Defence Planning as Strategic Fact by Henrik Breitenbauch André Ken Jakobsson

Author:Henrik Breitenbauch, André Ken Jakobsson [Henrik Breitenbauch, André Ken Jakobsson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science, International, International Security, History, Military, Strategy
ISBN: 9781000732177
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2020-06-04T04:00:00+00:00

Research design and analytical tool

Intentionally, I approach the theory from the perspective of identifying conditions, rather than to try to treat them as separate independent variables. It is too early and it would require a different research design, if the ambition were to test these factors in order to identify the explanatory power of each of them. Most importantly, it would require a comparative design. However, in this article, I only expand on one case study in order to develop the causal mechanisms. Below I will develop the analytical tool and briefly elaborate on a few methodological issues.

First, as discussed above the four conditions considered in this article are (1) separation of the power to wage war from the power to create, fund and organize military capabilities, (2) a separation of the processes for long-term planning, military acquisition, and the formulation of political ends, (3) a representation of future war as a narrowly understood military undertaking, and (4) a representation of the future as deterministic and without agency. All of these conditions, as seen in Table 1, can be interpreted at least in binary terms, i. e. there are at least two possible outcomes for each of the conditions.

Second, the distribution of power in the decision-making process will be ascertained by an analysis of the formal decision-making procedures. This approach has its weakness considering that it cannot capture informal decision-making processes or the impact of political culture. The approach, however, is not without merits since the formal rules still set the stage for the decision-making.

Third, the representation of future war is ascertained through contents analysis of the key strategic futures documents such as DoD:s Quadrennial Defense Review, Joint Chiefs’ Joint Visions as well as the National Intelligence Council’s so-called Global Trends. Although there are far more documents that are important in the US defense planning process, these documents, arguably, cover key issues relating to how US strategic elites conceive the future of war. An in-depth reading of these documents thus reveals how the “future” is understood and how this idea shapes the understanding of future war. The Quadrennial Defense Review as Tama (2018) outlines in great detail, was issued by the DoD every four years during the Bush and Obama presidencies aiming to present to the Congress, the administration’s overall strategy and explain how political ends were met with certain demands of force structure and acquisition plans. As such, the document series was important for the short-term defense planning process, although it should be noted that some long-term modernization and acquisition programs ran almost independently of the QDR since development of significant platforms such as main battle tanks, destroyers or fighters takes longer than four year cycles. Even if there is also planning in the different services, the Joint Chiefs’ documents on future war, the so-called Joint Vision is an authoritative source for how US armed forces understand and represent future war. The Joint Vision considers the future of war in the 10–20 year future, which means that it both

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