Summary of M. Taylor Fravel's Active Defense

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The most recent war involving a great power or its clients is a good example of how the conduct of warfare has changed in the international system, which should create a strong incentive for states to adopt new military strategies if they find a gap between their current capabilities and the expected requirements of future wars.
#2 National military strategy is the set of ideas a military organization has for fighting future wars. It is part of but distinct from a state’s grand strategy. National military strategy explains or outlines how the armed forces will be used to achieve military objectives that advance the state’s political goals.
#3 Military strategy is associated with the concept of doctrine. Doctrine is the principles of strategic-level activities by a military or a state. However, many modern militaries use doctrine to refer to the principles or rules that govern any type of activity, at any level, that a military organization conducts.
#4 Change in military strategy is closely associated with the concept of innovation. However, change is different in one important respect. While many scholars use innovation as another word for change, others define innovation in military organizations as a change that is unprecedented or revolutionary, a significant departure from past practice, and a change that has been successfully institutionalized or implemented within a military organization.

Sujets

• Politique
• China
• Asia
• History
• Histoire

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 11 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822505360
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on M. Taylor Fravel's Active Defense
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The most recent war involving a great power or its clients is a good example of how the conduct of warfare has changed in the international system, which should create a strong incentive for states to adopt new military strategies if they find a gap between their current capabilities and the expected requirements of future wars.

#2

National military strategy is the set of ideas a military organization has for fighting future wars. It is part of but distinct from a state’s grand strategy. National military strategy explains or outlines how the armed forces will be used to achieve military objectives that advance the state’s political goals.

#3

Military strategy is associated with the concept of doctrine. Doctrine is the principles of strategic-level activities by a military or a state. However, many modern militaries use doctrine to refer to the principles or rules that govern any type of activity, at any level, that a military organization conducts.

#4

Change in military strategy is closely associated with the concept of innovation. However, change is different in one important respect. While many scholars use innovation as another word for change, others define innovation in military organizations as a change that is unprecedented or revolutionary, a significant departure from past practice, and a change that has been successfully institutionalized or implemented within a military organization.

#5

The first motivation for change in military strategy is an immediate external security threat. If a state’s current military strategy is not suited to meet the threat, it will seek to change it. The effects of immediate threats apply to all states and are not limited by many scope conditions.

#6

A fourth source of change is the creation of new missions and objectives for the military by the state. This can be described as environmental because it occurs independently of any military strategy. New missions may arise for a variety of reasons, such as the acquisition of new interests abroad to be defended, changes in the security needs of an ally, or shifts in a state’s political goals for the use of force.

#7

The most common reason states change their military strategies is to address a gap between how they plan to wage war and the demands of future warfare. This can be a motivation for change, but it is not the only one. Other people’s wars may demonstrate the importance or utility of existing practices.

#8

The first internal motive for change is a military’s organizational bias or preference for offensive operations that increase its autonomy, prestige, or resources. This motive draws heavily on organization theory. However, it can only have an effect on strategy when civilian control is weak or when a benign external environment allows organizational biases to influence strategy.

#9

The second component of any explanation of strategic change is the mechanism by which change occurs, which shapes how a new military strategy is formulated and adopted. In socialist states like China, with party-armies and not national ones, the structure of civil-military relations empowers senior military officers to initiate changes in strategy under certain conditions.

#10

The two most common mechanisms of military change are civilian intervention and military autonomy. Civilian intervention is most commonly associated with high threat environments or states with revisionist goals, while military autonomy is most commonly associated with low threat environments or states with democratic goals.

#11

The second scope condition is the level of organizational change that you are attempting to explain. Civilian intervention is more likely to occur as you move from the level of tactics and operations to the level of strategy, as information asymmetries decrease, and as formal channels of civilian influence over the armed forces grow.

#12

The structure of civil-military relations in a given society creates opportunities for either civilian or military elites to intiate and lead the process of strategic change.

