Strategy Dynamics: Changing Course in Open Societies

With a wealth of valuable empirical materials, Strategy Dynamics explores the concept of adaptation in strategic decision-making through detailed engagement with professional military education at various war colleges and three in-depth case studies of significant strategic reversals by the United States, France, and former Czechoslovakia. It examines President Ronald Reagan’s decision to withdraw U.S. Marines from Lebanon in 1984, François Mitterrand’s reversal of his original plan for the French exit from the European Monetary System in 1983, and Václav Havel’s strategic pivot towards NATO membership for Czechoslovakia in 1991.

After introducing a novel process-oriented model of strategic decision-making that highlights the positive effect of friction on strategy adaptation, the author uses process tracing to analyse factors at the individual, domestic, and international levels that enabled and triggered these strategic U-turns. The research draws on declassified and previously unavailable documents, as well as interviews with key figures involved in these strategic decisions, providing unique insights into the complexities of strategic decision-making and the process of strategy adaptation.

The book compels readers to see strategy as a dynamic process, continuously evolving in response to changing circumstances, rather than as a fixed plan. In doing so, Strategy Dynamics fills a critical gap in the literature by focusing on the processes that drive strategy adaptation. It offers a comprehensive study of the conditions that contribute to open societies’ ability to adapt their strategies more effectively, and it will serve as a reference for anyone dealing with strategy adaptation.

Matus Halas, Head of the Centre for European Politics, Institute of International Relations in Prague

Matus Halas is a senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations in Prague. Previously, he taught strategy at the Baltic Defence College in Estonia (2016-2018), served as an assistant professor at the Institute of European Studies and International Relations in Bratislava (2011-2015), and conducted his research at Sciences Po in Paris, the National War College in the United States, and École de guerre in France. He edited the first Slovak reader on geopolitics and has published numerous scholarly articles on deterrence theory, NATO, and International Relations broadly defined.