ABSTRACT
Despite the fact that ‘the term “strategy” needs continual definition’,1
strategy, or security doctrine, is defined as ‘the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfil the ends of policy’.2 Furthermore, a security doctrine ‘establishes the principles that guide the design of military force structure and operations, [which are used to link] defence policy and national strategy . . . on the one hand, and the operational plans of the armed forces on the other’.3 ‘Policy, then, [should] permeate all military operations, [because it is] the political aim [which] remains the first consideration.’4 Strategy is crucial in pursuing a state’s political objectives through the use of the military instrument. Yet, in order to pursue such political objectives, it is not always necessary for a state to wield the military instrument by going to war. The threat of using the military instrument, whether explicit or implicit, is normally sufficient to obtain a state’s foreign policy goals. Furthermore, other non-military coercive means are available.5
