National Security Dilemmas: Challenges and Opportunities (Paperback)

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Product Description

A contemporary primer on the leading arguments about U.S. national security, National Security Dilemmas addresses the major challenges and opportunities that are live-issue areas for American policymakers and strategists today. Colin S. Gray provides an in-depth analysis of a policy and strategy for deterrence; the long-term U.S. bid to transform its armed forces’ capabilities, with particular reference to strategic surprise, in the face of many great uncertainties; the difficulty of understanding and exploiting the challenge of revolutionary change in warfare; the problems posed by enemies who fight using irregular methods; and the awesome dilemmas for U.S. policy over the options to wage preventive and preemptive warfare.

With forty years’ experience as a strategist, within and outside of government, Gray uses a problem-solving motif throughout the book, suggesting solutions to the challenges he identifies. The book’s master narrative is that the United States must take a more considered strategic approach to its security dilemmas. Too often, the country’s leaders decide on a policy and then move to take action, all the while neglecting to devise a plan that would connect its political purposes to military means. While many of Gray’s judgments here are critical of current ideas and behavior, he crafted them as helpful guides should planners adopt them when revising policies and approaches. Strategy is a practical matter; truly it is the zone wherein theory meets practice.

This text can be used as an expert guide to the major national security challenges of today. It both explains the structure of these challenges and provides useful answers. With a foreword by Lt. Gen. Paul K. Van Riper, USMC (Ret.), Bren Chair, Marine Corps University, Quantico, Virginia.

About the Author

Colin S. Gray is a professor of international politics and strategic studies and the director of the Centre for Strategic Studies, University of Reading, England. He is the author of twenty-three books, including National Security Dilemmas: Challenges and Opportunities (Potomac Books, Inc., 2008) , and several dozen government reports. He lives in Wokingham, United Kingdom.

Product Details

• Paperback: 334 pages
• Publisher: Potomac Books Inc. (January 31, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597972630
• ISBN-13: 978-1597972635
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #243,367 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mixing Up a Strategic Cocktail, February 5, 2009

By	Retired Reader (New Mexico) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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This book is actually an exposition on what Gray considers essential concepts for developing what B.H. Liddell Hart refers to as [national] policy strategy. As what he apparently considers essential background, Gray also discusses in some detail the U.S. Military Transformation efforts and the development of a counter-insurgency (COIN) doctrine. On the whole this is a thoughtful book on a continually important subject.
Perhaps the most interesting portions of this book are his analysis of three paramount strategic concepts: deterrence; pre-emption; and prevention.

He argues that deterrence is far from a relic of the Cold War, but is as viable now as it was during that period. He does however warn that deterrence is entirely predicated on the not always accurate assumption that the entity towards which deterrence is directed actually is reasonable and willing to be deterred.

He notes that preemption in the form of preemptive warfare is directed towards an adversary who is known to be preparing for a strike against the preemptor. In his view preemption is a viable and necessary option as a national security strategy concept.

Rather interestingly Gray notes that prevention is the strategic concept behind the so called Global War on Terror (GWOT), but as with everything else in that enterprise, it has been carelessly conflated with preemption. Preventive warfare is directed against an enemy or suspected enemy to prevent them from taking an action presumed to be against the national interests of the nation launching the preventive attack. There is much more an element of chance in prevention than in preemption and often much less justification.

This a good book, but not without a lot of soft spots. Perhaps the most egregious one is his chapter on "Transformation and Strategic Surprise" where he completely misreads the nature of warning intelligence which is not predictive or precise. Warning intelligence should function to identify and warn of potential threats to national security, but only in rare cases can it actually predict specific future events. In this same chapter he appears to miss the significance of advances in information technology to military transformation.

Still the book is well worth reading and thinking about since Gray is a world class strategic thinker.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Tour, New Knowledge, Best in Class & Practical, June 19, 2009

By	Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

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For those who have not already digested the author's seminal publication, Modern Strategy, I have a summative review there that could be helpful in conjunction with appreciating this new work.

10 pages of notes--this is a major work that is also easily grasped by undergraduates and graduates. I want to say up front that I have seen no finer overview that blends the original thinking of the author, himself a master strategist, with broad consideration of the work of others, and very disciplined integration of selected quotes and ample citations. The notes are superb.

My summary notes first:

Six lessons of Bush-Cheney era:
01--Bush era did not lack for brains or judgment, simply suspended intelligence in favor of "hopes, dreams, and good intentions."
02--Crusades inconsistent with reality will fail
03--US forces not trained, equipped, organized for counterinsurgency
04--Transition to peace is harder than winning war
05--International politics is real and will not go away
06--Beware capabilities-driven strategy.

