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How much has strategy changed since the Second World War?

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Abstract

This paper discusses strategic theory, which provides a conceptual understanding of how much the nature of war and strategy has changed since the Second World War. It argues that the logic of war and strategy is universal. Although strategy is an art, it is one that can be studied systematically. This paper discusses the logic of strategy in the context of climate activism because this is the strategy for the survival of humanity. It argues that strategy is valid at all times and in all places. This is primarily because human nature has remained unchanged in the face of material progress. The same passions that motivated those who lived millennia ago continue to drive military theorists today. Strategists of our times must study strategy to avert the worst horrific, world-shaking events that can destroy human civilisation. History shows that all the great civilisations eventually crashed, having become decadent, awash in material prosperity, greed or hubris, or lacking grand strategic vision, instead of being educated in wrong knowledge. Strategic theory offers students a toolkit that can be used to analyse strategic problems and global events thereby preventing wars, conflicts, upheavals, destruction and climate catastrophes. The more complex the global environment, the more America needs clear thinking, strategic vision about ways of solving global challenges accompanied by consistent action to set goals and lead the international community. ''Realism - the hard-nosed approach to foreign policy that guided the country throughout most of the twentieth century and drove its rise to great power-remains the best option.'' (Walt, 2019). But there is no proof that leaders are effective in delivering its classical version. But still, the required results are not visible. It is the action that is lacking. When statesmen are untrained or unskilled to apply some of the principles of the realist school, this leaves an alternative for IR theorists to research and experiment with theories or conceptual models that can prove to be more applicable. To a great extent, analysts have to think in terms of global, planetary strategy beyond nation state. In such circumstances, diplomacy would return to its rightful place as a bridge and forum for solving common challenges and Americans would promote their values abroad primarily by demonstrating democratic virtues at home. The world is changing, it is becoming more complex, each problem civilisation faces could be solved only at a different level of thinking. But a dream without action is hallucination. Humanity needs to change its ways, i.e. policies to ensure progress. One idea that is gaining importance in the context of climate change is climate diplomacy. To be successful, climate diplomacy has to achieve what is strategically (in the context of the planetary preservation) desirable and attainable. In the context of the protesting planet, climate diplomacy ought to promptly achieve what is right and optimal. The moral imperative is to do the right thing. For this reason, climate diplomacy must lead, champion broader change, offer a pioneering spirit and innovate with the long-term goal of healing our planet by effectively reversing climate change. In the beginning, climate diplomacy has to offer an inspiring vision of the future. In its spirit, it ought to be non-conformist and it should build on progress and consistently move forward. Climate activism can emerge as a rational and acceptable democratic option of protest or appeal. For example, it could follow the model of the slave revolts of the 1st century BC(E) in the Roman Empire, where under the leadership of former gladiator Spartacus 6,000 slaves rebelled against the Roman Republic. However, without a clear, strategic action plan attempts to solve climate change might become a bottomless pit, consuming time and precious resources. For the protest to be transitional, climate policy should not be seen in isolation but should be considered as an integral part of the broader policy agenda. Once the momentum has been created by climate leaders, it has to advance, to follow up on already awakened ideals and propel new ideas. It should live up to social expectations, have a prompt impact by enacting policies and not only raising attention. High perseverance has to continue until the solution is found that is proportional to the scale of the