Strategic Thinking through Historical Lens

How does strategy factor into the mindsets of presidents like Lincoln and Reagan on both a micro and macro level? What parts of grand strategy are at play when new countries enter NATO due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict?

John Lewis Gaddis is a professor of history at Yale University and also the author of several books on history and strategy. His latest books include The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past, On Grand Strategy, and The Cold War: A New History.

Greg and John discuss the concept of historical consciousness and its relation to strategic thinking. John goes over the teaching of strategy from a historical perspective, comparing it to evolutionary sciences and emphasizing the importance of common sense in strategic decisions. They also explore the use of metaphors in understanding history and strategy, the role of theory, and the necessity of adaptability in leadership. The conversation touches on various historical and contemporary examples to illustrate these ideas, including the strategic mindsets of figures like Lincoln and the implications of NATO expansion and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

Are we failing to preserve common sense in business schools?

36:38: This whole thing about preserving common sense at all altitudes, it seems to me, is something that's often missing in business schools and also in businesses, as we've seen in various cases. So, if reading some history can create that kind of attitude, then I think it's worthwhile. And the reason I think it can work gets back to the sports metaphor because, okay, maybe your business guy is not interested in reading history, but they're probably watching the March Madness or the Super Bowl, and they're probably talking about coaches and why are certain coaches better than other coaches and so on. And when they're doing that, they're talking about what I'm talking about, which is just drawing these lessons from the past, looking at the objective, operating within the rules but understanding that the application of the rules is going to be different in every situation, every moment of the game.

The optimal grand strategists know when to adapt and when to steer

27:518: I think the optimal grand strategist would be someone who is agile and situationally aware, but also retains a sense of direction.

Big ambitions fail without this one principle

01:57: It seems to me that there's a kind of logic of strategy, which transcends time and place and culture. And when you set it out, when you give examples of what you mean by that, it sounds like a platitude. So if, for example, I were to tell you that aspirations can be infinite but capabilities must be finite, you would say, I knew that all along. You would say that's a platitude. You can get strategy on that? Well, yes, I think you can build a strategy on that because history is full of people who lost track of that insight, who let their aspirations exceed their capabilities to the point of complete overstretch and self-defeat. [02:50] History is littered with people who forgot that aphorism. And the aphorism is just plain common sense.

Why naive questions matter more than you think

30:56: You have to realize naive questions are always good to ask. Because one of the problems with theorists is that they don't like naive questions because they're inconvenient. And they're much more interested in the purity of the theory, the rigorousness of the theory, if it's a laboratory sense of replicability, of the theory. But for somebody to come along and just ask a naive question, sometimes they're not prepared for that.

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

• George F. Kennan
• Napoleon
• Mark Antony
• Murder Board
• John Negroponte
• Leo Tolstoy
• Painting As a Pastime
• Presentism
• Isaiah Berlin
• Augustine of Hippo
• John C. Calhoun
• Vladimir Putin

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at Yale University
• Wikipedia Profile

His Work:

• Amazon Author Page
• On Grand Strategy
• The Cold War: A New History
• George F. Kennan: An American Life
• The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past
• Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy during the Cold War
• The United States and the End of the Cold War: Implications, Reconsiderations, Provocations
• The Age Of Terror: America And The World After September 11