Shikha Dalmia tells us to Defend America, Buy More Iranian Oil. Her reasoning echos my arguments regarding those who ominously intone that we couldn’t go a week without Chinese imports. As Ralph Peters breathlessly gasped in “The Counterrevolution in Military Affairs,”

…try to go a single week without buying or using a product made in China. A conflict with Beijing might be lost on the empty shelves of Wal-Mart.

This one-sided interpretation does not devote a single sentence to discussing China’s fundamental dependence upon the American consumer. Naturally China will appear more threatening if one ignores the role exports have played in China’s meteoric growth and the regime’s need to maintain that growth (lest it lose control of the population).

Dalmia makes a similar point regarding the national security implications of oil imports, stating that “Our dependence on Middle Eastern oil is only the flip side of their dependence on our purchases. ” Expanding upon the nature of this dependence, Dalmia argues that

…beneath all of Iran’s saber-rattling and its threat to retaliate against Israel in the event of a U.S. attack, it realizes how suicidal such a move would be… [Iran’s] concern is not so much for the world’s oil consumers, of course, as for the economic consequences for his own country. The Iranian government depends on oil exports for nearly half of its total revenues. If it cuts these exports, buyers could go to other suppliers. But there is not much else that Iran could sell to other countries to replace its lost oil revenues.

Ultimately, all of the bluster on each side - Iran’s nuclear ambitions and oil embargo whispers or American war plans and shows-of-force - is jockeying for position within the larger context of negotiations over the future of Iraq in addition to Iran’s desire to leave parriah status and become a power on the global stage (last two links subscription only).

I have been reading Henry Yarger’s monograph, “Strategic Theory for the 21st Century: The Little Book on Big Strategy”, and I am finding it to be a mixed bag.

As a survey its scope is limited, yet it still balloons out to a turgid 85 pages. It attempts to provide a structure within which to understand the role of strategy and its relation to planning, tactics and policy. In lieu of substance, it offers contradictory platitudes like the following:

…periods of stability are the best time to contemplate bold shifts in strategy…

…periods of major instability are the best time to advocate bold, broad strategies (p38).

There are nuggets of gold, however. For example, Yarger provides a concise description of how the abstract concepts of grand strategy, policy and tactics map to specific national security documents. He even sums it up in this graphic, eminently appropriate for dropping into Power Point slides.

Returning to the question of scope, however, I am frankly shocked that neither Sun Tzu nor Basil Liddell Hart made it into Yarger’s bibliography. (One of the reasons I slogged through this paper paper was to gather more sources for my developing cannon of strategic theory.) I was pleased to see John Lewis Gaddis, and was intrigued by the frequent references to Colin Gray (have to add him to me to-read list). Clausewitz, however, seemed to be one of the only primary thinkers represented. Many of the sources cited seem to be secondary and tertiary thinkers who concern themselves with meta-strategy.

I must admit some wariness of devoting too much of my extremely constrained reading time to such material. As Wohlstetter put it in an article (whose title currently escapes me and I don’t have access to my personal library right now) he was wary of studying theory for fear that he would end up more concerned with the trappings of thought and yet none of the rewards. He likened the trappings of theory to safari equipment (pith helments, khaki tunics, elephant guns) and avered that he did not wish to become one who contented himself with a never-ending quest to properly equip himself and never actually went on safari. Such Safari fantasies can be entertaining, but I share Wohlstetter’s desire to avoid living them (after all, I want to somehow actually make a difference.

As I read on, however, I realize that I’ve been excessively hard on Yarger. I stand by my characterization of the first half of his monograph as pudgy, but he has some very solid material in the latter half.

First of all, he begins to emphasize the importance of strategy being flexibile and adaptable. The danger, of course, is in reducing strategic thinking to “simple assumptions that are often ill-founded” in the attempt to reduce strategy to planning.

Secondly, Yarger recognizes the need for strategy to be articulated in such a manner that it “resonates with multiple audiences.” He doesn’t explain why this is important, but readers of this blog are already familiar with Boyd’s definitive answer to this question (namely to “Pump-up our resolve, drain-away our adversary’s resolve, and attract the uncommitted”).

Third, I appreciate that Yarger emphasizes the importance of rigorously considering one’s objectives: “Objectives too seldom receive the depth of tought and reflection they merit.” Decision analysts will recognize this danger from experience with some expensive analysis that devoted 95% of its time and money on modifying models and only 5% of its time asking what the proper scope of the analysis ought to be.

Fourth, Yarger recognizes the “alluring trap of strategic monism.” Reductionsim at its most dangerous, strategic monism is the belief that a single strategic concept fits every scenario. “Usually the appeal appears to lie in its directness, application of technology, and appearance of efficiency.” Yarger cites the US military’s emphasis on precision strike as a potential example of strategic monism. I would add EBO to that list.

As I finish the monograph, I may add more thoughts to this rambling record of my thinking.