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Strategy, the state and the Weberian legacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Philip K. Lawrence
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Extract

This article seeks to take further some themes that were touched on in an exchange of views that the author had with Gerald Segal in the Review in 1985. It aims to widen the scope of the theoretical discussion, to stipulate a more specific target for criticism and to clarify why the issues under scrutiny are so important.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , October 1987 , pp. 295 - 310
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1987

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References

1. See my ‘strategic Studies and Political Theory: A Critical Assessment’, Review of International Studies, 11 (1985), pp. 105–21. G. Segal, ‘Lawrence on Strategic Studies’, Review of International Studies, 11 (1985), pp. 236–9, and my ‘Reply’, pp. 242–5.

2. See, for example, the journal Ethics, 95 (April 1985). Every paper is concerned with precisely this question and the issue is an example of the current spate of publications related to strategy and ethics.

3. MccGwire, Michael, ‘The Dilemmas and Delusions of Deterrence’, in Prins, G. (ed.), The Choice: Nuclear Weapons Versus Security(London, 1984), pp. 81–82.Google Scholar

4. Bernstein, R. J., The Restructuring of Social and Political Theory (London, 1979), p. 45.Google Scholar

5. Weber, Max, The Methodology of the Social Sciences (New York, 1949), p. 5.Google Scholar

6. For an archetypical statement of conceptual pragmatism see Lewis, C. I., Mind and the World Order (New York, 1956).Google Scholar

7. Quoted in Booth, K., ‘The Evolution of Strategic Thinking’, in Baylis, J., et al, Contemporary Strategy (London, 1976), p. 35.Google Scholar

8. George Kennan quoted in, G. Prins (ed.), Defended to Death(Harmondsworth, 1985), p. 95.

9. These figures are from Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth (London, 1982), p. 3.Google Scholar

10. Tucker, R. W., ‘Morality and Deterrence’, Ethics, 95 (04 1985), pp. 461–78, 461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Goodin, Robert E., ‘Nuclear Disarmament as a Moral Certainty’, Ethics, 95 (04 1985), pp. 641–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. Tucker, op. cit., p. 467.

13. See. Bracken, P., Command and Control of Nuclear Forces (New Haven, 1983), p. 161.Google Scholar

14. Ibid., p. 161.

15. See Ibid., p. 88.

16. MccGwire, op. cit., p. 95.

17. Freedman, L., The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (London, 1981), p. 399.Google Scholar

18. J. Garnett, ‘strategic Studies and its assumptions’, in Baylis, op. cit., p. 13.

19. For an accurate statement about real strategic policy see Aaron L. Friedberg, ‘A History of the US Strategic Doctrine—1945–1980’, in Permlutter, A. and Gooch, J. (eds.), Strategy and the Social Sciences (London, 1981)Google Scholar, especially pp. 38–40.

20. Kaplan, Fred, The Wizzards of Armageddon (New York, 1983), p. 170.Google Scholar

21. Brodie, B., Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton, 1959), p. 213.Google Scholar

22. Some strategists, of course, are notable critics of deterrence. See Adam Roberts, ‘The Critique of Nuclear Deterrence’, in Defence and Consensus: The Domestic Aspects of Western SecurityPart II Adelphi Papers No 183 (Summer 1983), pp. 2–18. Also Bull, Hedley, ‘Future Conditions of Strategic Deterrence’, in Bertram, Christoph (ed.), The Future of Strategic Deterrence (London, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. Booth, K., ‘Unilateralism: A Clausewitzian Reform’, in Blake, N. and Pole, K. (eds.) Dangers of Deterrence (London, 1983), p. 54.Google Scholar

24. In fact there is a value judgement here, but it is one which assumes that man prefers health to disease. In other words it is non-controversial.

25. Quoted in Sheehan, M., The Arms Race (Oxford, 1983), p. 35.Google Scholar

26. Laurence Martin, ‘The Future of Strategic Studies’, in Permlutter and Gooch, op. cit., p. 92.

27. See Sheehan, op. cit., p. 36.

28. Quoted in Fisher, D., Morality and the Bomb (London, 1985), p. 89.Google Scholar

29. See Sheehan, op. cit., p. 35.

30. Howard, M., ‘On Fighting a Nuclear War’, in The Causes of Wars (London, 1984), p. 147.Google Scholar

31. Segal, op. cit., pp. 236–9.

32. See Freedman, op. cit., pp. 68–70.

33. Herken, Gregg, Counsels of War (New York, 1985), p. 306.Google Scholar

34. Cited in Freedman, op. cit., p. 143.

35. Ibid., p. 185.

36. Kaplan, op. cit., p. 389.

37. See, for example, G. Prins, Defended to Death, pp. 146–9.

38. For a penetrating account of Project Camelot see Nisbet, R., ‘Project Camelot and the Science of Man’, in Tradition and Revolt (New York, 1970).Google Scholar

39. Herken, op. cit., p. 119.

40. Cited in Booth, Ken, ‘Realism as Ideology’, Times Higher Education Supplement, 24 01 1986, P-19.Google Scholar

41. I am indebted to Steve Smith of the University of East Anglia for his perceptive comments concerning this phenomenon.

42. See Friedberg, op. cit., pp. 37–41.

43. Ibid., p. 39.

44. See Blair, B., Strategic Command and Control (Washington, 1985), p. 29.Google Scholar

45. Weber, op. cit., p. 4.