Military Review English Edition July-August 2014 | Page 52

U.S. Army soldiers discuss
the plan of movement for
a patrol through Petawa
Village, Parwan Province,
Afghanistan, 13 June 2014.
(U.S. Army photo by Cpl. George Huley)

War as Political Work
Using Social Science for
Strategic Success
Matthew J. Schmidt, Ph.D.
Dr. Matthew J. Schmidt is an assistant professor of national security and political science at the University of New
Haven. Previously he taught at the School of Advanced Military Studies. He holds a Ph.D. in government from
Georgetown University. In 2012, Fast Company Magazine placed him 22nd on its list of the 100 most creative people in
business, for his work bridging public- and private-sector approaches to strategic thinking and planning.
This article is based on a report originally written for
the Army Research Institute’s 2011 Strategic Thinking
Initiative Conference.

W

ar is not just about defeating the enemy.
War is about creating social and political
order when past systems of order have
disintegrated or been broken down intentionally by the
use of military force. Good military strategy demands
that the role of enemy forces be considered within the
context of the larger social and political order, and its
failure. Sound operational planning depends on this.
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Defeating an enemy force is not the strategic aim
of any war. The strategic aim should be to recreate
a stable order that can be sustained without major
ongoing military participation from the battlefield
victor. Defeating enemies militarily is merely the prerequisite to strategic victory, not its conclusion. Real
war, of course, is complicated because the end of a war
is not the end of the strategic task. The way in which
battlefield “victories” are achieved can quickly doom
the probabilities for strategic success. Vietnam and
Iraq are only two examples of this; military history is
littered with others.
July-August 2014  MILITARY REVIEW