The Strategy Bridge On J.C. Wylie’s “Military Strategy” with Nick Prime
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Mar 24, 2019 Nick Prime, PhD from King's College London and a Smith Richardson Fellow at Yale, discusses J.C. Wylie's influential book 'Military Strategy.' Prime unpacks Wylie's life, highlighting his pivotal contributions during WWII and his innovative concepts like 'centers of gravity.' The conversation dives into the nature of strategy, emphasizing adaptability over rigid definitions, and explores the relevance of Wylie's ideas in historical conflicts like Vietnam and Iraq. The intertwining of military philosophy and game theory also gets a thought-provoking examination.
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Wylie's Naval Career Highlights
- J.C. Wylie was a surface warfare officer mostly on destroyers in WWII serving in Atlantic and Pacific theaters.
- He played a key role in developing the Combat Information Center and instructing crews in its use.
Strategy as Art and Scientific Logic
- Wylie saw strategy more as an art than a science, opposing the era's mathematical Rand school approach.
- He applied scientific inquiry by developing a logical, comprehensible way to think through strategic problems.
Wyle’s Control-Centric Strategy Framework
- Wylie framed war as control over land, with the Navy securing seas and airpower controlling air to project power.
- Mao’s guerrilla warfare fits as cumulative support within this broader concept of control at the man-on-the-scene level.