This article offers a re-balanced definition of strategy that uses classical metaphysics to ground the term in an implementable framework. In leaving the methods for generating prudent ideas for strategy open, the Department of Defense definition has perhaps invited an over-reliance on postmodern ideology that neglects objective concepts and objective reasoning. Postmodern thought emphasizes subjectivity in creating conditions for creativity to flourish. Classical metaphysics, on the other hand, emphasizes objective truths about mankind and reality. In suggesting appropriate boundaries using classical metaphysics, the proposed definition preserves the creative flexibility demanded in the emerging operational environment and championed by postmodern thought that rightly—if perhaps inordinately—impacts the current discussion on military strategy.
Military Command as Moral Prudence: Examples from History and Literature
Thomas Aquinas devotes a small section of his magnum opus, the Summa Theologica, to the question of whether military command is a form of moral prudence, concluding it is. Military command may resemble art, and it requires fortitude, but the exercise of command calls for prudence, which is unique among the Aristotelian virtues as cataloged by Aquinas in that it is both moral and intellectual. For the soldier, moral prudence involves a balancing act of ends and means, a golden mean of victory and its cost.