Customer Reviews

Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace

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This is a sprawling, but very important and perceptive analysis. Luttwak's often revised book has several messages. The most topically interesting one was apparently missed by the reviewers, who concentrated on the paradoxical nature of strategic relations.
Luttwak notes that modern industrial societies will not tolerate casualties in war, and that therefore battlefield strategies must focus on winning wars without direct contact with the enemy and without risk of lives. He claims that while the strategic bombing of WW II was a failure, strategic bombing as practised in Iraq in 1991 and in Kossovo was a success. According to Luttwak, the difference is more accurate intelligence and more accurate bombing - not necessarily cruise-missiles.

He points out that with a smaller expenditure of bombs in 1 month in 1991 than the allies had expended in Germany in 1945, the coalition succeeding in totally disrupting Iraq communications and industry.

The outlines of how the next war ought to be fought, and in fact was fought, were clear from Luttwak's presentation. One almost gets the feeling that the war was fought to prove his theory, and it is very likely that changes in US defense policy are being based on lessons drawn from the success of the war, in the light of Luttwak's recommendations.

Luttwak does not take into account that not all enemies are equal. The strategy that worked so well for Iraq might not work for a more organized and determined foe such as North Korea.

Edit of 21 Dec 07 to add links.

My own discovery of how the threat changes depending on the levels of analysis would not have occurred without this brilliant book by Edward Luttwak. It was his careful and reasoned discussion of how specific capabilities and policies might not make sense at one level of analysis, but do when combined with others, that helped me understand why US (and other) intelligence communities continue to get so much wrong.

First to credit Luttwak: anti-tank weapons make no sense in isolation (tactical level), but if they slow the tank down enough to allow artillery and close air support to have an impact (operational level), they might close gaps and win victories (strategic level). Bottom line: nothing in war can be considered in isolation (including, one might add, the post-war needs that enable an exit strategy).

It was from Luttwak's work that the Marine Corps Intelligence Center (today the Marine Corps Intelligence Command) developed the new model for analysis that distinguished between the four levels of analysis (strategic, operational, tactical, and technical), combined that with the three major domains (military, geographic, and civil), and then cross-walked that against every single mission area (infantry, artillery, tanks, aviation, etcetera).

One simple example of the importance of Luttwak's work to intelligence: at the time (1990) the Libyan T-72 tank was considered by the US Intelligence Community to be a very high threat because it was the best tank that money could then buy--but on reflection, we found this was true only at the technical level of optimal lethality. At the tactical level the tank was being stored in the open, poorly maintained by poorly trained crews, parts cannibalization occurring regularly, this dropped the threat to low. At the operational level there were a significant number of the tanks scattered around and available, this raised it to a medium threat at that level. At the strategic level, the tanks could not be sustained in battle for more than two weeks, and dropped again to low.

Edward Luttwak, in company with Colin Gray, Martin van Creveld, Ralph Peters, and Steve Metz, is one of the most brilliant and clear-spoken of the strategists writing in English, and this book will remain--for years to come--a fundamental building block in the learning and maturation of national security strategy.

Other recommended books at this level:
Modern Strategy
Transformation of War
The Changing Face of War: Lessons of Combat, from the Marne to Iraq
Wars of Blood and Faith: The Conflicts That Will Shape the 21st Century
Security Studies for the 21st Century
Strategy: Process, Content, Context--An International Perspective
The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century
The Sword and The Pen - Selections From The World's Greatest Military Writings
War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires

This book discusses the dynamic and sometimes contradictory uses of 'strategy' in five different levels: Grand Strategic level, Theater Strategic level, Operational level, Tactical level, and Technical Level. Because of the dynamic nature of strategy, conflicts of interests often arise between different levels - so that what one sees as logical at one level may not be acceptable in another. Indeed, this book sets out to address the confusing nature of the problem and puts the entire issue into perspective with the concept of 'paradox'. Historical examples are used to expound his arguments. As always, Luttwak's work is incisive and provocative. Enjoy it!

This book is not for the greenest of novices, and it contains no recipes or easy plans that will make your military or business plans unassailable. Instead, Luttwak presents as a central thesis that all war (and peace) is paradoxical. Paradox arises because the enemy is a living, thinking, acting person, dedicated to fouling your plans and making your goals and tactics irrelevant.

For example, Luttwak states that the Maginot line was one of the most brilliant defenses in history. It truly was impenetrable. So impenetrable, that the Wermacht just went around it! The mistake of the French, therefore, was not constructing the line (as many have argued), but assuming that it would ever be attacked.

