Strategy: A History

by Lawrence Freedman

Machiavelli posed the question whether it be better to be loved than feared, or the reverse? The answer is that one would like to be both the one and the other: but because it is difficult to combine, it is far better to be feared than loved if you cannot be both. One can make this generalization about men: they are ungrateful, fickle, liars and deceivers, they shun danger and are greedy for profit; while you treat them well, they are yours. They would shed their blood for you, risk their property, their lives, their children, so long, as I said above, as danger is remote; but when you are in danger they turn against you.20

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are… The common people are always impressed by appearances and results.”

Princes, he warned, should avoid being hated and despised. He was not against the use of cruelty but thought it should only be employed when essential and then “once and for all” so that it was possible to turn to “the good of one’s subjects.”

Although Machiavellian has become synonymous with strategies based on deceit and manipulation, Machiavelli’s approach was actually far more balanced. He understood that the more the prince was perceived to rely on devious methods, the less likely it would be that they succeeded. The wise strategist would seek to develop a foundation for the exercise of power that went beyond false impressions and harsh punishments, but on real accomplishments and general respect.

The will is a beast of burden. If God mounts it, it wishes and goes as God wills; if Satan mounts it, it wishes and goes as Satan wills. Nor can it choose its rider … the riders contend for its possession. —Martin Luther

One striking illustration of his influence on discussions of political conduct is found in the writings of John Milton. In his epic poem Paradise Lost, published in 1667, Milton’s Satan is the embodiment of Machiavellianism.

At another level, it was—as Milton put it in his introduction—about how to “justify the ways of God to man,” particularly how to reconcile God’s omnipotence with man’s free will.

The concept of free will raises questions about God’s role in human affairs. If God does not intervene, then what is the purpose of prayer and repentance? If he does intervene, then why do bad things happen to good people?

The century began under the influence of a rigorous Calvinism preaching a God of such power that little could be done to thwart his will.

He “freely and unchangeably ordained whatsoever comes to pass,” echoed the Calvinists. Nothing could happen that reflected any will other than his. Humankind was just playing out a drama according to a script set down by God at the moment of creation, with no later need for improvisation. It was beyond the comprehension of mere men.

If all events were predetermined, and choice was merely an illusion, then the only response was fatalism. Any attempt to change the course of history was pointless.

Against the Calvinists, the followers of Jacobus Arminius argued that humans are able to make their own histories through the exercise of free will and that God’s strength was manifest in acts of love in response to humans’ obedience and repentance for their sins.

By the time of Paradise Lost, and after an early Calvinism, Milton was with the Arminians. His view was that “God made no absolute decrees about anything which he left in the power of men, for men have freedom of action.”

Milton has God explain that he made man, “just and right/ Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.”

Another way, common by Milton’s time, was to consider evil as a living, active force, deliberately trying to subvert God and tempt man. Evil acquired the personality of Satan, and the serpent in Genesis was therefore really Satan in disguise, although there was no basis in Genesis for this notion.

It was Satan who urged God to test Job, and when God agreed, Satan was sent to make Job’s life miserable. Nonetheless, Satan did this not as a rebel but as a member of the heavenly court. Eventually Satan, acting not merely as a harsh angel but also as one who had fallen, came to be blamed for all forms of division and misery.

Milton’s narrative gained force not only because of his mastery of language and sense of drama but also because of his intense commitment to the notion of free will.

Milton also distinguished between a challenge to the authority of a secular king—a good thing—and a challenge to the heavenly king—a bad thing.

As many commentators have observed, when Satan makes the case against blind obedience to God, Milton gives him the best lines. William Blake observed that Milton was “of the Devil’s party without knowing it.”

Milton’s portrayal of Satan as a leader matched a Machiavellian prince. Satan had the appropriate character—a blend of the courageous and cunning—was able to adapt to changing circumstances, had the confidence to take risks, and was aware of the respective merits of force and guile

Milton undermined God’s aura and left him appearing defensive and pedantic. As we have seen in Exodus, God could be deceptive and manipulative as part of his mysterious ways, but his approach in Paradise Lost was less subtle.

Satan adopted the republican claims of free choice, merit, and consent in describing his rule, while asserting that God depends on coercion and fraud.

