by

VAdm (retd.) Vijay Shankar 

Download full article here: Shankar, Strategic Posture in the Eastern Ocean

Keywords: India Maritime Strategy, Strategic Approach, Eastern Ocean,  China Comprehensive National Power, ASEAN, Look East Policy

Excerpts:

[…]

It was Clausewitz who first noted an area of darkness when it came to characterizing the complex relationship between national strategy and the military resources that were needed to muscle and enable that strategy. He perceived this region of obscurity as one caused by a lack of an understanding of the nature of power and the need to sculpt it in a manner that it promoted national strategy. Specifically within the framework of the military as a tool he identified this as a failure to distinguish between the maintenance of armed forces and their use in pursuit of larger objectives.[i] In Book II of Clausewitz’s On War, while discussing ‘The Theory of War,’ he notes,

“Even if we break down war into its various activities, we will find that the difficulties are not uniform throughout. The more physical the activity, the less the difficulties will be. The more the activity becomes intellectual and turns into motives which exercise a determining influence on the commander’s will, the more the difficulties will increase. Thus it is easier to use theory to organize, plan and conduct an engagement than it is to use it in determining the engagement’s purpose.”[ii]

This quandary was not unique to Clausewitz’s period as the dilemma continues to contemporary times when the momentum that propels the development of armed forces builds logic of growth that defies purpose and is often self fulfilling.

The absence of a cogent theory, which integrates the promotion, nurturing and maintenance of force with a convincing contract for use, is one of the first imperatives that the State must seek to reconcile. From this resolution emerges the concept of ‘Strategic Poise.’