To be effective in a differentiated world, From National to Theater strategists must answer three basic questions. What do we wish to achieve or what are the Developing Strategy desired ends? How do we get there or what are the ways? And what resources are avail- able, or what means will be used? While the first question is largely the domain of civilian By DEREK S. REVERON and JAMES L. COOK policymakers, military officers are expected to advise and ultimately implement strategy. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey noted, “Strategic Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without coherence . does not just happen. Rather, strategy is the noise before defeat. it results from dialogue and debate.”7 With —Sun Tzu regular interactions with their counterparts throughout the world, combatant command- ers are key national security actors in the s a consequence of budget defi- Uncertainty associated with China’s rise, strategy development process. cits and rebalancing the force, the Arab Awakening, and the persistence the Department of Defense of transnational threats suggests strategy Defining Strategy A (DOD) increasingly requires is essential to avoid going from crisis to At a minimum, strategy should link strategy to operate in a fiscally constrained crisis. In general, the United States attempts ends, ways, and means. For DOD, strategy is environment. While resources are in decline, to diffuse situations before they become “a prudent idea or set of ideas for employing national security challenges persist as new crises through a strategy of prevention and the instruments of national power in a syn- ones emerge. Reflected in documents such as building partner capacity to control security chronized and integrated fashion to achieve the National Security Strategy and National challenges.3 theater, national, and/or multinational objec- Military Strategy, the United States attempts Strategies are relatively easy to develop, tives.”8 Strategy also is about how leadership to shape the international security environ- but Carl von Clausewitz is instructive here: can use the power available to the state to ment by balancing threats in key regions of “Everything in strategy is very simple, but exercise control over people, places, things, the world, assisting partners in combatting that does not mean that everything is very and events to achieve objectives in accordance internal challenges, and supporting allies to easy.”4 The challenge for the strategist is to with national interests and policies. In fact, solve their own security dilemmas. While coordinate the various levers of national Hal Brands describes grand strategy as a security strategies are developed in Wash- power in a coherent or smart way. Former “discipline of trade-offs: it requires using the ington, combatant commands must translate Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emphasized full extent of national power when essential national objectives into theater strategy to this idea: “We must use what has been called matters are at stake, but it also involves advance and defend U.S. interests. ‘smart power’: the full range of tools at our conserving and protecting the sources of that With a strong notion that strategy disposal—diplomatic, economic, military, power.”9 should prevent “train wrecks,” or at least be political, legal, and cultural—picking the right Henry Barnett visualized strategy prepared for train wrecks, Dan Dresdner tool, or combination of tools, for each situa- as an interaction among key variables: the argues that grand strategies: tion.”5 Calls for smart power were a reaction security environment, ends, ways, means, to George W. Bush’s foreign policy, but more resource constraints, and risk.10 As repre- matter most when actors are operating in importantly underscores that power relations sented in figure 1, strategy is shaped by the uncharted waters. They can function as are differentiated. In the context of military security environment, as it attempts to shape cognitive beacons, guiding countries to safety. power, unipolarity dominates thinking about the security environment. Just as no plan During normal times, decisionmakers will the U.S. position in the world, but recent remains intact after first contact with the extrapolate from current capabilities or past foreign policy frustration illustrates that enemy, no strategy can exist outside the real actions to predict the behavior of others. In power relations are stratified.6 At the military world. Allies, partners, and adversaries can novel times, however, grand strategies can level, U.S. power is unparalleled and unprec- affect successful strategy implementation by signal to outsiders the future intentions of a edented. At the economic level, the United balking at U.S. demands (for example, Turkey country’s policymakers, reassuring or repuls- States is checked by other great economic 1 ing important audiences. powers such as Japan, the European Union, Dr. Derek S. Reveron is the EMC Informationist and the People’s Republic of China, and Chair and Professor of National Security Affairs Hal Brands