Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (see SALT)
Strategy
Strategy, as opposed to tactics, involves longer-term, and farther-reaching
preparations and planning. Primarily strategy and tactics are military terms,
though they can be and are applied in any conflict situation. Thus it is possible
to contrast politicians who are concerned only with electoral tactics (how best
to win the imminent general election), with those who have a political strategy
(for example, how to restructure the economy).
In contemporary defence terminology it is probably best to think of strategy
as inherently political, and tactics as the purely technical decisions of the
military about how best to achieve the strategic goals set by their political
superiors. Thus vital questions on the nature ofNATO’soverall policy for the
use of nuclear weapons, or whether Britain should retain a military capacity to
intervene in conflicts outside Europe, are strategic questions. What exact forces
to deploy, armed with what, and with which precise orders, are tactics.
In terms of nuclear warfare there is a slightly different distinction. Strategic
nuclear forces consist of major intercontinental missile systems intended to
massively destroy the homeland of the enemy. Tactical weapons (sometimes
called ‘battlefield’ or short-range nuclear weapons) are intended for use against
enemy military formations, and have much lower yield warheads. NATO
systematically refused to promise never to be the first to use tactical nuclear
weapons, but always allowed it to be thought that it would only use strategic
missile forces in defence against a Sovietfirst strike. Strategy has increasingly
taken on an alternate meaning with no direct reference to conflict, as in
industrial strategy or the idea of strategic planning, to mean very little more
than long-term and broadly-cast plans and analysis. Thus the United Kingdom,
for example, has a something known as the ‘Strategic Rail Authority’ to guide
long-term transportation policy, and every public institution is urged to carry
out ‘strategic reviews’.
Stratification
Stratification, usually more fully ‘social’ stratification, refers to the way in
which a social system is hierarchically ordered. The most common and obvious
form of stratification is aclasssystem, but race, and, at times, religion or even
language, can be forms of stratification. Because political parties tend to form
around layers in a stratification system, the basics of social stratification have
much to do with the nature of politics and partisanship in a society. Stratifica-
tion involves more than just socialcleavages: a society divided between
Protestants and Catholics could not be said to be stratified on religious terms
Stratification