The Nature of War: How is War directed? The Problem of Strategy
Thursday, 3 February 2011
17:00 - 18:30
Location: Room 1, Mill Lane Lecture Rooms, 8 Mill Lane, Cambridge

Humanitas Visiting Professor in War Studies 2011

The Humanitas Chair in War Studies has been made possible by the generous support of Sir Ronald Grierson

Professor Hew Strachan (Chichele Professor of the History of War, University of Oxford)

The Nature of War

Lecture 1: How is War directed? The Problem of Strategy

 

Strategy has attracted much recent attention in UK public policy debates, principally because of its absence from the direction of current conflicts.  Before 1945 strategic thought used history as its core discipline but since then history has either dropped out of the equation or been misapplied.  There was admittedly an apparent contradiction in strategic theory’s attention to the past; the principal policy function of strategy is predictive and its application in real time pragmatic.  Here the challenges are to reconcile not just the perspectives of strategic theory and strategy in practice, but also the differences between civilians and the military.  Finding satisfactory institutional frameworks for strategy-making is as important as thinking strategically.

Further lectures in the series are:

The Nature of War: Why fight? The Problem of Combat Motivation
Thursday, 10 Feb 2011
The Nature of War: How does War end? The Problem of Victory (and Defeat)
Thursday, 17 Feb 2011
A symposium will take place on Friday 18 February at the Møller Centre, Churchill College, University of Cambridge.

The lectures are free and open to all. Registration is required for the symposium

About Prof Hew Strachan

Professor Hew Strachan is Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford, Fellow of All Souls College, and Director of the Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 2003 and awarded an Hon. D.Univ., (Paisley) 2005. He is also Life Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he was successively Research Fellow, Admissions Tutor and Senior Tutor, 1975-92. From 1992 to 2001 he was Professor of Modern History at the University of Glasgow, and from 1996 to 2001 Director of the Scottish Centre for War Studies.

About the Professorships

Humanitas is a series of Visiting Professorships at Oxford and Cambridge intended to bring leading practitioners and scholars to both universities to address major themes in the arts, social sciences and humanities. Created by Lord Weidenfeld, the Programme is managed and funded by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue with the support of a series of generous benefactors, and administered in Cambridge by the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH). Humanitas Visiting Professors are held by distinguished academics and leading practitioners who have contributed to interdisciplinary research and innovation in a broad range of contemporary disciplines in the arts, social sciences and humanities. Covering areas of urgent or enduring interest in today's society as well as the performing arts, Humanitas Visiting Professors will present their pioneering work through a series of lectures or performances open to University audiences and the wider public.

 

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