The book is now a bit dated, as it uses anti-tank defense in Western Europe as an exercise in the different levels of understanding war, but it remains an excellent treatise on how to think about war. In this way, it is quite similar to Clausewitz's _On War_, a manual for thinking about war, not winning one. Luttwak also pushes Clausewitz's dictum that all levels of war are subject to and determined by the political, or grand strategic level. Contradictions are always resolved in favor of the higher level. Thus, the rifle fits the tactics, which are determined by the operation, which is suited to the theater, which is selected and fought in because of national policy.

Peace begets war, and war begets peace. This book is rather like the yin-yang of combat.

Luttwak makes an excellent argument that strategy is different from other plans of action, in that a strategist must contend with active, intelligent opposition. Consequently, a plan can be good simply because it is bad, or vice versa, which Luttwak calls "paradoxical logic". He takes as a primary example the use of infantry anti-tank weapons in the defense of West Germany from the Warsaw Pact (the example is still clear, even if dated), and examines the effects of such weapons on a technical, tactical, operational, theater, and political level, each building on the last.

Luttwak carefully examines the advantages and disadvantages of doing the unexpected, of maneuver versus attrition and why World War II was fought the way it was, and of the consequences of fighting in a way that does not support the ultimate goals of the theater of war. He takes the examination of strategy to a level I haven't seen since Clausewitz, and is much more readable.

Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace makes for stimulating reading. Luttwak's chief argument is that strategy is conditioned by its own paradoxical logic. For example, according to the logic, any success contains the seeds of its own reversal. Thus, a highly successful weapon will soon be rendered less effective by the enemy's efforts to design countermeasures. Although much of Luttwak's ideas come from Clausewitz, the concepts are taken to a much further extreme, which results in very different conclusions. Overall, the book is well-written and readers interested in strategy will find it a must. The first section of the book (60 pgs.) outlines the main concept and is the most interesting part.

Although interesting and in some points insightful, the author of the book principally seems to miss the point of multidimensional strategy. Rather than thinking of strategy as an equation on a multidimensional graph, with defense and offense combining with strengths and weaknesses of opposing forced to produce the best operation, Luttwak seems to view modern strategy and tactics more in linear Napoleonic terms, calling this a paradox. Of course, there is no paradox in this logical endeavor, as the 'social' forces in strategy cannot be said to ever create a true paradox.

His understanding of why nations go to war is not particularly insightful (Machiavelli said the same thing five centuries ago) but is well written and intelligent to be an enjoyable read. It would prove very useful for the young reader attempting to discover what strategy is.

Luttwak's choice of military events to prove his theory is, of course, circumspect. But whose is not? Hart cherry-picked, as did Clauswitz and every other military strategist. He should not be faulted on this point, as it in no way detracts from the main issue of paradox.

The seeming lack of morality on conflict resolution demonstrates a lack of understanding of the necessities of fourth generational war, but does not demonstrate a lack of understanding of basic strategy or a lack of ethics. The subject of abstract strategy deserves ethics no more than the study of abstract math. Nevertheless, since the creation of the near real time war correspondent, it is impossible to consider war without considering public morality. The concentration camps of the British in the Boer War were effective. The complete and utter annihilation of Carthage also was effective. But both would now be untenable positions. Luttwik does not offer an answer for the European power at war about what to do to win a war. His lack of an answer for the paradox would by necessity eliminate the answer.

The book raises insightful questions and forces the reader the question his own assumptions about strategy, never a bad thing. Although ultimately a failure on the overriding theme, everything else to do with this book makes it enjoyable, and worth reading.

Edward Luttwak is an example of yet another political scientist trying to apply a general theory to explain the chaotic nature of warfare. Luttwak fails to prove his general contention that paradoxical logic rules the outcome of strategy and war. Paradoxical logic is the coming together of opposites or the reversal of opposites. In warfare, "the longest way round, is often the shortest way home." This is paradoxical because linear logic suggests that the shortest way home is a straight line. But in war, the short straight way might take you right into the enemy's strongest part, thus you will want to take the long way around and strike the enemy at his weakest point. This paradoxical because it is opposite of linear logic.

It is true that these "paradoxes" do occur. But paradoxical logic cannot be construed as a general theory to explain strategy in its totality. For example, there is a mainstream historical belief that the German bombing of London during the Battle of Britain raised the morale of the English. Thus the bombing of Great Britain is an example of paradoxical logic. It is the coming together of opposites. The Germans intended to destroy the morale of the British through bombing, but raised it instead, a paradox in the making. A naive general might even try to use this example of paradoxical logic to tell his commander in chief that it is useless to bomb cities, because, "it will just raise the morale of the enemy."

Upon closer historical examination one can see that there is no consensus amongst historians as to whether or not the morale of the British was destroyed by the bombing. One school of historians believes that British morale was drastically lowered by the bombing. Crime and other social indicators suggest that the social fabric of Great Britain began to come apart as the bombing intensified. So using this historical interpretation the Germans accomplished what they set out to do, which was to lower the morale of the British. This follows a linear form of logic. The Germans bombed England with the intent of lowering morale. The bombing lowered morale. Therefore the linear logic of the Germans worked in this instance. There was no paradox.

