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The History of Strategic Thinking

Module description

This module will explore the multifaceted aspects of ‘strategic thinking’ in a historical and security-focused context. It will take a chronological approach, utilizing primary sources each week to introduce you to some of the main works in traditional strategic thinking, and to allow you to examine critical themes and developments through engagement with sources and the secondary literature. You will critically analyze the work of key authors in the field, assessing the context in which they wrote and the utility of their thinking.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module will introduce you to a range of definitions, themes, and writers in the broad area of ‘strategic thinking’. You will explore the role of strategy, as defined in the sources, and its relationship with other aspects of human activity, mainly through the lens of violence and conflict, but also relating to politics, society, and economics. You will learn about the development of key themes, and how successive generations of thinkers utilised ‘history’ to help them understand the strategic challenges of their own times. By doing so, you will explore a range of perspectives and different voices, as well as the richness of the available source material. By the end of the module you will have developed a sense of strategic thinking as a coherent yet complex intellectual subject. 

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Understand and assess the character and nature of strategic thinking, identifying key themes and topics
• 2. Work critically with a range of written and visual sources relating to key works of strategy in a security context (mainly written but also visual)

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Identify the benefits and problems of using historical sources, e.g. utility, limitations, etc., and compare the validity of different types of sources
• 4. Present historical arguments and answer questions orally and in writing

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Conduct independent study and group work, including the presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning
• 6. Digest, select, and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
• 7. Write to a tight word-limit

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• Strategic thinking in Antiquity
• Dark Age and Medieval strategic thinking
• A renaissance for strategy?
• The enlightenment and the Clausewitzian paradigm
• Annihilation, nationalism and industrialised war
• New Domains for strategy: Sea and Air
• Strategic thinking in Total Wars
• Strategy without war: the nuclear revolution?
• Strategy and Cyber, Space and Insurgency

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Accessible introductions to the topic:

• John Baylis, James J. Wirtz, Jeannie L. Johnson (eds), Strategy in the contemporary world (Oxford University Press, 2022)
• Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: A History (Oxford University Press, 2015)
• Beatrice Heuser, The Evolution of Strategy: Thinking War from Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge University Press, 2010)

Primary sources

• Thomas Mahnken and Joseph A. Maiolo (eds), Strategic studies: a reader (London, 2014)

Secondary reading

• Carl von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton University Press, 2008)
• Gordon A. Craig, Peter Paret, Felix Gilbert (eds), Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton University Press, 2010)
• Coiln S. Gray, Theory of Strategy (Oxford University Press, 2018)
• William Murray and R.H. Sinnreich (eds.) Successful Strategies: Triumphing in War and Peace from Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge University Press, 2014)
• John Andreas Olsen, and Colin S. Gray, The Practice of Strategy: From Alexander the Great to the Present (Oxford University Press, 2011)
• Hew Strachan, The Direction of War: Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2013)

Key words search

Strategy, security, strategic thinking, conflict, war