The Practice of Strategy: From Alexander the Great to the Present

The Practice of Strategy focuses on grand strategy and military strategy as practiced over an extended period of time and under very different circumstances, from the campaigns of Alexander the Great to insurgencies and counter-insurgencies in present-day Afghanistan and Iraq. It presents strategy as it pertained not only to wars, campaigns, and battles, but also to times of peace that were over-shadowed by the threat of war. The book is intended to deepen understanding of the phenomena and logic of strategy by reconstructing the considerations and factors that shaped imperial and nation-state policies.

Through historical case studies, the book sheds light on a fundamental question: is there a unity to all strategic experience? Adopting the working definition of strategy as 'the art of winning by purposely matching ends, ways and means,' these chapters deal with the intrinsic nature of war and strategy and the characteristics of a particular strategy in a given conflict. They show that a specific convergence of political objectives, operational schemes of manoeuvre, tactical moves and countermoves, technological innovations and limitations, geographic settings, transient emotions and more made each conflict studied unique. Yet, despite the extraordinary variety of the people, circumstances, and motives discussed in this book, there is a strong case for continuity in the application of strategy from the olden days to the present.

Together, these chapters reveal that grand strategy and military strategy have elements of continuity and change, art and science. They further suggest that the element of continuity lies in the essential nature of strategy and war, while the element of change lies in the character of individual strategies and wars.

John Andreas Olsen is Deputy Commander and Chief of the NATO Advisory Team at NATO Headquarters in Sarajevo, and Visiting Professor of Operational Art and Tactics at the Swedish National Defence College. He is an active-duty colonel in the Norwegian Air Force and his recent assignments include tours as the Norwegian liaison officer to the German Operational Command in Potsdam and as the military assistant to the attache in Berlin.

Colin S. Gray is Professor of International Politics and Strategic Studies at the University of Reading. He has written pioneering and controversial studies on nuclear strategy, arms control, maritime strategy, and geopolitics, and is the author of twenty books, more than 300 articles, and several dozen reports for governments. His most recent publications include Another Bloody Century, Fighting Talk, and The Strategy Bridge (OUP 2011).