argues that strategy “should through institutions such as the World Trade at the U.S. Naval War College. Lieutenant Colonel flow not from mere reactions to day-to-day Organization. At the informational level, the James L. Cook, USA (Ret.), is an Associate events, but from a judgment of those endur- United States is but one of many state and Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. ing interests that transcend any single crisis.”2 nonstate actors that influence global events. Naval War College. ndupress.ndu.edu issue 70, 3 rd quarter 2013 / JFQ 113 JOINT DOCTRINE | From National to Theater refused to allow the United States to transit can be the product of national policymakers, should also answer a fundamental question: through its territory to invade Iraq in 2003), such as advancing democratic institutions or “What are we willing to die for?”15 That is, imposing caveats on forces in coalition opera- protecting the environment. The attempt to where is the United States willing to put tions (Germany’s refusal to engage in certain distinguish intensity of national interests is Servicemembers’ lives at risk? To this we add, types of combat operations in Afghanistan), important to set priorities. Hans Morgenthau “What are we willing to kill for?” and “What and outright efforts to undermine U.S. differentiated between vital national interests are we willing to pay for?” One relatively objectives (China’s support of authoritarian and secondary interests, which are more dif- simple approach to this rather complex and regimes that forestall democratic change). ficult to define.12 In a 2011 speech, President somewhat ambiguous concept is to stratify At the same time the international Barack Obama offered his priorities and national interests: security environment impacts strategy, so do intimated the conditions under which his resource constraints. As Colin Dueck argues, administration might consider something ■■ Vital interests. What are we willing to the American approach to strategy is flawed: vital: “I have made it clear that I will never die for (for example, invade Afghanistan with “Sweeping and ambitious goals are announced, hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively ground forces to destroy al Qaeda training but then pursued by disproportionately limited and unilaterally when necessary to defend our camps)? means, thus creating an outright invitation people, our homeland, our allies, and our core ■■ Important interests. What are we to failure.”11 Since the 1990s, the limits (and interests.”13 In the same address, President willing to kill for (for example, participate in frustration) with U.S. grand strategy tend to Obama clarified what he thought were sec- a North Atlantic Treaty Organization air cam- be explained by an expansive view of security ondary interests: paign to prevent genocide in Libya)? challenges that includes subnational and trans- ■■ Peripheral interests. What are we national challenges. While burden-sharing There will be times . when our safety is willing to fund (for example, train and equip through coalition operations is the norm, the not directly threatened, but our interests and African Union peacekeepers for Somalia)? United States increasingly identifies more values are. Sometimes the course of history challenges than it and its partners can manage. poses challenges that threaten our common Given the U.S. ability to achieve air Given global defense cuts, the resource gap humanity and common security, responding supremacy or launch standoff weapons, will be exacerbated unless balance is achieved to natural disasters, for example; or prevent- the Nation can kill with limited risk to among ends, ways, and means. Combatant ing genocide and keeping the peace; ensuring its Airmen or Sailors, giving it a coercive commands are key in this process as they train regional security; and maintaining the flow advantage during diplomatic crises. In the and equip partners, sponsor regional exercises, of commerce. In such cases we should not be 1990s, for example, missile attacks against and employ military forces. afraid to act but the burden of action should Iraq and the air war for Kosovo exemplified To set priorities, the strategist can look not be America’s alone. As we have in Libya, that the United States was willing to kill to to national interests as a starting point to our task is instead to mobilize the interna- achieve objectives but not willing to die. In determine ends because they help identify tional community for collective action.14 both cases, the United States deliberately the reasons countries employ military forces. withheld ground force options, which would National interests can be universal and endur- Presidential policy is one source for have considerably raised the stakes. It seemed ing, such as ensuring the security of the state discerning vital from secondary interests. that airpower alone could achieve strategic and its people. Additionally, national interests Peter Liotta observed that national interests interests.16 Advances in remotely piloted vehicles over the last decade have enhanced U.S.