S trategy

FORAction
Using Force wisely in the 21st century

Commodore Steven Jermy RN

Foreword by Major-General Julian Thompson RM

Knightstone
Publishing
 Knightstone
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88-90 Hatton Garden,
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Published in the United Kingdom by

Knightstone Publishing Ltd
First Published 2011

Copyright © Steven Jermy, 2011

The right of Steven Jermy to be identified as the author of this work has
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Cataloguing in Publication Data available

ISBN 978-1-908134-00-4
 About the Author

Commodore Steven Jermy RN retired from the Royal Navy in

2010 after a successful and varied military career that encompassed
carrier aviation, sea command and high level staff appointments.
His commands included HM Ships Tiger Bay, Upton, Arrow,
Cardiff, the 5th Destroyer Squadron and the Fleet Air Arm. His
staff appointments were in the Ministry of Defence Directorate of
Policy Planning and as Principal Staff Officer to the Chief of Defence
Staff. He saw active service flying from HMS Invincible during the
Falklands War and his final operational tour was as Strategy Director
in the British Embassy in Kabul in 2007. He gained an MPhil in
International Relations from Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1993,
graduated from the Royal College of Defence Studies in 2008 and
now writes, lectures and consults on modern strategy, including
strategy in Afghanistan.
 Extract
Preparation for war is an expensive, burdensome business, yet
there is one part of it that costs little — study.
Bill Slim