challenge. The search can occur by eliminating ones that previously did not work. Persistence means continuing with the strategy in an optimal and creative way, over time, despite all the challenges when all join forces and only unconvinced and greedy defectors are left alone. The process of climate campaigning must set realistic, achievable policy goals. It has to determine specific priorities and follow on action plan. It must specify what pressure on politicians will be exerted in the short, medium and long-term. It would be advisable for it to be vibrant and energetic. It must embrace a balanced, sober analysis of what is possible and doable in the long-term. Because climate change is a peoples' issue climate movement should not be a one-off upheaval without a clearly delineated political goal, but rather end in a successful solution to climate change. It should follow with wise policy proposals with the beforehand evaluation of climate strategies. What applies here is a careful, painstaking evaluation of which solution is the best and why it worked. Followed by implications, options and recommendations for policymakers. Probably, for a thousand years there has not been a worse crisis than the current climate crisis and our leaders have not been doing enough to address it. They keep disagreeing and sell to societies distant plans which are rather hallucinations. Climate strategy for change has to continue until leaders are left with no choice but to adopt adequate climate polices. Now is the time when we all need a strong signal from global leaders to solve this. Otherwise, the work of climate activists will be meaningless. As Frishmann (2019) noted ''Climate solutions already exist and are scaling. There is no technology or economic barrier; rather, it is a lack of will and leadership to move farther and faster than the future of upcoming generations demand.'' A social movement could catalyse new action to gather followers, to generate a vibrant, political momentum, change minds, inspire teams of analysts with problem-solving tasks to solve it. Strategy should guide this process. Failure occurs when governments fail to listen and pursue selfish interests. Collective action problem implies that often good intentions are taken advantage of either through free riders or unconvinced leaders spreading the false ideology of denial. For much too long time, as realists noticed, countries who co-operate unilaterally in the tragedy of the commons and collective action problem have seen their good intentions being exploited. Focusing on team-work and collective, all-inclusive climate action could be a breakthrough. It is unlikely that a new foundation for civilisation will be built only by politicians since it is activists, intellectuals, scientists and ordinary citizens who lead to social change inspiring followers. However, for their work to be impactful, it has to be backed up by a coherent, workable strategy for planetary preservation, plus its effective implementation. Any far-sighted and sound strategy must include first of all a plan - a strategic vision of global stability stated clearly defining its aims that would eventually progress from a social, activist movement, towards the building of a political union, a community of shared interest. From a community to a region, and further, slowly embracing the whole planet. Gradually, it would generate an inclusive great power management. Great Powers can be encouraged to act while civilisation still lasts, but Great Powers must not exist in the conditions of denial, disagreement, fear, suspicion, conspiracy, blocks, competition, acts of revenge, nor rivalry. The difference between a sustainable future and a deadly collapse was largely dependent on the population's instinctive foresight based on 'how soon they realised they were destroying their planet. And how quickly they took action.' (Frank, 2019). This should motivate global leaders to take climate change seriously and unite through constructive and meaningful diplomacy the East and the West, the North and the South by educating populations. When leaders are chosen wisely a success in policy implementation will be more instantaneous. The world needs rapid climate policies enacted and enforced globally. These could lead to a global realignment resulting in a more stable geopolitical framework for civilisation. Global peace could be achieved by reversing the other end of the continuum - chaos with its recklessness while revealing a kernel of hope for the planet Earth. This is how the strategy has changed.

