How can we encourage genuine strategic thinking in democratic countries?
How can we encourage genuine strategic thinking in democratic countries?
The Big Ask | No. 12.2024
The world has entered an increasingly fraught era of geopolitical and geoeconomic competition, compounded by climate change, technological transformation and the shift of economic power to Asia. To rise to the challenges of the 21st century, countries should engage in joined-up and long-term strategic thinking. However, there is limited appetite among the world’s free and open countries to do so, with elected leaders primarily focusing on their respective election cycles. As a result, democratic countries are ceding the advantage to their authoritarian competitors. So, in this week’s Big Ask, we asked six experts: How can we encourage genuine strategic thinking in democratic countries?
Neil Brown
Distinguished Fellow, Council on Geostrategy
The ability of democracies to do strategic thinking, as opposed to ‘strategies’, which are anything but strategic, varies greatly. Open societies are vital, but leave many electorates uninformed and easily misinformed. This allows governments to stay sub-strategic and short-termist; electoral cycles amplify it. Real limitations on national strategic ambitions (location, climate, natural resources, demographics, macroeconomics), are exacerbated by government behaviour. Too often, strategic thinking is undermined by how politicians and officials are informed and incentivised. The outcome is obvious when Treasury orthodoxy prioritises in year cost over value and No.11 has the final say on geopolitical risk.
In international relations, successive governments in the United Kingdom (UK) and ‘Old Europe’ were slow to see the strategic changes underway. A generation of politicians and advisers accustomed to ‘small wars’ and the spoils of hyper-globalisation became convinced of the inevitability of peace and growth and forgot the long-term thinking and investment needed to secure each; they still are.
Given the geopolitical outlook (Russia, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Iran and North Korea increasingly connected, militarily, diplomatically and economically), this threat is also ‘fundamental’, ‘systemic’, ‘pervasive’, and ‘accelerating towards’ us; it is no less strategic than climate and nature (sorry, Foreign Secretary).
Many UK allies, thinking strategically, warned of Putin’s intent but could not shift thinking much before Russia invaded Ukraine; warnings about the PRC are being ignored. The retort that ‘there are no votes in defence’ is not only strategically blind but no excuse; it is an abrogation of duty to inform and lead the public. It highlights an urgent need to inform those who say it, and those who advise them.
Strategic thinking is urgently needed to produce: a UK military optimised for ongoing global challenges; a defence pillar of U.K. industrial and growth strategy (leveraging AUKUS and GCAP); incentive for private money waiting to see long-term government commitment; commitment from allies who will respond to British leadership as they did over Ukraine in 2022 as opposed to 2024. What now, Strategic Defence Review?
Director, Strategy, Statecraft, and Technology (Changing Character of War) Centre, University of Oxford
In the 1890s, French cartoonists assumed that, in the 21st century, every family would own a submarine and the lucky few a space rocket. Astronautes were depicted in the latest Parisian fashion of course.
Long-term forecasts do not have a good reputation, largely because of the tendency to focus on the wrong criteria. Imagining new technologies or the ability to bend space-time can be found in impressive movies such as Interstellar, but is of little value to political leaders.
The solution is to focus on measurable elements such as demographic change, from which we derive the number of working age people and the relative costs to society. The distribution of natural resources and supply chains are far more useful than trying to guess against less reliable variables, such as future economic performance. Computer modelling can assist in some recurrent themes too, such as political stability, social cohesion, or baseline economic strengths.
Above all, net assessments can provide useful insights for democratic leaders: the comparative diagnosis of strengths and weaknesses over time, relative to others, provides a sense of whether one’s strategic situation is improving or deteriorating. From this, clear decisions can be made to address them and make meaningful improvements to national defence, economic growth, and technological opportunities.
Philippa Jones
Founding Partner and Managing Editor, China Policy.
One-party states, despite oft-heard claims, have no exclusive grasp of strategic thinking. Democracies have ample room to improve governance and economic strategies at home. Overreacting to the ‘rise of China’ without raising one’s own game may be counterproductive.
Without stable political coalitions capable of joint initiatives – advancing technology, industrial policy, building infrastructure, etc – democracies suffer self-capture in short-term cycles, unable to play any other game.
