National Strategy: Big Ideas or a Theory of Success?

In my inaugural blog post, I highlighted a concern that in setting out the UK’s National Security Strategy (NSS) there was too much focus on identifying what capabilities were available to the government and were being brought into service, in order to meet some fairly nebulous national security objectives. This I argued missed out the vital ‘ways’ element of the ends, ways and means approach to thinking about strategy. While there are some problems with this framework, if national strategy is about how you use your resources to achieve national objectives and outcomes, it is a good place to start in examining the potential effectiveness. An examination of both the UK’s 2010 and 2015 NSSs highlights this missing element.

To counter this absence, I suggested that those responsible for crafting national strategy needed to come up with a ‘big idea’, a unifying purpose to the strategy that made sure that the means were employed in the best possible way to meet the required ends. This concept of a ‘big idea’ has been part of the conversation about national strategy in the UK for some time so I am certainly not claiming any credit for its invention. Indeed, in its 2017 publication ‘Getting Strategy Right Enough’ the Royal College of Defence Studies identifies a central big idea as one of its fundamentals of strategy. In this document rather than simply being a way of formulating the ‘ways’, it is instead seen as a unifying theme ‘giving the destination, direction and means of travel in such a manner that [those involved] feel bound to make the journey’.

Getting Strategy Right Enough also offers some words of caution noting that any such narrative however compelling, is not enough in the absence of an effective and coherent underlying strategy that it purports to describe. This sense of a ‘big idea’ is clearly some way distant from my own suggestion. Indeed, in conversation since the publication of the blog, it has become clear that at least in the UK context, there are a number of different understandings and perceptions of what the big idea is in practice. Perhaps it is not as useful a label as I had initially thought.

Coincidentally as I was posting the first blog, I came across an article in Joint Force Quarterly No. 97 by Frank G. Hoffman, ‘The Missing Element in Crafting National Strategy: A Theory of Success’. Hoffman highlights that discussion about national strategy tends to focus on competing concepts and definitions (as I am doing here), arguing that this has done nothing to improve the quality of national strategy making at least in the US. He argues convincingly that strategy-making is more about art than science but that to be practical it needs to be a pragmatic art. This pragmatism takes the form of establishing an explicit causal logic that brings the ends and means together through the ways.

His approach has echoes of that followed by some organisations in the development arena such as the UKs Department for International Development (DfID) where it is called a theory of change. Here the aim is to outline the logic that a particular intervention or programme, will lead to an intended outcome. It is often an untested hypothesis in the specific context to which it is being applied, but one based on experience, knowledge and understanding.

Hoffman’s model for a theory of success suggests that the overall big idea for a strategy can be developed iteratively by identifying a series of causal mechanisms that link activities to outcomes. The mechanisms identified would be recognized by anyone involved in strategic thinking including words like encourage, coerce, disable and neutralize. By packaging a series of these together focusing on using own strengths against potential adversary vulnerabilities, it is possible to build up a strategic approach that holds together under its own internal logic which in turn can become the big idea.

While I really like the idea of identifying an untested hypothesis as your theory of success, there is a risk with an approach such as this of unpacking too many elements of the strategy and hence delving down too far into the operational level. From there it risks one of the problems with many approaches to operational planning, in that in trying to help organize thinking to solve a complex problem, they instead become a box-ticking exercise or a complex spreadsheet.

The same risk also applies to the framework for assessing strategic logic with which Hoffman concludes the article. This is a set of key questions under the three headings of diagnosis, formulation and implementation which should guide the analysis of any proposed strategy. To be fair to Hoffman he emphasizes that it should only be used as a framework, but the risk remains of it instead being used as a checklist.

So where does this leave us? It remains the case that the ‘ways’ element is missing from UK national strategy and indeed its absence in the US is one of the drivers of Hoffman’s article. While the ‘big idea’ is probably too nebulous a concept, a theory of success risks becoming a prescriptive methodology rather than the framework for thinking that is aspired to. The challenge is perhaps to identify the middle ground between these two.

National Security Strategy – What’s the Big Idea?

While we ponder the potential longer-term impacts of the Covid-19 epidemic both at home and abroad, the UK has a review of its national security strategy underway in the snappily titled Integrated Defence and Security Review. Although delivery of this has been delayed, for my first blog, I wanted to consider whether there is a need for such a review to be built around a ‘big idea’ or perhaps a national security philosophy.

