forty Maximson War, Peace and Strategy (Potomac Books, 2009); National SecurityDilemmas: Challenges and Opportunities (Potomac Books, 2009); TheStrategy Bridge: Theory for Practice (Oxford University Press,2010); War, Peace and International Relations: An Introduction toStrategic History, 2nd Ed. (Routledge, 2011); Airpower forStrategic Effect (Air University Press, 2012); and Perspectives onStrategy (Oxford University Press [OUP] 2013), which is the followon to Strategy Bridge. The final volume in the Strategy Bridgetrilogy, entitled Strategy and Defence Planning, will be publishedby OUP in 2014. Dr. Gray is a graduate of the Universities ofManchester and Oxford.