Weapons Don't Make War: Policy, Strategy, and Military Technology
Weaponry does not equal strategy, argues Colin Gray, but the two are often confused, resulting in such linguistic errors as "strategic weapons". There may be an interactive relationship between policy, strategy and weaponry but, he contends, policy and strategy always take the front seat. Gray presents in "Weapons Don't Make War", a statement of the interrelations among policy-making, strategic planning and military technology. He argues that policy shapes strategy and gives meaning to weapons (not vice versa); that without clear policy guidance, the weapons-acquisitions process degenerates into political arm-wrestling; that military technology is only one of the many servants of defence policy (and by no means the most important); that the "arms-race" concept creates more confusion than clarity in studying international security; that the pursuit of arms control is seriously flawed by the belief that international conflict can be reduced to a problem of administration and management; that uncertainty is an essential condition of - not simply a problem for - defence policy; and that nuclear-age history confirms much of the accepted wisdom of modern strategic theory. Gray provides a detailed and multi-angled examination of just how policy and weapons influence - or fail to influence - each other. His arguments in this book are not time-bound; they hold regardless of the evolution of Eastern Europe, or of shifts in US policy and strategy. They aim to offer insight into "the basics" of national security not only in the post-Cold War era, but for all time.