In his book Strategy: A History, Lawrence Freedman notes that there is no single simple definition for the concept of strategy. He notes that it is about the ability to look up from the short-term to view the longer-term and to identify what is essential; to address causes rather than symptoms. One framework that is used in considering national security strategies is the idea that it is built around ends, ways and means. The ends in this case are the objectives of the strategy whilst the means are the capabilities both military and civilian that can be brought to bear to deliver those objectives. This blog focuses on the topic of the ways.

In the UK, reforms of government after the 2010 general election established a National Security Council (NSC) and a regular programme of reviews, which in theory should put it in a better place to think more strategically. However, the reality has been different with the conversation moving quickly to the allocation of a limited pool of resources rather than a considered conversation about the nature of national security in the longer term.

The 2015 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review (2015 NSS) was the first opportunity to demonstrate a different approach to strategic thinking. The 2015 NSS is a comprehensive document of over 90 pages which lays out in some detail the government’s plans down to the level of specific military capabilities such as frigates, armoured fighting vehicles and maritime patrol aircraft. Beyond defence it also outlines the development of the other capabilities essential to national security including diplomacy, intelligence, development aid and law enforcement. This sort of plan is a way for the government to demonstrate its commitments to both industry and the general public. However, in this sense the 2015 NSS is more of an implementation plan than a national security strategy and indeed one that failed strategically due to the means being inadequately resourced.

Three National Security Objectives are identified in the 2015 NSS as the ends to which the UK’s national security means should be applied. These are to: ‘Protect Our People, Project our Global Influence, and Promote our Prosperity’. The first and third of these are essential, basic functions of government while the second seems to presage the Brexit related narrative of Global Britain. While these objectives or ends can be legitimately criticized for being vague, the critical missing piece of the ends, ways and means framework in the 2015 SDSR is the ways.

One of the problems with the framework is that it is not clearly defined. While it is possible to easily identify ends and means, it is less clear what is meant by ways. In Cold War Britain, the ends might have been broadly similar to those identified in 2015, although the primary threat would have been identified as a Soviet attack on mainland Europe with secondary challenges from domestic terrorism and threats to certain of the overseas territories. The way in which the means were to deliver the ends in the face of these threats was through contributing to NATO conventional deterrence in Europe. This was in essence, the big idea. While the balance between support to the British Army of the Rhine, air defence of the UK and securing the sea lines for reinforcement across the Atlantic varied over time, the overall idea remained consistent. Since the end of the Cold War there was a focus on liberal intervention and the suggestion of a ‘Force for Good’, an approach that has lost whatever credibility it had. Since then, the big idea or overall strategic philosophy has been missing, leading to a lack of focus and direction and a conversation dominated by competition between capabilities for resources.

In the contemporary security environment how might the British government address this challenge? What should be the big idea? One possibility lies in one of the many HMG strategy documents that burn brightly if briefly in Whitehall. The Building Stability Overseas Strategy (BSOS) published in 2011 is built around the idea of upstream conflict prevention. Such an approach necessitates a genuinely whole of government approach and has to be proactive rather than reactive. It reinforces the need to continue to develop effective intelligence and assessment capabilities, as well as the sort of integrated crisis response organization that is aspired to in the Fusion Doctrine. In practical terms this means a return to a focus on conventional deterrence to manage great power competition albeit with a broader understanding of the concept, and further developing capacity building tools to assist in areas at risk of conflict.

Will the Government adopt such an approach? Prior to the spread of Covid 19 this seemed unlikely as the public discussions were focused on balancing the books. While pressure on the Treasury in the aftermath of Covid 19 may exacerbate this, the pandemic might have highlighted to political leaders the need for a longer-term approach engaging the whole of society. A clear strategic idea or way at the heart of the next National Security Strategy would at least provide the missing link to ensure that sensible decisions about the balance of means to achieve strategic ends could be made.

Welcome to the Shield Bearer

This is the first post on my new blog about strategy and conflict. As a think-tanker and former military officer, I decided to set up a space where I could share my thoughts and ideas and hopefully have them critiqued and developed. As a ‘jack of all trades’ (and master of none), these thoughts will range far and wide as issues arise but expect to find ramblings on national security strategy, cyber and conflict, grey zones and hybrid threats, sexual violence in conflict, information in warfare and African security.  As I said, jack of all trades. Please do engage either here or on Twitter (@jockney45) and subscribe below for updates.

Ewan 

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