Three levels of strategic thinking:
--general
--general applied to regular or irregular warfare
--tailored to a specific "episode" e.g. Haiti, Somalia, Iraq

US starts with multiple handicaps:
01--cultural disposition to look at pieces, not the whole
02--flawed theory of deterrence
03--excessive faith in technology, insufficient grasp of human factors, incompetence at irregular war
04--one size fits all military does not suit diversity of challenges
05--lack of authority among those we seek to influence
06--barriers between military and political leaders (and lack of inter-agency coherence at any level)

"Deterrence...is not a fixed, settled, and now long-perfected product." [It is] not understood, illusions abound, and it [a theory of] is desperately needed as a companion to the concepts of prevention and pre-emption. This is the first time I encounter a concise well-organized critique of the entire field of deterrence. He cites Payne in noting how the US tried to "deter" NVN with a Rolling Thunder air campaign, despite having no clue "about the enemy's policymaking process or how he rank-ordered his values."

Key recommendations:
01--Deterrence must be part of broader strategy of influence in all its forms
02--We must take the ideas and perceptions of others seriously
03--Citing Metz & Mullen, "the age of the stupid enemy is past."

Quoting Echeverria: "American way of battle has not yet matured into a way of war." Later in the chapter on Irregular Warfare he observes, citing others as appropriate, that war is the whole enchilada--political, legal, social, economic, military, cultural; while warfare is the conduct of the war, predominantly but not exclusively military.

The chapter on surprise is original, lacking only one fundamental: intelligence must cast a wide net and policy must keep an open mind.

The chapter on revolutionary change is original but overlooks O'Hanlon's Technological Change and the Future of Warfare and does not address the broad literature on the need to reinvent intelligence and shift from secret unilateral to open multinational.

I learn that context is both that which surrounds, and that which weaves together; throughout the book the author emphasizes the importance of Gestalt, of "the whole," with particular attention to the political consequences of military actions.

Citing Field Marshall Keitel: errors in tactics and operations can be corrected in the current war, errors in strategy can only be corrected in the next.

Quoting Gray:

p. 108: "Strategic surprise on the greatest of scales occurs as a result of changes in the contexts for national security." He goes on to note that political surprise is what catches the US most unawares, in part because the US separates policy and politics from all else.

p. 119 "War is about peace...above all else, war is about the kind of peace that should follow."

Essence of strategy:
01--About the use of force for political effect
02--About relationship between means and ends
03--Politics must rule BUT politicians must hear, understand, and respect the military

American "way of war (more properly, way of battle):
01--Apolitical (I would add, amoral)
02--Astrategic
03--Ahistorical
04--Problem-sovling, optimistic
05--Culturally-challenged
06--Technology-dependent
07--Focused on Firepower
08--Large-scale
09--Aggressive-Offensive
10--Profoundly-Regular
11--Impatient
12--Logistically-Excellent
13--Highly-Sensitive to Casualties

Irregular Warfare demands:
01--Protect-the-People
02--Intelligence-is-king
03--Ideology-matters
04--Enemy-not-the-main-target
05--Unity-of-effort (I add, Whole of Government, M4IS2)
06--Culture-is-crucial
07--No-sanctuaries
08--Time-is-a-weapon
09--Undercut-enemy-POLITICALLY

The author is deeply respectful of our soldiers, lamenting that they are victims of a strategic deficit among both our politicians and senior military leaders, hence sent in harm's way ill-advisedly to few good ends.

The author provides new thinking on pre-emptive and preventive war, stating on page 242 that both are "only feasible if intelligence is immaculate." This chapter may be the most important chapter as well as the most difficult for conventional decision-makers, both political and military, to grasp, given their "closed circle" circumstances.

The concluding chapter on The Merit in Ethical Realism is absorbing and feels a huge gap in current US strategic thinking. Three quotes capture my admiration for this author and this chapter:

"...it is nearly always inexpedient to ignore or affront the ethical sensibilities of stakeholder communities, including one's own."

"As a practicing strategist, I am convinced that strategy's ethical dimension is not subjectively irrelevant; rather it is integral to supposedly objective analysis, calculation, decision, and behavior."

"The moral is strategic, and the strategic is moral."

The author concludes that we cannot think in terms of one "Master Menace," and must instead be prepared for a diversity of challenges and dilemmas. In my comment below I provide URLs for summary articles about the Army's Strategic Conferences in 1998 and 2008, both ignored by all "deciders."

I encourage readers to buy this book, and to see my reviews of the books linked to below.
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025
Wars of Blood and Faith: The Conflicts That Will Shape the 21st Century
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility--Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence and the Will of the People
Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography)
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political--Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

See images posted above and comment below. Colin Gray is a global treasure, would that those in power had the humility to attend to his wisdom.