Strategic Thought Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The idea of pushing to the utmost, that war tends in theory to extremes and each side pushes its effort to the limit, is Clausewitz's, and it comes in the opening chapter of On War, where he describes the 'three reciprocal actions' that lead to extremes. Jomini was concerned with the principles of strategy such as lines of operation, Mahan with sea power, and Douhet with air power, so none of them is the source of this concept.

Answer: B

The concept of the geographical pivot of history was put forward by Halford Mackinder in 1904. He argued that the vast interior of Eurasia, the pivot area or heartland, was inaccessible to sea power and whoever controlled it would command the world island. Karl Haushofer developed German geopolitics, Alexander de Seversky wrote on air power, and Alfred Mahan on sea power, so they did not originate the pivot idea.

Answer: B

The statement that for a saint it is right to see the same in every person but for a ruler and soldier it is a fault, is from Kautilya in the Arthashastra, which holds that a king has to distinguish friend and foe and to judge persons by their conduct. Shukra is the author of the Shukraniti, which is another Indian text on polity, and Kissinger and Raymond Aron are twentieth-century western thinkers, so they would not have given this saying on saints, rulers and soldiers.

Answer: C

The German school of geopolitics (Geopolitik) was founded by Karl Haushofer, a general and professor at Munich, who developed the ideas of Ratzel and Kjellen and was associated with the idea of Lebensraum. The key lists him as Carl Haushofer. Karl Marx was the founder of Marxism, Halford Mackinder a British geographer who propounded the heartland theory, and Raymond Aron a French sociologist, and none of them founded the German school.

Answer: D

Geostrategy deals with terrain: it is the study of how geographical features such as location, terrain, climate and resources shape strategy. It is the application of geography to strategic planning. Nuclear weapons, military hardware and proxy war are subjects of other branches of strategic studies and not what geostrategy is about. The keyed answer is therefore terrain.

Answer: C

The keyed answer is Revenstein. The remark that the terrain was a tactician's paradise but a quartermaster's hell is credited in the key to this writer, and it makes the point that ground which offers good fighting positions can make the supply of an army very hard. Raymond Aron and Henry Kissinger are well-known strategic writers, and G. Crouther is another name in the list, but the key does not credit them with this remark. This is an attribution item that follows the key, and a reviewer may wish to check the source of the quotation.

Answer: B

Military geography is primarily concerned with the armed forces and space: it studies how terrain, climate, distance and other geographic factors affect the organisation, movement and operations of armed forces. Resource mobilisation, war finance and research and development are subjects of defence economics and defence science, and not the main interest of military geography.

Answer: D

The saying 'if you wish for peace, understand war' is the opinion of B. H. Liddell Hart. The British military historian and strategist changed the old Roman maxim 'if you want peace, prepare for war' into this form in 'Strategy', where he argued that the study of war is the real way to a lasting peace.

Jomini and Fuller were military writers on the conduct of operations, and Mao Tse Tung is known for guerrilla war. The remark is not credited to any of them.

Answer: C

The Organic Theory of the State was propounded by Friedrich Ratzel, the German geographer. He compared the state to a living organism that grows, needs space (Raum) for its growth and can decay if it loses it, an idea that Rudolf Kjellen and Haushofer later developed.

Mackinder is known for the Heartland theory, Haushofer for Lebensraum geopolitics and S. B. Cohen for geostrategic regions, so they are not the founder of the organic theory.

Ratzel's ideas were set out in his 'Politische Geographie' (1897), and the later growth of the idea into the doctrine of living space is the reason his name is linked to geopolitics.

Answer: C

The concept of the 'Geographical Pivot of History' was propounded by Halford Mackinder in his paper of 1904. He called the interior of Eurasia the pivot area, later the Heartland, the area that could not be reached by sea power and from which a land power could dominate the world.

Seversky wrote on air power, Clausewitz on the nature of war and Mahan on sea power, so none of them is the author of the pivot concept.

In the paper, read to the Royal Geographical Society, Mackinder argued that the railways had increased the mobility of land power, so that the pivot region of Eurasia would again become more important than the sea powers on the rim.