Difference Between Strategic Theory And Strategic Studies

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All throughout mankind, war has been seen as inevitable: war is readily natural to human beings’, and it inclination is naturally a habituated mechanism that humans being possess. Even though the act of war has remained the same, so has strategic studies, and the logic behind it. The foundation of strategic studies is to understand the basis of war, to allow the person to be analytical and to be thorough enough to be strategically prepared. The fascination of war is beyond our reach, due to, our obsession on how to be victorious. Strategic studies is a human interaction and because the conduct of war has not changed, strategist have embarked this study to understand human perspectives, Baylis, John, James J. Wirtz, and Colin S. Gray notes …show more content…

With this being said, it’s important to understand the difference between strategic theory and strategic studies. Thomas G. Mahnken talks about strategic studies in an article called Strategic Theory, in this article he discusses what strategic theory is, and how it provides information on how “strategy is ultimately about how to win wars.” Strategy is using the means of war to gain political advantage, to use the military to fulfil the ends of a policy. With the creation of nuclear weapons Thomas G. Mahnken explains that “strategic theory expanded to include peacetime military competition, such as the four-decade cold war between the United States and Soviet Union.” The cold war between both countries proved what the political context was: both nations knew what was being at stake and had an understanding of what had to be done. After the cold war, strategic theory took a different route and it emerged out as strategic studies in retrospect after the cold war. Strategic studies is completely different from strategic theory and Columba Peoples assess in their article, Strategic Studies and its Critic, that strategic studies offers the “legitimation of strategic violence for the purpose of maintaining a particular vision of world order, and this vision reflects the geographical-political context.” Strategic studies is the discipline in which it attempts to construct the world through a “western set of values and geopolitical vision” Unlike strategic theory, strategic studies prefers to have a view of the world than to actually start a war, but if the world is not following the western values then violence will be asserted in order to fulfill the political

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