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This paper argues that God prepared ordinary individuals chosen for spiritual leadership to act in ways that demonstrate universal care for the planet. People’s liberation usually coincided with leaders effectively providing care by shepherding their people just like God’s Son, Jesus. God protected the brave leaders just like shepherds protected their sheep. God used kings of kingdoms, priests in temples and prophets to nations in order to lead His people towards His promise of a greater hope. Hope refers to hoping when things are hopeless, but it is a matter of platitude when everything is calm and bright. It is only when everything gets dark that hope begins to be a strength. In this context, hope is not blind faith that things will somehow get better. It is rather a realistic belief that things can get better, since despair is an illusion of certainty, while hope is an appreciation of possibility. As the Evangelist, Luke (1: 37) reminded, ‘‘For with God, nothing will be impossible.’’ The results of this paper point out that effective change-makers and global leaders embraced hope to turn things around. That means literally transforming a desperate situation into a possibility of a positive outcome. Change requires finding the way, showing the way and leading the way. A quote by the ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu aligns with this notion: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.’’ The quote emphasizes the importance of humility, performing duties with diligence without asking for recognition. There is no way towards a brighter future without a strong will, and there is no will without hope. Political agency is the key to tackling global problems such as climate change, because when leaders organize communities, they also organize villages, and then, equally, the whole cities, after that they organize nations, and finally, they organize the whole world around ‘the idea whose time has come.’ The nucleus of analysis is the idea whose time has come is building a disaster-free world and tackling climate change in advance through the implementation of green, nature-based solutions to confront climate change and create a future where everyone can thrive. It is argued that it is individuals who play a central role in transformations for change. Since the biblical times of Moses, social movement leadership has been successful and proved to be effective in dethroning reckless tyrants, putting dictators who oppress humanity out of their seats and scattering the proud, mighty and cruel leaders who used to run the world. While there have been exceptions throughout history, leadership has too often been the sad tale of governments using citizens or subjects to serve and enrich themselves, instead of the other way around to serve people and improve life quality. However, there were some of the greatest leaders in the Bible, who were individuals that others would have totally discounted, both on the basis of their past and upbringing, and their training. Jesus, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, Samuel, Isaiah, Daniel, John the Baptist, Peter and Paul were chosen for leadership and became great leaders because their hearts were humble and completely devoted to God. As much as we can learn from their examples, we can equally infer lessons from modern examples, which include: Mahatma Gandhi, who aimed to create sustainable development, balanced development of body, mind and soul; Reverend Martin Luther King, who defined power as ‘‘the ability to achieve purpose’’ and ‘‘the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change.’’ Movements which show how to organize communities can mobilize people’s power to effect major change. But there is also a deeper meaning to that because ultimately someone has to carry the shining torch of reason and progress to the furthest corners of the earth. Movement is one thing, another is that a movement has to be effective and realistic enough so that to translate vision into action without crystalising utopias. For every major breakthrough for every world-changing innovation—there is a hidden force at the center that enables to propel imagination, and then turn it into action. First, find a challenge, develop a vision, then design a strategy, and finally, overcome the challenge through social change. Immanuel Kant in philosophy, for instance, and Goethe in literature coined a new sense of production, dialogue and discourse which is best exemplified in Kant’s concept of the Einbildungs-kraf, the power to turn imagination into a reality. This is how a small movement can beat a beast through imagination and doing with little. Such power is productive not because it conjures up a grand vision detached from reality, but because it is capable of conceiving the formal characteristic of a vision of civilization before any empirical conception is possible and then turning it into action. According to Kant, the morphological description of natural phenomena was an integral part of the productive activity of nature – it is nature acting in the scientist and researcher. For Goethe, the artist is productive because nature is working in him. Nature has power and knowledge is power since it listens to nature. Creative problem-solving involves continuous experimentation, revision and sharpening of ideas. The longer options are kept open, the more likely it is that the solution will be original. At the present, the key priority for global civilization is the alleviation of climatic catastrophes and climate security. Very little research has been carried out till this date on the potential social impacts of climate change on the United Kingdom coast. Therefore, the social justice implications of climate change are not well understood. This paper defines climate justice as: ensuring that collectively and individually, people have the ability to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from climate change impacts – and the policies to mitigate or adapt to them – by considering existing vulnerabilities, resources and capabilities. Climate injustice relates to how the impacts of climate change will be felt differently by different groups and how some people and places will be more vulnerable than others to these impacts. What if people dared to transform the civilisation in which they live following the persuasive, still realistic vision of the regenerative communities model? In the face of global, systemic, and cataclysmic civilisational collapse, solutions offered by the people at the very least need to build from a smaller gradually to bigger networks, systemic thereby global by effectively rescuing an ageing, technetronic and therefore endangered, vulnerable civilisation. While research on social movements is wide there is a gap to fill about the degree to which climate movement may have a leverage in today’s global politics. It would be a drawback for the global progress if the now increasingly vulnerable humanity would only act on climate after it was too late. Strategic insecurity is now a fact of life on a scale heretofore not experienced by the now increasingly vulnerable humanity but breakthrough on climate change is foresee...

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Climate Crisis as a Political Problem or Where is the Power
Andreas Pickel

Preprint, 2022

The climate crisis poses many problems which makes identifying the most important ways of dealing with it difficult and confusing. This paper argues that dealing with the climate disaster is above all a political problem-and only secondarily planetary, natural, economic, cultural or psychological. It further argues that from among the great number of political actors with some responsibility and power to contribute to solutions, it is neither humanity as a whole nor people as individuals who can be central players. Nor will global institutions and international organizations play a primary role. Power, and by implication responsibility, is concentrated at the level of nation-states. From among the 200 states in the international system, only half a dozen have the political power to sustain or destroy the natural environment necessary for civilizational survival. The drama of climate action is being played out within these few nations-each with their own unique national mobilization capacities, repertoires of political action and historical roles of international cooperation and conflict.

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Negotiating Climate Change: Radical Democracy and the Illusion of Consensus
Amanda Machin
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Related topics

  • Strategic Studies
  • Environmental Sustainability
  • Modern Strategy
  • Modern Civilization
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