With my acquisition last year of The New Makers of Modern Strategy, I now own all three versions of the acclaimed edited compilation. If you’re going for completeness, you’ll also want the 1942 and 1986 versions as well. What will you notice in comparing all three editions? Some incomplete thoughts:
As you move from 1942 to 2023, the page count and comprehensiveness of subject matter grows at the cost of thematic coherence and organizational structure. Moreover, if you consider strategic studies to be about “theory for practice” you may also observe less and less grounding in the older institutional tradition of applied theoretical work.
This applied quality is strongest in the first edition, written in the middle of World War II by contributors that were simultaneously working in the Allied research and intelligence system. However, each successive edition also rightfully adds greater diversity of expertise, perspective, and topic coverage. It is interesting as well to see which chapters from the original are reprinted in both successive editions.
The 2023 edition is strongest in its coverage of economic, political, and legal dimensions of strategic behavior and armed conflict, improving on the 1986 version’s already superb chapters on political economy and political leadership. I am not sure if I would recommend it to a total novice, as may be too daunting to sort through 1000+ pages of material without already having a mental map of where to go.
The 1986 version, edited by Peter Paret, can be read alongside Paret’s Clausewitz translation. For better or worse, they are both products of a particular moment in time. After the Vietnam War, the military (and civilian scholars associated with it) attempted to constrain the use of force and civilian intervention in what was retroactively rebranded as purely military domains of expertise. They subtly reflect aspects of this power struggle. 1
Beyond its historical value 2, the 1942 edition is an essential counterbalance to the periodic tendency to reinvent totalizing ideas of politics-as-war. A theme running through the volume is the unprecedented peril posed by the fascist mobilization of subversion, propaganda, and ideological fervor to supposedly complacent liberal states that erect firm boundaries between war and peace.
Setting aside the historical question of whether or not interwar totalitarian movements originated or at least perfected these techniques, the 1942 edition’s analyses about them have largely been forgotten. Every decade or so, a researcher, analyst, or practitioner will claim (to the applause of credulous audiences) that X or Y particular faction or movement’s use of “political war” 3 is totally novel.
Footnotes
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If you are interested in exploring the historiography of Clausewitz translations and similar desiderata you are best advised to consult material like Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century. ↩
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Edward Mead Earle, the man behind the 1942 edition, is one of the unrecognized fathers of the modern study of strategy and security. See several H-Diplo pieces (review and response) for more. ↩
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The concept is too intellectually light to withstand scrutiny but those interested in exploring it should consult vintage work by early to mid-20th century illiberal figures such as Lenin, Mao, Sorel, or Schmitt to see substantive articulations of it. ↩