In the beginning, according to Milton, Satan—then known as Lucifer—was one of the great angels among the heavenly host. The crisis came when God proclaimed his Son to be his equal. Satan was greatly affronted.

Satan urged the other angels to join him in rebellion: “Will ye submit your necks and choose to bend/ The supple knee?” He then provided a powerful case for political rights: Who can in reason then or right assume/ Monarchie over such as live by right/ His equals, if in power and splendor less/ In freedome equal? or can introduce/ Law and Edict on us, who without law/ Erre not, much less for this to be our Lord,/And look for adoration to th’ abuse/ Of those Imperial Titles which assert/ Our being ordain’d to govern, not to serve?10

God watched this chaos and at last intervened on the third day. Why did he let it continue?

For the Son, “to obey is happiness entire.” Satan’s forces also regrouped, “hope conceiving from despair.” They made themselves ready for a battle they knew must be final. The Son told his forces to stand aside for this was his battle: “Against me is all their rage.”12

Leaving aside the odd ideas of a civil war in heaven, the use of artillery (somehow mountains as projectiles are more fitting), or even the earthly tendency to stop fighting for the night, there was an added twist that resulted from the immortality of the angels on both sides. No wound was ever fatal, although they did cause pain. Despite his admiration for martial virtues, Milton was also demonstrating that some matters could never be truly solved by battle.

Despite being expelled from heaven, Satan was undaunted. He remained a dedicated opponent of “the tyranny of Heav’n.” “Here at last,” he proclaimed from hell, “We shall be free. [ … ] Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven!”

Moloch was the first to step forward, recommending “open war.”

He could not, he admitted, promise victory, but at least a form of revenge.

Compared with Moloch’s unsubtle aggression, Belial offered more realism, but the effect was defeatist: “ignoble ease and peaceful sloth.”

Belial’s alternative was therefore to wait until God relented.

Mammon ridiculed both of the previous options.

So he urged the fallen angels “to found this nether empire, which might rise/ By policy and long process of time/ In emulation opposite to heav’n.”

But like any clever chairman, Satan had worked out his preferred outcome before the debate had begun.

As a strategist Satan had identified one possible explanation for the defeat in heaven. It was simply a lack of numbers. There were twice as many loyal angels as rebels.

In the form of a serpent, which Milton compared to the Trojan Horse, Satan tempted Eve to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.

“No grounds of enmity between us known,/ Why he should mean me ill or seek to harm.”

Milton’s political project from the start was to challenge this presumption and the associated claim that disobedience to a king was tantamount to disobedience to God. Such a presumption was idolatrous. Milton’s hell was a developing monarchy “with royalist politics, perverted language, perverse rhetoric, political manipulation, and demagoguery.”

The real puzzle is why Satan ever believed he could succeed. The problem was not predestination but God’s omnipotence and omniscience. Not only did God have superior power, but he could not be tricked either.

Milton’s Satan fell short in key respects. In confrontation with God he made elementary mistakes and lacked the prudence Machiavelli advised when dealing with a stronger power. Machiavelli’s prince was “above all a pragmatist.” Machiavelli did not admire “those who oppose insurmountable odds or persist in lost causes.”

A comparable word is wiles, which the philosopher Hobbes employed as an alternative “to master the persons of all men he can.”

Stratagems, as described by Frontinus, involved deceit, surprise, contrivance, obfuscation, and general trickery.

The word plot also acquired negative connotations during the seventeenth century.

The fine distinction between the two was found in Dr. Johnson’s 1755 dictionary. A plan was a “scheme,” while a plot was also a “scheme” but a “conspiracy, stratagem, contrivance” as well.

Martin van Creveld has asked whether strategy existed before 1800.1 From the perspective of this book, of course, it existed from the moment primates formed social groupings.

With Napoleon, wars became means by which one state could challenge the very existence of another. No longer were they an elaborate form of bargaining.

Military maneuvers were no longer ritualistic—their impact reinforced by the occasional battle—but preludes to great confrontations that could see whole armies effectively eliminated and states subjugated.

This section opens with the introduction of the modern concept of strategy and then describes the views of its two key exponents, Baron H...

The focus was on battle and the possibility of inflicting such a defeat that the enemy would be left in a politically hopeless position.