The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War

by Williamson Murray (Editor), Alvin Bernstein (Editor), MacGregor Knox (Editor)

Moving beyond the limited focus of the individual strategic theorist or the great military leader, this book concentrates instead on the processes by which rulers and states have formed strategy. Seventeen case studies analyze through a common framework how strategies have sought to implement a coherent course of action against their adversaries. 24 line drawings. 31 tables.

Genres: History, War, Military Fiction, Politics, Nonfiction, Military History, International Relations

704 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 1994

About the author

Williamson "Wick" Murray was an American historian and author. He authored numerous works on history and strategic studies, and served as an editor on other projects extensively. He was professor emeritus of history at Ohio State University from 2012 until his death.

Reviews

[MarkG1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a superb introduction to the "strategy as process" approach to strategic thought as opposed to the common "great thinker" approach (e.g., Clausewitz, Liddell Hart, etc.) It is required reading in my graduate course, Studies in Military Thought and Strategy. As of February 2016, I'm re-reading it as part of the current iteration of the course.

[Παναγιώτης Αρχοντής · Rating 5 out of 5]

If someone wants to really understand the chess game of the key players in the planet then he/she should start from the beginning. And this book is the evanggelion of the category. MUST MUST READ

[Tessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was never remotely interested in war or strategy before I took the class I had to read this for, but this book actually made it interesting to me. It's basically a survey of wars from all around the globe in all time periods--clear from the wars between the Greek city states to the present day.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent collection of essays on strategic decision making through primarily Western European history. The final essay by Gray is dated since the book was published in 1993 and does not deal at all with the 2000s, which radically transformed the US defense posture.

[Cerebralcortext · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite agreed with this book's methodology: rather than trying to divine vague, Barnum-esque principles about the making of strategy, the editors let history speak for itself and confined themselves to a summary of the major themes (bureaucracy, ideology, mass politics, and technology/economic power) to tie everything together at the end. This resulted in a surfeit of concrete analysis of individual polities and rulers (from republican Rome to Louis XIV to Stalin) that really gave me an appreciation of the contingencies, considerations, and constraints inherent in the strategy-making process. The theme of geography, though not mentioned in the summary, was also prevalent throughout all the articles. It was discussed in the introduction though, which leads me to consider that combining the introduction with the summary at the end into one article might have been more coherent. Also, considering how widely referenced Clausewitz was throughout the book, I find that it behooved the editors to have added a section on the context, details, and implications of Vom Kriege.

As with all edited books, some articles are better than others, but the overall quality was remarkably high. The standouts for me were Kagan (Peloponnesian War), Parker (Philip II), Lynn (Louis XIV), and Cohen (America c.1920-45). The major limitation of this series is its historical coverage. With the exception of a single chapter on Ming Chinese strategy, the case studies are Western with especial focus on Great Britain, Germany, and the U.S. Lack of geographic spread is just one dimension; chronological is the other. Five out of nineteen chapters have to do with the World War period, while four treat with fin de siècle Europe. If you discount the introduction and summary, that means half the book deals intensively with the end of the "long nineteenth century". While that has the advantage of providing a kaleidoscopic, multivariate examination of the strategies of the major participants in the World Wars, it does detract from the thesis of seeing how strategy was made through the ages, circumscribing as well the ability to look for continuities outside of the relatively narrow geographic, cultural, and chronological milieu proposed. And considering how much ink was spilt on World War Two, it was almost a travesty that Imperial Japan's strategy was not given due consideration.

So, while this book was definitely insightful and had its merits in reconstructing the fractured and turbulent struggles of the early twentieth century, its reduced scope belies its intention to "offer an introduction to the wide variety of factors that influence the formulation and outcome of national strategies", since that variety is delimited by the chapter selection process. However, I do commend their broad view of strategy as the matching of broad ends with means as it allows one to see that operational success (as with Hannibal or the Six Day War) does not necessarily or easily translate into the achievement of one's strategic goals. It also allows for factors beyond the purely military-- like economics, ideology, and psychology--to appear in their apposite roles.

[Bobby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good chapters. The intro is kinda meh. I like the focus on the practical aspects of "doing" strategy, but I do not think any sound conclusions were made except that "countries do it differently based on how they are politically organized, what problems they face, and what resources they have."