Military history is a in many ways subjective, especially when political scientists and academic strategists put it to use. You can't build objectivity on subjective standards and that is what Luttwak attempts to do. He uses military history examples to prove his point that paradoxical logic rules strategy. However there are always counter historical points to the ones he uses. Paradoxes in war do show up, and Luttwak correctly points out some. But paradoxical logic is not a hard and fast rule of strategy. It is not an eternal law that guides strategy. Luttwak goes so far to claim that paradoxical strategy rules strategy even though most strategists aren't aware of it. No matter what they do, the paradoxical logic will always be there.

Ethicists would also find fault with Luttwak's brutal lack of ethics. Luttwak basically justifies the extermination of one culture by another. You see, Luttwak's logic is that war eventually creates peace by wearing itself out. War makes armies and nations run out of resources, eventually causing peace, because no one has the stamina or means to continue it. So
uninterrupted war is good, because it eventually brings peace. Luttwak is against U.N. armistices and peacekeeping missions, because they interrupt war and delay peace (which is caused by war exhaustion). Luttwak states, "The outcome of uniterrupted war would certainly have been unjust from one perspective or another but would eventually have imposed some sort of peace, allowing people to rebuild their lives and communities." (Strategy, page 61) Suuurrrreeeee. I bet the Hutu would have been real glad for peace to come after they exterminated the Tutsis. How can an exterminated people or culture enjoy peace? If the ends of the war being waged are to exterminate a culture, how can that targeted culture rebuild its community after it has been destroyed?

I don't like U.N. peacekeeping missions either. The U.N. is a lackluster organization that never does anything right. But I don't like Luttwak's explanation as to why U.N. armistices are bad or why war should be allowed to go on interrupted.

Overall, the book has some good historical references, but fails to prove its thesis, which is that paradoxical logic guides strategy.

An incredible tour de force that examines the paradoxical trade-offs of military campaigns. Victory is shown to contain the seeds of defeat and vice versa.

A variety of lessons learned are clearly presented and illustrated with historical examples in an understandable manner. His discussions on blitzkrieg, defensive depth, culmination points and guided vs unguided weaponry alone are worth the the price of admission. He discusses the pros and cons of using the element of surprise, the irrationality of over-expenditures on nuclear weapons, over-preparation, implementing new technologies, being over or under cautious.

Though a small part of the book, starting on pp61 he gives a scathing condemnation of NGOs. In spite of altruistic intentions they are unable to protect the weak and often provide cover for insurgents. He has nothing but scorn for UN "blue helmets" who are both under-trained and underpaid, have no incentive to risk their lives in order to fulfill their mission and who are often on the take to supplement their salaries. NGOs often wind up supporting the very conflict they oppose, as in Somalia, by purchasing protection from the local war bands.

He also criticizes relatively well paid and well supported NATO troops as being hampered by being both overly cautious and bureaucratic. He cites several examples in Bosnia where a fleet of expensive Apache helicopters brought in to deal with insurgents could not be deployed

Luttwak sees war as an exhaustive process that eventually comes to a conclusion - and that NGOs interfere with and cruelly prolong the suffering of war. The analogy would be keeping a dying person on life support and in pain for months and years on end. (I reluctantly concede that he is generally right, however in the limited cases such as the Sudan or Rwanda where the goal was physical genocide I still hold out for intervention, though Luttwak does suggest an alternate strategy. )

The middle section of the book deals with the technical, tactical and operational concerns of military strategy as they apply in offense, defense and in interaction with the political sphere. He categories air, naval, nuclear and space based warfare not as strategies but as dissimilar tools subject to the same considerations of strategy. Terrific insights throughout.

The last section deals with "Grand Strategy" wherein a military command integrates the different sub-strategies of its forces with the national and international goals that they serve. The author considers the use of the availability of force as a tool of persuasion, where it is effective, and where it is not.

Luttwak's reasoning is enlightening and worth listening to. The book is the equivalent of a full course in the subject of Strategy and should be of interest to both the military historian as well as anyone who has to realistically deal managing scarce time and resources One of the best non-fiction books I've ever read in a long long time!

This book is essential for everyone interested in understanding (or at least trying to understand) modern warfare or conflicts. It's concepts apply not only to warfare, but to any situation where there are interests at conflicts. Reading it is paramount to effectively managing such situation in a cost effective manner. Military planners should read this book before they even think of buying new, and expensive, "wunder weapons" with a billion dollar price tag. The situation in Iraq can be better understood after reading this book. It show clearly that throwing money at a problem is not the solution.