Ah strategy … the calculated pursuit of political objects through military means. What that needs is cool heads and clear thinking. Take Afghanistan: if only we could divorce ourselves from our emotional commitment to that marginal backwoods, we’d surely be able to craft a more effective strategy, objectively appraising the value of our campaign and, in so doing, determining a sensible, pragmatic national interest. Right?
Fat chance. Strategy rests always on the psychology of those doing the strategising, and, in particular on emotions, which are an integral part of human rationality (ask a psychopath, or better yet read some Jonathan Mercer). Take emotions out of your theory about what strategy is, or should be, and you miss the point. Bernard Brodie, my favourite strategic thinker, didn’t. He opens his brilliant Strategy in the Missile Age with a choice quote from Clausewitz that gets to the nub of it:
…man, who in great things as well as in small usually acts more on particular prevailing ideas and emotions than according to strictly logical conclusions, is hardly conscious of his confusion, one-sidedness, and inconsistency.
In another article, written late in life, Brodie takes on his old rival Albert Wohlstetter (among others), who had neglected this essentially human foundation for strategy, an activity that Brodie thought that should never be ‘divorced from consideration of how human beings actually behave in a crisis’. Not something that systems analysts were hugely into – but what is war if not a crisis that engages emotions? The particular crisis Brodie had in mind was Cuban, and involved missiles. He points the reader to Robert Kennedy’s powerful memoir, 13 Days, a book replete with references to the emotions of the central protagonists on the US side.
As Kennedy relates, there was ‘stunned’ surprise in the White House on hearing the news, and ‘shocked incredulity’. Later, there was ‘tremendous strain’ on JFK, and ‘emotional criticism’ from Congressmen he briefed, who urged more decisive, military action. At the height of the crisis, as two Soviet ships steamed towards the quarantine barrier, a Soviet submarine positioned beneath them, Kennedy recalls his brother’s demeanour:
His hand went up to his face and covered his mouth. He opened and closed his fist. His face seemed drawn, his eyes pained, almost gray. We stared at each other across the table. [...] I thought of when he was ill and almost died; when he lost his child; when we learned that our oldest brother had been killed; of personal times of strain and hurt.
What was JFK thinking, with all that stress, ambiguous information, lack of sleep, fear, the considerable pressure for action from senior military advisors, and who knows what sort of medication in the mix too?
One thing’s for sure – it was emotional. And while not every crisis is the Cuban Missile Crisis, I think Brodie and RFK give us a worthwhile reminder that the effects of emotions on beliefs and attitudes are an essential part of strategy.
And Afghanistan? We may fairly disagree with the approach adopted there. But if we judge that emotion is clouding the judgment of those who shape that strategy, we ought also to remember that emotional commitments are almost certainly shaping our own, ‘objective’ take on what should be done.
You wouldn't like me when I'm angry
