BOOK REVIEW After the battle is won The Art of Victory by Gregory R Copley
Reviewed by Yoel Sano
What constitutes "victory", and how do nation-states and corporations achieve
this? Which societies are actively seeking victory, and which are best placed
to reach this goal? And how can they hold on to victory once it has been won?
These are the questions raised in The Art of Victory: Strategies for Personal
Success and Global Survival in a Changing World, by historian Gregory R
Copley. Copley, who is president of the
Washington-based International Strategic Studies Association and has advised
numerous governments, answers these questions through 28 chapters, or rather
maxims, starting with the definition of "victory".
According to Copley, "Victory is the result of the comprehensive strengths of a
society, a corporation, or an individual. In geopolitical terms, for a society,
this takes into account its strategic industrial depth, its access to
resources, the ability to mobilize the national (and transnational) will of its
members and allies, its economic and political complexities, and so on." (p 73)
Ultimately, "Victory is the sustained survival, growth, and dominance of a
society through history ... This embraces economic wealth; it embraces the
dominance of a society's beliefs, language, and culture; it embraces the
strength of the society's structural framework to permit the best possible
means of teaming with nature to ensure security of food, health, shelter, and
energy; and it embraces the defense of these things - all within a balance
appropriate to the challenge of the times." (p 293)
Crucially, victory is by no means the same thing as "winning", which is merely
tactical. Rather, victory requires that goals are being continually achieved.
Thus countries such as Britain and France that were nominally on the winning
side of World War II subsequently went into strategic decline, as their empires
crumbled and their industries lost competitiveness, whereas immediate losers
such as Japan and Germany were able to recover and increase their power and
prosperity, at least at home. Indeed, the US "victory" in World War II was
enhanced by bringing its defeated foes into its global economic and alliance
systems, thereby allowing them to share the fruits of "victory".
Therefore, the destruction of one's foe alone does not constitute a victory,
unless it is followed by construction. "To minimize threats to the victory, the
goal of the victor should also be to minimize the motivation toward destructive
and hateful reactions among the defeated," Copley states. (p 167)
As an example of victory in the business world (one of many he uses), Copley
notes that JVC's Video Home System (VHS) prevailed over Sony's Betamax in the
war to dominate the video home-entertainment market in the early 1980s. Yet JVC
was ultimately eclipsed by Sony, which later achieved dominance over video
production, content distribution, and viewing systems, and thus secured the
real "victory".
Whither the West?
Copley, like many macro-historians, sees the West as being in a period of
strategic decline after the collapse of the Soviet threat in 1989-91. He warns
that although the US-led West emerged victorious, victory is in serious danger
of being squandered, because of the absence of a new grand strategy.
The biggest threat to Western revival is "the creeping cancer of the division
of society into pockets by apathy, anomie and angst". (p 79) The author also
cautions that the Western states must find a way to hang together, lest
infighting among themselves weakens the West against its competitors, or even
leads to a new Dark Age. Also risky for the developed economies is the practice
of outsourcing virtually all manufacturing abroad, since this could leave them
dangerously reliant on services at a time when future crises or threats may
require industrial depth.
Nonetheless, Comply warns the West against forcing itself to characterize China
or Iran as a new enemy to mobilize against. Instead, he sees the terror attacks
of September 11, 2001, as presenting a rare opportunity for the US-led West to
incorporate China and Russia into its framework as true partners, adding that
the rise of China could enhance and complement the victory of the West. Iran,
too, has great potential and can join the West once its people have overthrown
the clerical regime, which Copley believes is ephemeral.
Furthermore, Copley acknowledges that it may be time to drop the term "West" in
favor of the more encompassing "modern world", which includes Japan, South
Korea, India and other emerging middle powers.
China actively seeking 'victory'
Unlike the West, Copley believes, China's leaders understand and are actively
seeking "victory". Yet while China is competing against the West, it is,
perhaps more important, also in a race with itself to achieve wealth and power
before the stresses of environmental degradation and rising social disturbances
cause immense disruption and political collapse, thus undermining the country's
economic and social progress.
India is further behind on the curve, but faces similar stresses, and it
remains to be seen whether its governing system, which is characterized by
bureaucratic inertia, can handle these challenges better than China's or
whether its leaders can spread the newly created wealth.
