New York, NY: Anchor Books, 2002. This succinct set of considerations provide the fundamentals distilled from a detailed review of Professor Colin Gray’s studies. Many departments with programs or centers in “conflict studies” are actually primarily interested in conflict resolution. The gray zone might sit uncomfortably between war and peace, but that is due to our narrowly defined constructs of war and peace; our competitors are more flexible. In addition, he was a Senior Associate to the National Institute for Public Policy. Rather, he was, as he did throughout his career, applying strategic logic. In contrast, Colin was steadfastly dedicated to understanding the theoretical foundations of grand and military strategy. Colin Gray: “The trouble with the hybrid war concept is that it encourages the innovative theorist to venture without limit into the swamp of inclusivity, indeed of a form of encyclopedism.” Hew Strachan, The Direction of War : Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 82; Colin S. Gray, Some in the academy focus on narrower pieces of the strategy process by analyzing specific documents. had an inevitable influence on strategic behavior. Clausewitz’s concept of friction exists at more than the operational and tactical level. I knew him well late in his life. As new technologies and security challenges emerge, so the discipline seeks to understand the implications. Strategic studies is a broad and occasionally expanding church. It was he who first introduced me to strategic studies. Not only is this a significant moment in the warfighting debate, it also has significant implications for Colin’s general theory of strategy. If used in warfare, nuclear weapons would be most likely too powerful to serve political purposes.”. He was the teacher of two generations of U.S. and British defense experts. In addition, he was a Senior Associate to the National Institute for Public Policy. These meetings were a lively forum where we discussed the strategic topics of the day, but also aspects of the academic profession. War, Peace and International Relations provides an introduction to the strategic history of the past two centuries, showing how those 200 years were shaped and reshaped extensively by war. * Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. At the age of 19 Colin found employment as a clerk; however, four years later both he and his brother attempted to join the Royal Air Force as pilots. Poor performance in one area can lead to strategic failure. He was my friend and mentor. In Schools for Strategy, he emphasized: A plan is a theory specifying how a particular goal might be secured, ceteris paribus. Gray was educated at the University of Manchester and the University of Oxford. With the passing of Colin Gray, our grip on strategy feels a little less secure. His work focuses on the theory and practice of strategy, the dialogue between policy and military force, and in the utilization of historical experience for the education of policymakers. A particularly fine example of this is his 2012 work, Airpower for Strategic Effect. Indeed, during my time as his graduate teaching assistant at Hull, he encouraged me to teach my own course on strategic history. That logic is a continuous thread of thinking that provides strategic intent and informs ways, creating linkages in strategic design that then drives operations. Ramadhan. As a consequence of these theoretical foundations, Colin knew that deterrence could not be taken for granted, that it might fail, and that a nuclear war might have to be fought. The first and principal consideration for the strategist is a firm grasp of the strategic environment and context in which one’s strategy is to be conducted. Civil-military interaction in the development of strategy is critical to strategic success, and, of course, a great source of tension. He has served as a Defence Advisor to both UK and US governments and is the author of 28 books on military history and strategic studies, as well as numerous academic articles. The strategic concept divined by the strategist should establish this logic and coherence, and they must strive mightily to keep them connected. It is all too easy to focus on the means, while underappreciating the manner in which they must further the ends, in different contexts. Some question the need for grand strategy; others contend the United States has lost the art of developing one. Although Colin had some enduring foundations to his work — Clausewitz being the most obvious and consistent point of reference (although he was insistent that On War should not be regarded as a sacred text) — he was passionate in his belief that strategic theory was a living thing, and therefore was prepared to challenge his own established positions. At the age of 19 Colin found employment as a clerk; however, four years later both he and his brother attempted to join the Royal Air Force as pilots. This is no more evident than in his later thoughts on nuclear warfighting. This is the essence of the strategy function, whereby the strategist exploits the comprehension generated from context and cognitively creates a strategic concept and logic that promises to attain policy ends within the means allocated and the constraints laid upon them. Colin S. Gray, War, Peace and International. Reflecting this, early on in my strategic education he introduced me to the “So What?” question — what Colin called the skeleton key of strategic analysis. During my studies, Colin proffered a piece of advice that had a significant influence on me: “Never be afraid to challenge the orthodoxy.” It was, perhaps, this willingness to take on established ideas that partly explains Colin’s development of nuclear warfighting theory in the 1970s and 1980s. If the reader will permit, I will finish with four personal observations regarding Colin’s influence on my approach to strategic analysis. Such ideas were gaining traction at the time in policy circles. Colin Gray in War, Peace, and International Relations highlights an important difference between the term “war” and “warfare”. Weapons Don't Make War: Policy, Strategy, and Military Technology: Gray, Colin S.: 9780700605590: Books - Amazon.ca Colin S. Gray’s most popular book is Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare. The “way” is a strategic concept that represents an untested hypothesis, one which can plausibly attain policy ends within the means allotted and existing constraints. Secondly, when commenting upon my draft Ph.D. chapters, Colin would often write (in his infamous red ink), “Do you really mean that?” This reflected Colin’s quest for careful, accurate scholarship, and instilled in me an invaluable habit. With respect to cyber power, Dr. Colin Gray poses . In this vein, Colin is rightly adamant that “strategic effect” is the essential outcome of strategy. Dr. Colin S. Gray is a political scientist with broad interests in national security policy, strategic theory and military history. Fardhal V . He was my friend and mentor. Similarly, Gray takes on the primary airpower text used by Holmes and others at the Naval War College in arguing that air strategy is about far more than targeting. Colin S. Gray is the European Director and co-founder of the National Institute for Public Policy, and Professor Emeritus of Strategic Studies, University of Reading. Gray ensured any debate began with a clear definition of basic terms. The confluence of contingency and competitiveness produces the need for an additional component — that of constant evaluation of ongoing operations and continuous measurement of progress. I first met Colin in fall 1995, when I enrolled in his security studies program as an M.A. January 29, 2018 February 6, 2018 Over The Horizon 0 Comments Adaptation, Colin Gray, innovation, war theory, Warfare, Warfare Culture By David Pappalardo “ If there is one attitude more dangerous than to assume that a future war will be just like the last one it is to imagine that it will be so utterly different that we can afford to ignore all the lessons of the last one .” As Clausewitz argued, military strategists must accept that politics frequently intrudes in strategy and war. and seeks to answer the most basic of the strategist’s questions, “So what?” The trainer also listed Colin Gray’s 13 attributes of the American way of war, which are apolitical, astrategic, ahistorical, problem-solving and optimistic, culturally challenged, technology-dependent, focused on firepower, large-scale, aggressive and offensive, profoundly regular, impatient, logistically excellent, and highly sensitive to casualties. Coherence reflects the balance and internal logic in the enduring formula of ends/ways/means. I have no hesitation in placing him alongside the likes of Bernard Brodie and Thomas Schelling in the pantheon of modern strategic thought. Colin Falkland Gray is similar to these military people: Petrus Hugo, John Cunningham (RAF officer), Victor Beamish and more. Expressed most stridently in two journal articles, “Victory Is Possible” (1980) and “Nuclear Strategy: The Case for a Theory of Victory” (1979), Colin helped develop the nuclear strategy debate beyond the confines of deterrence theory and assured destruction. Download. The sources of this foundation were listed as political, military, socio-cultural, geographic, technological, and historical context. It is clear that shortfalls in strategic performance by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan stem from shortfalls in understanding the particular context and culture that the US and its allies sought to change. In the context of the Cold War, the most likely candidate appeared to be destroying the Soviet political system and preventing its recovery. MORE EPISODES > GET MORE WAR ON THE ROCKS SUPPORT OUR MISSION AND GET EXCLUSIVE CONTENT BECOME A MEMBER. The use of “development” rather than “direction” captures one of the potential uses of a strategy: the shaping of instruments to better achieve defined policy outcomes. Topic. As Colin noted, policymakers often seem “to forget that the enemy too has preferences and choices.”. Commentary on airpower, as with many forms of military power, can get lost in the technical, tactical, and operational details. It did not take me long to realize that Colin was an academic heavyweight. This short list provides the gist of the holistic understanding of strategy as a practical art and comprises the main theme of Colin’s intellectual contribution to security studies. Royal Air Force (RAF) officer and the top New Zealand fighter ace of the Second World War. Lay out the American Way of War in 25 words or less. I am certain of one thing: Colin Gray would be exasperated with claims that “Grand strategy is dead.” What he would have called a “banality” is commonplace these days. Hilary Matfess, Robert Nagel, and Doyle Hodges. Grand strategies can be anticipatory and long term, seeking to shape the development of instruments of state power, adding new agencies and new forms of power. Gender and Security. The monograph Signing up for this newsletter means you agree to our data policy, United States has lost the art of developing one, strategic culture is neither fixed nor determinant. He has shaped policy on nuclear strategy, arms control and special forces. Moreover, by acknowledging a possible exception to the general theory of strategy, Colin revealed that he was not hamstrung by the quest for easy or neat positions; he was prepared for the complexities and nuances of strategy to stand. As a history and international relations graduate, I had briefly come across his work critiquing arms control (House of Cards, 1992), but I had little inkling of what a significant figure he was in the strategic studies community. The ability to challenge conventional wisdom, to see through the chaff and discern the essence of a problem, to uncover illusion or conceit, and craft a strategy that advances a theory of success is hard work. graph, Dr. Colin S. Gray explains that the only sources of empirical evidence accessible to us are the past and the present. The book takes a broad view of what was relevant to the causes, courses, and consequences of wars. The making of strategy is an iterative exercise that is dynamic, irregular, and discontinuous. However, revealing his scholarly acumen, Colin was far from deterministic in his analysis on culture. Dr. Colin Gray subjects hard and soft power to close critical scrutiny and finds that the latter is sig-nificantly misunderstood and, as a consequence, mis-assessed as a substitute for the threat or use of mili-tary force. 