If history is a guide, some security communities will always have interests that they
believe must be protected by force.
- In their natures and dynamics, war, warfare and strategy have not changed over
the course of two centuries. That is why the writings of Sun-tzu from the China of
400 BCand those of Carl von Clausewitz from the 1820s remain relevant to, indeed
essential for, strategic education today. With the partial exception of the geo-
graphical, the details of the contexts specified in Chapter 1 (political, socio-cultural,
economic, technological, military-strategic, geographical and historical) have altered
beyond recognition over the course of two centuries. But it is only the detail that has
changed. The nature of strategic challenges has not evolved. The task of the strategist
is the same today as it was in 1800. It is to employ force, or the threat of force,
for policy ends. Despite technological advances beyond counting, strategy is as
difficult an undertaking today as ever it was in the past (Gray, 1999: 63–8). Also,
Chapter 1 identified themes that run through the text. Those themes were as follows:
the dialogue between continuity and discontinuity; the complex relations between
war and peace, and peace and war; the often tense relations between soldiers and
politicians; and the nexus between war and society. With the passage of time, those
themes have lost none of their relevance to the course of strategic history.
- Because so many sources of continuity effectively are permanent, one can predict
with confidence, though not with satisfaction, that history’s strategic dimension is
not in the process of fading away. Independent security communities, each with their
Thucydidean motives of fear, honour and interest, are, in the last resort, condemned
to fend for themselves in what can be a rough and dangerous world. The persistence
of this core condition suggests that humankind’s strategic future is likely to resemble
its past in important respects. The details will be different, but the grand narrative
most probably will be painfully familiar.
Conclusion 281