Militant Islam cannot conquer
Militant Islam is also striving for victory, but Copley believes it will
ultimately fail because it has no strength except for willpower, which is not
enough to achieve victory.
In essence, while he acknowledges that militant Islam could score the successes
of securing territory and creating chaos in the West, he points out that it
lacks the fundamentals to achieve "victory" in the sense of maintaining
agricultural production and industrial productivity and relieving poverty, and
thus would probably fail within a generation or two. Militant Islam is also
totally dependent on the technology and structures of its enemies, including
the production of weapons.
Even the "moderate" oil-producing Muslim states in the Persian Gulf are at risk
of failure, as they have not diversified their economies and remain overly
dependent on oil exports. Over the long term, if the rest of the "modern world"
is able to develop new energy sources, it will become less dependent on oil,
leaving the Middle Eastern producers in serious economic difficulties.
A question of leadership
Unsurprisingly, leadership is essential to achieving victory, and Copley
devotes several chapters to this topic. He suggests that the flattening of the
traditional hierarchical world has created a situation whereby the process of
electing leaders remains intact, but society does not subsequently respect or
honor its leaders. Consequently, it is even more difficult now for "true
leaders" to rise above the cynicism and short-term self-absorption of society.
Copley states that "the ability of a leader to lead depends on his or her
ability to retain intellectual functions separate from those of the crowd, and
yet to understand and identify with the crowd". (p 185) A failed leader,
however, is one who "merely imposes his desires without understanding either
his own society or the historical realities. He will be ignored, misunderstood,
and in times of great national threat can be disastrous." (p 214)
A key element of leadership, then, is the ability to mobilize society. However,
Copley warns that this must not entail promoting a hatred of one's enemies,
since pseudospeciation (demonization through stereotyping) can lead to
irrational actions which are damaging to the victors and breed complacency.
Indeed, Copley offers several useful insights into the psychological,
belief-system, and identity-politics aspects of victory.
One weakness of The Art of Victory is that, because of its sheer scope,
it is short on specifics. For example, when it comes to examining the make-up
and the strengths and weaknesses of economies such as China, India and the US,
or those of the Muslim world, it provides no details.
Elsewhere, although Copley touches on demographics, he does not delve too
deeply into the subject. This is surprising, given that many Western and some
East Asian countries are aging rapidly or even seeing declining populations,
whereas India and the Muslim world are still seeing rapid population growth.
How can the West realistically strive for victory if there are no Westerners
(or too few) left? Granted, true victory would entail passing Western values on
to others and ensuring that the legacy of those values survives, but this will
arguably be more difficult if the West's share of the world's population
becomes ever smaller.
The author also mentions a number of new technologies that might benefit the
West, such as nanotechnologies and alternative fuels, but does not explore them
in sufficient detail. On the subject of leadership, he generally (and perhaps
wisely) avoids praising or pouring scorn on contemporary leaders, since this
would risk getting caught up in partisan debates, but this occasionally leaves
the book with a somewhat theoretical air.
Copley is also harsh in criticizing the United States and Europe for lacking
grand strategies. Yet the US has been busy promoting the expansion of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization, increasing its worldwide military basing into new
areas such as former Soviet republics, empowering international institutions
such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, and
generally consolidating its Cold War victory, while maintaining a dynamic
economy. At the same time, the European Union has expanded from 12 to 27
members, has launched its own currency, and has attempted to build its own
constitution - all of which can hardly be described as lacking in vision.
He also perhaps underestimates the difficulties that the West faces in trying
to absorb China, Russia and Iran into a "super-West", and the extent to which
those three countries appear determined to pursue their own destiny independent
of the West.
Overall, though, The Art of Victory is highly readable, entertaining and
thought-provoking, and full of common-sense wisdom that is often absent from
today's political discourse. As such, it offers valuable lessons to today's -
and tomorrow's - would-be leaders.
The Art of Victory: Strategies for Personal Success and Global Survival in a
Changing World by Gregory R Copley. Threshold Editions, October 3,
2006. ISBN: 13:978-1416524700. Price US$25, 336 pages.
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According to Copley, "Victory is the result of the comprehensive strengths of a
society, a corporation, or an individual. In geopolitical terms, for a society,
this takes into account its strategic industrial depth, its access to
resources, the ability to mobilize the national (and transnational) will of its
members and allies, its economic and political complexities, and so on." (p 73)