2014. For those of us who have closely followed Colin’s work on nuclear strategy, the following sentence is jarring: “[T]here can be no meaningful nuclear strategy. Colin Gray, who has died aged 76, was a leading thinker on security and defence strategy. There is nothing extraordinary about current Russian-American dislike, distrust, and antagonism. student. His work focuses on the theory and practice of strategy, the dialogue between policy and military force, and in the utilization of historical experience for the education of policymakers. Moreover, whatever the subject at hand, Colin was forever mindful of the Clausewitzian nature of war, in all its rational, non-rational, competitive, and uncertain glory. Imprint Routledge. He is the author of Understanding Contemporary Strategy, Alexander the Great: Lessons in Strategy, and The Nature of War in the Information Age: Clausewitzian Future. His research portfolio centers on national defense and military strategy, military innovation and adaptation, and defense economics. Two sons, brothers Ken Gray (40342) Colin Falkland Gray (RAF) served with distinction as airmen in WW2. He will be remembered for keeping the strategic flame alive and passing it along to future generations of strategists. Thus, I joined Colin’s vibrant Ph.D. program. A good strategy must establish a causal logic that links both the ways and means towards gaining the desired policy aim and strategic effects. In this magisterial tour d’horizon of the air weapon’s steady rise in effectiveness since its fledgling days, Colin Gray, a prolific strate gist of long-standing scholarly achievement and international repute, has rightly taken a long view of today’s pattern of regional conflict by appraising airpower in the broader context in which its operational payoff will ultimately be registered. The final purpose of strategy, too often overlooked, is the development of either missing capacity or the inadequate capability of an instrument of national power. This essay is an unofficial expression of opinion; the views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of West Point, the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or any agency of the US government. But in exploring the literature, it became apparent to me that the “black hole,” or missing element in strategy, was also missing from my own set of fundamental considerations. As Andrew Marshall and others like Gray consistently argued, strategy must be competitive. Although somewhat conflicted in its views on nuclear weapons, the Reagan administration went further, seeking capabilities to fight and prevail in a protracted nuclear war. he author of 22 books, his most recent (published in 2007) are Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace, and Strategy; and . History of the Peloponnesian War. Such an understanding was something our honored colleague always endeavored to help us appreciate. It was quite a thrill to watch one of the great strategic thinkers grapple with the core of his subject. War on the Rocks. As someone who has taught airpower for over 20 years, I can testify to the fact that Colin’s book was very much needed. First hinted at in The Strategy Bridge, in Theory of Strategy Colin stepped back from his original warfighting position, and joined the likes of Lawrence Freedman in arguing that “in use” nuclear weapons are astrategic. To cite this article: Murray, Williamson, “Thoughts on Colin Gray’s Strategy Bridge”, Infinity Journal, The Strategy Bridge Special Edition, March 2014, pages 4-7. Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from a roundtable “Remembering Colin Gray” from our sister publication, the Texas National Security Review. However, it is one thing to know how to digitize; it is quite another to understand what digiti-zation means strategically. Colin S. Gray is Professor Emeritus of Strategic Studies at the University of Reading. Colin argued that the general theory of strategy did not require an operational level. Colin S. Gray’s most popular book is Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare. Personnel Director at Unilever. It is only when we intellectually struggle with a subject, and especially when we try to present it in a concise and intelligible manner, that we really begin to understand it ourselves. COPYRIGHT © 2019 WAR ON THE ROCKS. This collection of mini essays will forearm politicians, soldiers, and the attentive general public against many—probably most— fallacies that abound in contemporary debates about war… There was even talk amongst the PhD cohort of having a T-shirt printed for the following year, adorned with an appropriate quote from the Prussian theorist! It is an enduring human function, eternally tied to human nature. By Colin Gray, Colin S. Gray. STRATEGY AND DEFENCE PLANNING by Colin S. Gray. Dr. Gray draws noticeably upon the understand-ing of strategic history obtainable from Thucydides’ great . In total, Gray puts forth 13 features that characterize the enduring traditional, and cultural, American military conduct in warfare. Not that Colin would disagree with the difficulty of strategy, or American shortfalls: “In war after war,” he noted, “America demonstrates an acute strategy deficit.” There is plenty of evidence over the past two decades to suggest that a deficiency in conceptualizing and conducting national strategy afflicts the United States. The dimensions of strategy taxonomy is so encompassing, and based on such a wealth of conceptual and historical understanding, that the theory has enormous theoretical, pedagogic, and practical value. Click here to navigate to parent product. Book War, Peace and International Relations. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. When faced with a historic battle, new technology, or operational choice, the strategic analyst should always ask “so what?”; what were, are, or will be the consequences for politics? Rather, strategy’s natural spawning grounds are the confluence of politics, complexity, uncertainty, and constraints. Colin stressed the interactive aspect of strategy and insisted on adaptability to deal with uncertainty and the uncanny propensity for opponents to not do what they are expected to do. In February of this year, Colin S. Gray, the most consequential Anglo-American strategist of our time, died after a decades-long struggle with cancer. Although responsible for some heavy theoretical tomes, Colin was also able to write accessible introductory texts in strategic history. For Colin, it was axiomatic that strategy was a cultural activity. Coming full circle, and ever the mentor, in our last email exchange (in the month before he died) Colin recommended a raft of books for my next writing project on the Second World War. Theoretically, the dimensions enable us to get a grip on the complex nature of strategy, yet break it down into manageable components. There are advantages to getting strategy “good enough,” as Colin would put it, and fast enough to outmaneuver one’s opponent in the temporal dimension of strategy. War, Peace and International Relations provides an introduction to the strategic history of the past two centuries, showing how those 200 years were shaped and reshaped extensively by war. Gray emphasized that strategic culture is neither fixed nor determinant, but it does cue or frame problem recognition and initially forms a lens on solutions. Colin Gray was born at Papanui, Christchurch, on 9 November 1914, the elder of twin sons of Margaret Langford and her husband, Robert Leonard Gray, an electrical engineer. He was undoubtedly one of the great strategic thinkers of his age. Pages 14. Retired … In Another Bloody Century (2006), which dealt with the gamut of pertinent strategic issues of the time, Colin once again deployed theory and history. However, Colin showed acute awareness of the methodological challenges of measuring said effect in different contexts. Colin was primarily a strategic theorist, but he and I shared a passion for history. Should that occur, like all wars, there needed to be a theory of victory to drive forward nuclear strategy. Written by leading strategist Professor Colin Gray, this textbook provides students with a good grounding in the contribution of war to the development of the modern He once stressed that “strategies are theories, which is to say they are purported explanations of how desired effects can be achieved by selected causes of threat and action applied in a particular sequence.” This is not the only occurrence discovered belatedly. Colin exerted a major influence in the strategic studies com- Sections on operational art, with writers addressing the issues in both conventional and small wars; stability and reconstruction; and intelligence complete the volume. Strategy will retain its utility as long as security communities have interests, and as long as policymakers and military commanders need to counter challenges and align resources to obtain desired objectives. COPYRIGHT © 2019 WAR ON THE ROCKS. Colin reassured the reader, and the policymaker charged with producing future-looking defense policy, that the nature of war is both eternal and well understood. Creating and sustaining coherence is the part of strategic practice where the strategist earns their keep and applies their creativity and experience. doi: 10.1080/ The essence of that reassurance is found in the maxim “Clausewitz rules!” As a consequence of this truth on the eternal nature of war, “it follows that history is our best, albeit incomplete, guide to the future.”, One of the frustrations of strategic studies is that, while there are countless books on the history and experience of war, there are very few works on strategic theory. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Strategy is a messy and nonlinear process, as Colin often stressed. Indeed, in this form Colin’s work has proved invaluable when teaching strategic history to undergraduates. First Published 2007. He retired at his own request in 1961. Almost every page contains important insights on the nature, process, and difficulties of conducting strategy. The Strategy Bridge is arguably Colin’s most important contribution to strategic theory. And, although I remain very much a warfighting theorist, I applaud the fact that as a strategic thinker Colin continued to reassess his positions on the big-ticket issues. Strategy relies upon intelligence and knowledge of the other side, but as Colin stressed, the future is not foreseeable and strategy is laid on a foundation of assumption, guesses, and genius. There is a tendency in American strategy circles to insist on linear and rational processes, as if politics can be isolated. That context was constructed of technology, society, culture, and above all politics. War, Peace and International Relations by Colin S. Gray, 9780415594875, available at Book Depository with free delivery worldwide. However, Colin was not merely acting as an iconoclast, or being needlessly hawkish for controversy’s sake. Gray, Colin S. “The American Way of War: Critique and Implications” in Rethinking the Principles of War by Anthony D. McIvor ed., Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005. Rather less adequate, Dr. Gray suggests, is the traditional American way of war. However, despite the many insights to be found in these later works, I still prefer the minimalism of the “dimensions of strategy” found in Modern Strategy. The strategist, who holds the proverbial bridge between policy and military means, must accept the historical fact that purely rational methods are not the norm in crafting strategy. Colin S. Gray passed away earlier this year, in February. 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