Framing a ‘China threat’ is inevitable in security scenarios. It effectively mobilises political capital for restrictive action aimed at slowing PRC development (for example, export and import controls). But again, this may well weaken rather than strengthen democracies’ own models.
To simply raise tensions with Beijing and expect to prevail is unwise. Frameworks are required which outlast electoral and media cycles. These entail political leadership and more sustained use of state capacity, not reliance on market forces alone. Also imperative is a more multilateral approach, recognising the rise of the PRC, promoting universal interests and engaging where feasible. Let’s not forget the democratic world shares the planet with the PRC. Who’s up for some genuine strategic thinking?
Charles Parton
Chief Advisor, China Observatory, Council on Geostrategy
The life of and demands on leaders of democratic countries are hectic. Advice is easily given, but understandably hard to follow. Still…the danger is concentrating on too many areas. Leaders should first decide on those which truly matter, those which can be changed or influenced by their policies, and those which are best left to the market or society. Selecting a handful and achieving progress in those is better than making limited headway, but over a wider front.
The period before coming to power is crucial. As much as possible of the long-term thinking needs to be done before the election, when there is more time to consult experts and debate ideas. Once in power, it takes real strength of mind to set aside a 3-4 hour period once a quarter, say, and use that session to discuss a topic with a range of perhaps a dozen experts. A leader’s staff then needs to follow up and produce a strategically thought through summation of conclusions and policy options. I have seen this in action with one leader, who established a small staff as almost a personal think tank. To compete with authoritarian countries, it is essential to find time to consult government and outside experts on the carefully chosen areas. Successful competition is not possible, if you are not clear what the challenges are.
Freelance Security and Defence Consultant
Democratic countries should revisit their respective social contracts. The fight for transparent, progressive values has ushered in a hard-earned era of relative peace. Unfortunately, short-term political thinking geared toward superficial appeasements has resulted in threadbare and visionless decision-making. Genuine strategic thinking first requires deep introspection, and a confrontational address of the structural malaise which threatens social cohesion and impedes internal strength.
Thus, the question facing democratic countries in terms of encouraging long-term strategic thinking is that of intent, and seriousness. Governments remain passive about the burgeoning inequality gap and the deepening hyper-individualistic culture that has spread across democratic societies, and wilfully underplay the threat these tensions pose to national stability. Both these issues have been further aggravated by the highly polarised political environment found throughout the democratic world, leaving populations vulnerable to concerted misinformation and disinformation campaigns.
Therefore, democratic governments should focus on protecting their internal information spaces while demanding more engagement from their citizens. To do this, governments should demonstrate true integrity in ruling practices. From the top, governments have to foster talent, adopt realist mindsets, and commit to ‘Make Governance Boring Again’. Democratic societies have tools and resources which authoritarian systems do not, and need to protect those assets with the existential importance they possess. This, in turn, will promote citizen confidence in upward trajectories and relay the stakes of losing liberalism.
Democratic societies need to prioritise creating and maintaining a capable and healthy population, and revive widespread sentiments of national pride. The most difficult political challenge is de-sensationalising the political atmosphere, and replacing populism with existentially necessary patriotism. Genuine strategic thinking happens at the meeting point between intelligent assessment and assertive action, with determination to succeed not as political parties, or individuals, but as nations.
Research Fellow, German Marshall Fund
Genuine strategic thinking is chronically underdeveloped in Europe. Many governments publish documents similar to national security strategies or white papers, and at the European Union (EU) level, the Global Strategy (2016) and the Strategic Compass (2022) come relatively close to this. However, what individual European states and the EU are lacking is a grand strategy, meaning an approach linking ends and means. For many years, navigating by sight was sufficient to manage crises in Europe’s neighbourhood with a lowest-common-denominator approach; however, in a time where power politics is back, Europeans need to adapt to a new strategic environment — which also requires a long-term strategy.
How can EU countries achieve this? Two elements seem particularly relevant: first, EU states should reflect more systematically on not only how they see the world today, but also how they expect it to be in the coming decades, and how they see their place in this world. This approach can allow EU nations to shift gears from reactive policy to proactive strategy-making. Second, the EU needs a new generation of strategic thinking and strategic thinkers who recognise that the world is changing, that these changes are likely to imply a relative decline of EU countries, and who are willing to drop old paradigms for fresh approaches.
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