In the book On Grand Strategy, author John Lewis Gaddis analyzes grand strategic theory and practice from the perspective of various case studies across two millennia.
The dictionary definition of strategy is: a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.
Gaddis goes a step further in his definition: “I’ll define that term, for the purposes of this book, as the alignment of potentially unlimited aspirations with necessarily limited capabilities. If you seek ends beyond your means, then sooner or later you’ll have to scale back your ends to fit your means. Expanding means may attain more ends, but not all, because ends can be infinite and means can never be. Whatever balance you strike, there will be a link between what is real and what is imagined: You won’t have a strategy until you’ve connected these dots--dissimilar though they are--within the situation in which you are operating .“
Gaddis emphasizes the importance of defining one’s ends rightly, developing and using means appropriately. Yet right after, he points out that even the best thought-out strategy may well fail in practice. This might lead some to counsel avoiding plans entirely, but Gaddis suggests that an embrace of “roll with the punches” or “take it as it comes” pragmatism is indeed a strategic plan, although one where events shape you rather than the other way around.
The book had a strong start and that captivated me. Gaddis uses the pages to reflect what his decades of study have revealed to him regarding strategy. He analyzes good and bad examples of strategy through a variety of perspectives. The book can seem a bit ponderous and overwhelming to readers who have not studied a lot of history (and possibly even to some who have).
The “fox or hedgehog” analogy Gaddis co-opts into his argument is thought-provoking. In short, he argues that great strategists need to be both the “fox” and the “hedgehog.” The hedgehog mentality provides long term focus and the ability to persevere in pursuit of an overarching goal despite daunting challenges. The fox mentality is the adaptiveness that allows one to recognize when ends are beginning to outstrip available means. A “fox” recognizes the perils that endanger strategy and adjusts course accordingly: he picks his battles, sometimes giving the impression of moral compromise while preserving the ability to continue the struggle. The “hedgehog” ensures that the “fox’s” adjustments do not take one too far off the guiding azimuth that began the journey in the first place. A great strategist must have both of these within himself/herself or, at the very least, must be able to harness both within a leadership structure.
An example of a hedgehog the book provides is King Phillip II of Spain. As a devout Catholic, he saw his core duty in life is to preserve the oneness of Christianity during the Protestant Reformation. He famously said, “Before suffering the slightest damage to religion in the service of God, I would lose all of my estates and a hundred lives, if I had them, because I do not wish nor do I desire to be the rulers of heretics” Not willing to compromise, King Phillip ended up with only a few months of peace during his 43 years of reign. Stretching his aspirations beyond capabilities, or ends beyond means, led to the decline of Spanish power.
An example of a fox the book provides is King Phillip’s counterpart, Queen Elizabeth I of England. Queen Elizabeth navigated domestic and foreign threats skillfully--one of her mottoes was “I see but say nothing”. She picked her battles and feigned losses so as to preserve England’s strength, laying the foundations for the British Empire.
Throughout his case studies, I felt a lack of context and cherry-picking of specific events to support his arguments. For example, one with limited background in history might have finished the book with the impression that King Phillip was a fanatical tyrant. Philips II’s reign can hardly be characterised by its failures. He established the first trans-Pacific trade route between America and Asia, consolidating Spain’s overseas empire, ended French ambitions in Italy, and ended the threat posed to Europe by the Ottoman navy, etc.
Despite Phillip's early success, he made many questionable decisions in his later years that led to his downfall. This leads to another important point Gaddis made in his book:
Common sense is like oxygen: the higher you go, the thinner it becomes.
It is much the same in most aspects of life, where we make such choices instinctively, or almost so. As authority increases so does self-consciousness. With more eyes watching, practice becomes performance. Reputations now matter, narrowing the freedom to be flexible like a “fox”; leaders can become prisoners of their own preeminence, locking themselves in roles from which they cannot escape.
Leaders like Xerces, Phillip, and Napoleon began establishing impressive empires, but as they accumulated more power it limited their peripheral vision. And so they stare straight ahead, listening to no one, fearing distractions, clinging to command as they lose balance between ends and means, leading them into disaster.
The take home message I received from this book is that a grand strategist needs to match their aspirations with capabilities through time and space, adjusting for scale (what is at stake). For instance, my life will not fundamentally change if I decide to eat out or cook for lunch, the stakes are relatively small. The stakes rise, though, as I consider what I am learning and how it relates to what I have learned: how to lead a Bible study group, direction of lab research, how I integrate all these into a profession, and whom I may fall in love with along the way. I pray that I can make the right choice.