ABSTRACT
The challenge for a liberal military strategy is to develop forms of warfare that respect the restraints demanded by liberalism yet are sufficient to defeat an illiberal and unrestrained enemy. A liberal strategy seeks moral clarity in use of force. This is easiest to achieve in conditions of regular warfare between armies leading to a decisive conclusion, and when the liberal side is stronger. The need to consider social, political and ethical factors along with the purely military warns against the assertion of an operational level of war, quite separate from the strategic, where military means and political ends might supposedly be brought into alignment. The stress on the operational level in American military thinking has reflected a desire to maintain a privileged command function covering all the critical decisions on the employment of forces. Given the strength of the American position it was not self-evident why attrition not an appropriate strategy, especially after the end of the Cold War.
