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Strategic Studies and Its Critics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Hedley Bull
Hedley Bull
Affiliation:
Australian National University in Canberra
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Extract

The civilian strategic analysts who now constitute a distinct profession in the Western world have from the first been subject to criticism that has called in question the validity of their methods, their utility to society, and even their integrity of purpose. Some of it is directed at particular strategists or at particular techniques they employ, but much of it purports to expose deficiencies that are characteristic of the genre. Some of this is of so scurrilous a nature as not to deserve a reply, but some raises issues of real importance. What are in fact the distinguishing features of the new style of strategic analysis? What has given rise to the criticisms that have been made of it? And what substance do the criticisms have?

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , July 1968 , pp. 593 - 605
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1968

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References

1 See, e.g., James R. Newman, review of Kahn's, HermanOn Thermonuclear War, Scientific American, CCIV (March 1961), 197–98Google Scholar; Blackett, P. M. S., Studies of War, Nuclear and Conventional (New York 1962), chap. 10Google Scholar; SirZuckerman, Solly, Scientists and War: The Impact of Science on Military and Civil Affairs (New York 1967), chap. 5Google Scholar; Horowitz, Irving L., The War Game: Studies of the New Civilian Militarists (New York 1963)Google Scholar; Rapoport, Anatol, Strategy and Conscience (New York 1964)Google Scholar; Green, Philip, Deadly Logic: The Theory of Nuclear Deterrence (Columbus 1966)Google Scholar.

2 On War, Book III, chap. 1.

3 See, e.g., Teichmann, Max, “Strategic Studies or Peace Research?” Arena (Melbourne), No. 12 (Autumn 1967), 9–16Google Scholar.

4 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, XXI (December 1965), 25–30Google Scholar.

5 Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Princeton 1944)Google Scholar; The Question of National Defense (Princeton 1959), esp. 61, 164, 269Google Scholar.

6 In his reply to Brennan's review, Rapoport says, “My complaint against the strategists was not that they use or misuse game theory (although one of my earlier articles was so entitled). On the contrary, my complaint was that they have not learned some important lessons of game theory” (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, XXI [December 1965], 31–36). This is a slippery reformulation that does not answer Brennan's charge, viz., that Rapoport implies that strategists use game theory, whereas they do not.

7 Burns, Arthur Lee, “Must Strategy and Conscience Be Disjoined?” World Politics, XVII (July 1965), 687–702CrossRefGoogle Scholar.