This book explores and examines the problems that every political community must attempt to meet in providing for national security in the future through purposeful defence preparation. The book accepts as a defining contextual quality for its subject the fact that the future is neither known nor reliably knowable. This unavoidable ignorance constitutes the core of the challenge that has to be met by all states. The author explains that it is parametric for defence planning that no specific detail about the future obtainable understanding of permanent certainty of this fact is often resisted b ... More

This book explores and examines the problems that every political community must attempt to meet in providing for national security in the future through purposeful defence preparation. The book accepts as a defining contextual quality for its subject the fact that the future is neither known nor reliably knowable. This unavoidable ignorance constitutes the core of the challenge that has to be met by all states. The author explains that it is parametric for defence planning that no specific detail about the future obtainable understanding of permanent certainty of this fact is often resisted by politicians, officials, and supposed scholars, who talk about a ‘foreseeable future’. The practicable challenge is not to seek skill in prophecy in order to achieve some miracle of future knowledge; rather is it to identify and know how to use what is known and knowable, for the purpose of prudent preparation for the future. The book explains that while, on the one hand, strategic history is notably non-linear, on the other hand there are potent threads of continuity and considers in detail: the fundamental challenge of the subject—the challenge of uncertainty; the critical importance of strategy and its theory; the value of historical experience, as well as its limitations, for understanding of the future; the scope for and significance of political discretion in planning choice; useful sources of guidance, and their problems; and, finally, how the challenges of uncertainty can best be met.