ABSTRACT
The simultaneous appearance of two strategic studies, the first by one of France’s most literate and distinguished soldiers, the second by one of her foremost political thinkers, is not only a happy coincidence but an event of major importance in the history of strategic thought. General Beaufre writes with that beautiful clarity and logic characteristic of his nation, imposing order on his chaotic subject-matter in masterly fashion. The current of politics (and the plural form in English gives a far better indication of their inevitable complexity and self-contradiction than does the singular French) often turns in directions completely opposed to that of ‘national strategy’, as both the Americans and the Russians have several times found out. The maintenance of objective and overall plan which is mandatory in ‘classical’ war is not always a realistic ambition in the pluralistic word of peace.