Let me finish the story where I began, in Afghanistan. Returning

from Kabul and, in January 2008, debriefing special advisors,
officials and senior officers in No. 10 and Whitehall was a sobering
experience. The content of my message was simple: there was no
overarching strategy to guide the campaign; we needed one and this
is what it could look like.
But my message fell on deaf ears and for two reasons. First, some
felt I was wrong about the lack of strategy and pointed out the
error of my ways by referring me to ‘our strategy’. They were
referring to, of course, a British strategy not a coalition strategy.
To me the idea of a British strategy seemed then — and seems
now — nonsensical. How was a British strategy, focused largely on
directing a relatively small British deployment, in overall coalition
terms, to just one of Afghanistan’s thirty-four provinces going to
make up for the lack of an overall campaign strategy? Second, I
had not recognized that, because British forces were in Helmand
Province, the minds of British politicians, senior officers, officials,
opinion-formers and the press had become fixated there too. I had
failed, in other words, to complete the first step in my Strategic
Estimate and understand properly the peculiar political context
2  STRATEGY FOR ACTION
to which I was returning. Having done my best to bring the key
strategic message back, I watched the raging debates about the
tactical issues such as equipment and the number of boots on the
ground with much private frustration. But the positive outcome was
a reinforcement in my mind of the need for new thinking on making
strategy. This book is, in part, a consequence of that frustration and
of that reinforcement.
As I write now, Afghanistan and Iraq are still playing out, arguably
two individual campaigns of a more complex political contest
where international terrorism, inspired by extremist Islam, is both
a symptom and a tactic. Elsewhere, contemporary developments
in North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Georgia and Gaza give pause for
thought. Layered over all this is an unprecedented economic crisis.
Within this crisis, we see signs that our Western order, perhaps
ultimately founded on affluence, may not be as secure as we had
assumed. And ultimately the long-term iceberg out there for our
Titanic of international politics looks to be global warming. The new
international context looks volatile and history may yet have more
mileage than Fukuyama predicted. All of this gives me reason to
be cautious about our strategic future. We would surely do well to
place a premium on our ability to create and, if necessary, execute
superior strategy.
I have defined politico-military strategy as a rational course of action
that uses state power to achieve a political object in the face of violent
opposition. And I have outlined some of the key features present in
superior strategy: a clear statement of political purpose, a coherent
organizing concept, a sense of seizing the initiative, a capacity to
bind key actors, and so on. But ultimately, when you seek out a piece
of real strategy, to see what it looks, feels and smells like, you find
something that is inherently organic in nature; something that lives.
It is, to use my earlier phrase, ‘the ideas, judgments and decisions of
men and women, set out in a coherent and a communicable form
 STRATEGY FOR ACTION  3
which, in broad terms, answers the critical question: “How are we
going to do this?”’
And when all is said and done, what seems to determine the quality
of your strategy making and strategic performance is the quality of
your people. Superior strategy making is all about clear strategic
thinking and decisive strategic leadership. The key is to have people
capable of both. In the medium-to-long term, the trick is thus to
identify such people and work ruthlessly to get them into the right
places. National leaders and politicians who fail to do this will have
to accept the blame for future politico-military failures.
I think we can also do better in the short term. Here the responsibility
for improvement lies in the hands of those who create and execute
strategy now, be they politicians, diplomats, officials or military
officers. The simple solution is self-education. Strategic leaders and
strategists must work to understand strategy making in theory and
they must work to apply rigour when strategy making in practice —
for those vested with the power to commit military forces to armed
conflict and war, this responsibility is not formal but is fundamental.
To help bring more understanding and rigour to our strategy making,
I have tried here to bring back into contemporary consciousness
and distil the thinking of distinguished theorists and practitioners
past. I have also set out complementary ideas based on corporate
theory, military doctrine, personal insight and arguments from
first principles. But, whether or not I have enhanced our body of
knowledge, strategy making will never be easy. And with matters of
high politics and war and with people’s lives, at stake it feels right
that it is not. But it also feels right to suggest that, when we choose
to use armed force, our thinking to underpin operations should be
as rigorous as humanly possible.
What then are the key lessons herein for strategy makers who wish
to add rigour? They emerge naturally from the main structure of our
4  STRATEGY FOR ACTION
analysis of strategy making in history, theory and practice.
Two lessons from the history of strategy sit above the individual
insights. First, we must recognize the cumulative influence that
historical ideas exert on our thinking today, often in ways more
subliminal than conscious. This leads us to the second lesson. Those
who are — or aspire to be — strategy makers must know and
understand this body of thought. Part II provides an introduction,
but it is not a substitute for further study, at least not for those of
conscience.
Two further lessons emerge from the theory of politico-military
strategy making. First, if we choose to use state power, including
armed force, to achieve a political object, then the rational way
for us to do so is to create and execute a superior strategy. We are
more likely to create superior strategy with a rigorous approach, for
example using the frameworks and tools of Part III — but noting
that these are aids, not substitutes, for hard thinking. This leads us to
the second lesson, which draws on the Strategic Estimate. If we want
to make superior strategy, we need to start our strategy making by
answering two key questions: ‘What is the political issue at contest?’
and, ‘What is the desired political object?’ In other words, before
we make a decision to fight, we must know what we will be fighting
about and we must know what we want to achieve by fighting.
Two final lessons emerge in Part IV from the practice of strategy
making. First, because of war’s irrational nature, no matter how
much rigour we use when we make strategy, events are unlikely to
unfold as we envisage: ‘No plan survives contact with the enemy.’
Because of this, the very way we think will need to vary in different
stages in our strategy making. A more prescriptive approach will
be better as we create the strategy. A more reflective approach will
be better as we execute the strategy. But these different ways of
thinking are complementary, not alternatives. Second, sad to say,
 STRATEGY FOR ACTION  5
but processes matter. The principles I have proposed for a politico-
military school of strategy making can help codify these processes.
Through the act of codification, states and institutions can start to
judge if their strategy making processes work and, if necessary, make
changes. Improved processes will be no substitute for good people
but, without improvement, the danger is that strategy making will
remain a disorganized, undisciplined intellectual activity.
The bottom line lesson, probably more important than all others
is that ultimately, it’s all about people. Poor strategy is the result of
errors of thinking. And people are the source of the thinking. So, if
an operation or war is going badly, we need to look critically not only
at our strategy but also at our senior people, political, diplomatic,
civil and military and decide whether the source of the problem is
broader than the strategy and, if necessary, be ruthless in making
changes.
It will be interesting, in time, to see how history judges the strategies,
the strategy making and the strategy makers of the modern campaigns
in Afghanistan and Iraq. How will results measure up against our
three tests of superior strategy: effectiveness, efficiency and durability
of result? I suspect that, in the sober light of historical analysis, pluses
and minuses will emerge. The school report of history may record
areas where we ‘could do better’. Certainly as a participant I would
feel honour bound to examine a ‘could do better’ charge. But this
book is not about salving a conscience. Rather it is an attempt to
explore the question: if superior strategy is key to success in the
great strategic endeavours of our time, how could we do better? As
such the recent past should be of interest to us not for apportioning
blame but rather as a source of insights to allow us to ‘do better’,
to create and execute more effective strategy in the future. And we
need to be prompt in learning these lessons because today’s strategic
leaders and strategists have work to do.
6  STRATEGY FOR ACTION
What we sometimes forget about strategy is that not only does it
matter — but very often it matters now. When we get it wrong,
we may fail to achieve critical political objectives. Precious and
sometimes irreplaceable resources may be squandered. And too
many will pay in blood. So I hope that scholars will forgive the flaws
and roughness herein. Some of the theory feels raw and must be
challenged. But for now my colleagues at the strategic level and their
agents in the tactical field, are the ones who need our help, those
people whose faces are marred by the dust and sweat and blood of
the strategic arena.
Some say making strategy is easy. I simply do not agree. Nor does
history. If it were easy, surely we would always be successful? Surely
the campaigns in the Balkans, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq would
have played out as their designers intended? Rather, as I said at the
outset, strategy making is problem-solving of the most complex order
because it deals with three of life’s great imponderables, people, war
and the future. But this does not mean that it is not susceptible to
hard thinking. Indeed the historical record seems to shows that hard
thinking by talented people is the cornerstone of strategic success.
But, to better focus our hard thinking, we will need to turn strategy
making into something other than Admiral Wylie’s ‘disorganized,
undisciplined activity’. And if the theory presented in this book helps
those creating and executing strategy do so in a more organized and
disciplined way, my work will be done.
S A
trategy
FOR ction
Using Force wisely in the 21st century

•  The first book by a senior British officer to

condemn British and US strategy-making in
Iraq and Afghanistan.

•  The author has a rapidly growing media

presence as a defence expert. He was recently
chosen by The Times newspaper to write
about the Government’s Strategic Defence
and Security Review and frequently appears
on national radio.

For more information:

Visit the Knightstone Publishing website:
www.knightstone-publishing.co.uk