The impact of non rational elements on strategy and warfare

Abstract

As the world-famous critic of Strategy and Warfare General Von Clausewitz argues, much could be learned about strategies of warfare from a careful analysis of war; it could always be a highly unpredictable affair shaped by factors such as friction, uncertainty and chance as well as non- rational factors such as psychological, moral and creative factors that influence the strategists’ behavior. The point of the rational approach is that strategists should try to use systematic procedures to arrive at good decisions. However, research into strategic decision making shows that strategists often are unable to follow an ideal procedure. Also the time pressure, a large number of internal and external factors affecting a decision and the ill-defined nature of many problems make systematic analysis virtually impossible. The focus of the paper is to examine the limits of rationality and the impact of non-rational elements on strategy and warfare and to present a multifaceted conceptual model to that affect. In particular, the paper illustrates the impact of non-rational elements such as intuition, experience, emotion and imagination of the strategists in shaping the overall strategy. Critics of war, strategy and intelligence argue that the logic of war and its paradoxical nature are best understood through the analysis of military history with cautious reference to personal experience of military leadership in war. In view of the theoretical underpinnings and experts’ insights, this paper suggests a conceptual model and it argues that strategies of war cannot be studied accurately following a scientific procedure.