Military Review English Edition July-August 2014 | Page 17
ON STRATEGIC UNDERSTANDING
Shinseki directed a report on leadership from the
U.S. Army War College that concluded the Army
should “begin growing strategic leader capability at the
pre-commissioning level.”13 Such preparation might
have helped a U.S. Army lieutenant stationed at Camp
Arifjan, Kuwait. Interviewed recently by journalist
Rosa Brooks from Foreign Policy magazine, he was
asked, “What’s your mission here?”14 His joking reply
included the infamous phrase, “Ours is not to wonder
why.”15 Such a question should never go unanswered
by a commissioned member of the profession of arms.
A sense of strategic purpose is a necessary element of
competent officership. The solution is education for
strategic understanding.
Strategic Understanding: Three
Critical Components
for practice and exercises. These three components are
essential for an effective strategic studies course.
Multidisciplinary Approaches
Consider any real-world conflict, historical or
contemporary. Now think of the many perspectives
one might consult in analysis to better understand that
conflict. There are always many. For example, with respect to the evolving situation in Ukraine, former U.S.
ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock writes
on his blog, “I believe that nobody can understand
the likely outcomes of what is happening unless they
bear in mind the historical, geographic, political, and
psychological factors at play in these dramatic events.”17
Journalist Sebastian Junger describes war in the broadest of terms: “I mean, the thing about war—it’s sort of
everything … in one complicated package.”18
War is a large, complex activity that is entirely too
big to fit into a single academic category. Therefore, the
study of war is inherently multidisciplinary. Professor
Stephen Biddle of George Washington University
explains why the study of war cannot be limited to a
single discipline:
Two pathways to strategic understanding for
junior officers are formal and informal education. A
prime example of informal education is through selfstudy. A case in point comes from the WarCouncil.
org website—a nonpartisan, multidisciplinary academic forum dedicated to the study of the use of force
(primarily) for the profession of
arms.16 While writers can submit
Components of Strategic Studies
contributions to the WarCouncil.
org blog, its users also can take
advantage of a self-study section
History • Geography • Law • Philosophy • Political Science
with over 20 topics and approxiPsychology • Sociology • Kinesiology • Physics • Media
mately 300 curated links to videos,
Engineering • Art • Math • Economics
podcasts, maps, and graphics. Such
Strategic Studies
informal learning can support
formal education.
A formal strategic studies
course would be as Gen. Shinseki’s
Strategic Frameworks: Critical Analysis (Kritik); Legal,
report counseled: each soon-to-be
Moral, Effective, Wise?; Ends, Ways, Means (Risk)
junior officer would begin growing
strategic leader capability by taking
a course during pre-commissioning
Practice & Exercises: War Councils; WarCouncil.org; Case
education. Simply put, strategic
Studies; Staff Rides; Study Abroad; Capstone Projects
studies is the multidisciplinary
study of the use of force. As depicted in the figure, three critical
components to a strategic studies
course are including multiple acContext • Critical, Reflective Practitioners • Improved Judgment
ademic disciplines, using strategic
Strategic Understanding –▶ Strategic Thinking
frameworks, and providing venues
MILITARY REVIEW July-August 2014
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