#13

In socialist states, the more appropriate subject of study is not civil-military relations, but party-military relations. The party hegemony requires the subordination of all nonparty institutions, including the military, to the party and not to the state.

#14

In socialist states, the military is an administrative arm of the party, and not something separate from and competing with it. Because the military leaders are also party members, they will formulate new strategies that are consistent with the party’s broader political goals and priorities.

#15

The timing and process of strategic change in socialist states depends on the unity of the party, which is the condition that allows substantial delegation of military affairs to senior military officers. Party unity implies that the top party leaders agree on basic policy questions and the structure of power within the party.

#16

The military may be required to perform nonmilitary tasks related to governance or law and order if political disunity produces domestic instability. The military may also become the focus of political contestation at the highest levels of the party.

#17

The onset of an external threat might enhance party unity in a democracy, but it is unlikely to compel leaders to resolve the differences that create disunity. In the case of China, growing tensions with the Soviet Union after 1969 did little to unify the party leadership that had been divided during the Cultural Revolution.

#18

Emulation is the process of copying another state’s military strategy, and it is a potential mechanism for change. However, it has several limitations. First, it assumes that states will imitate leading practices, which may not be the case. Second, it does not explain how a state intends to implement the modern system on the battlefield.

#19

The closely related literature on the diffusion of military innovations seeks to understand when and how the processes of emulation and imitation occur. While similar to Waltz’s argument about emulation, this work examines the variation in the adoption of military innovations, especially technological innovations, as part of a broader effort to understand how the spread of military technology may influence the distribution of power in the system.

#20

China’s military strategy is shaped by the party’s desire to maintain unity, and the military’s desire to respond to a shift in the conduct of warfare. If China faces a shift in the conduct of warfare, and the party is unified, then senior military officers will push for a major change in military strategy.

#21

The book uses two methods of inference. First, each of the three major changes in China’s military strategy is compared with the minor changes in strategy and periods of no change in strategy to determine which motivations and mechanisms best explain the major changes.

#22

China has a rich history of changing its military strategy. The country has experienced several periods of intense threats to its security, as well as periods of sustained threats.

#23

The Chinese military’s strategic guidelines are the basis for China’s national military strategy. They are closely linked with the concept of strategy, and they define military strategy as the principles and plans for preparing for and guiding the overall situation of war.

#24

China’s strategic guidelines have been drafted and adopted by the CMC. The CMC is not part of the PLA, but instead is a party committee under the Central Committee of the CCP that guides all aspects of military affairs. The PLA has no tradition of published doctrine, so the content of the speech introducing the new strategic guideline is transmitted to lower-ranking units through a process of chuanda wenjian.

#25

China’s strategic guidelines are not announced publicly, and they are developed when the PLA’s leadership concludes that a change in strategy is necessary. They are not issued according to a timetable, but when the PLA’s leadership feels that a change is needed.

#26

There are four indicators that can be used to determine whether a change in a state’s national military strategy is major or not. The first is the content of the new doctrine, which must represent a departure from existing doctrine. The second is whether the new doctrine is disseminated to all the relevant units.

#27

Within any military organization, training is a costly and complex activity. How a military trains its troops and how often offers another window into major change in military strategy.

#28

The key features of a conflict that might create a motivation for a state to change its military strategy are the way in which military operations are conducted, such as how new equipment is used, how existing equipment is employed in new ways, and how operations are executed.

#29

There have been ten interstate wars involving a great power or its client using the great power’s equipment and doctrine. These wars are the 1950–53 Korean War, the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the 1980–88 Iran-Iraq War, the 1982 Lebanon War, the 1982 Falklands War, and the 2003 Iraq War.

#30

Unity and stability within a communist party refers to acceptance and support of the party’s policies by its leaders as well as consensus among the top leaders about the distribution of power within the party.

#31

The final measure of party unity is agreement over the party’s core policies and guidelines. Th