Book Review: James A Green (ed.), Cyber Warfare: A Multidisciplinary Analysis
| Author | Julija Kalpokiene |
| Date | 01 August 2016 |
| Published date | 01 August 2016 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929916653044 |
| Subject Matter | Book ReviewsInternational Relations |
Book Reviews 431
book has provided a nice complement to the
ICC literature.
Eric K Leonard
(Shenandoah University)
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929916653042
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Perspectives on Strategy by Colin S Gray.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 229pp.,
£55.00 (h/b), ISBN 9780199674275
For readers who seek a comprehensive under-
standing of strategic decisions and actions in
the past, present and future, Perspectives on
Strategy by Colin Gray succeeds in re-exam-
ining the nature of strategy. This book has an
introduction, five chapters and a conclusion.
The introduction presents a thorough over-
view in a master narrative and outline of chap-
ters. In Gray’s opinion, it is analytically
impossible to explain all the perspectives on
strategy. The following pages (chapters 1–5)
successively explore the scenarios in which
the five most essential perspectives on strat-
egy (concepts, ethics, culture, geography and
technology) could drive strategy directly or
indirectly. More importantly, Gray criticises
the fallacies about strategy, which are contro-
versial both empirically and logically. In the
conclusion, as Gray highlights, the five per-
spectives on strategy depend considerably on
context-sensitive circumstances, and each his-
torical case of strategy should therefore be
contextualised.
Gray believes that if people ask too much of
any of the five perspectives on strategy, they
would ultimately disappoint. In chapters 1 and
2, as Gray argues, the conceptual perspective
on strategy is ‘overwhelmed by tactics that
become self-referential’ (p. 11) to a large extent.
In the case of ethics, people could not excuse
‘themselves or others from obedience to an
ethical code’ (p. 72). In chapter 3, looking at the
cultural perspective on strategy, Gray suggests
that strategic culture could only explain strate-
gic actions in specific contexts, rather than be ‘a
predictor of strategic behaviour’ (p. 109).
Although encultured people did express their
interests in certain forms of strategic culture to
some degree, it does not mean that strategic cul-
ture determines strategy.
With regard to the geographical perspective
on strategy, chapter 4 expresses more concerns
about deterrence – which is geographical, but
‘decided by the narrative of the situation at
issue’ (p. 147). Finally, technology – the fifth
perspective on strategy – does have strategic
significance in some cases, but it does not carry
more weight than the other perspectives on
strategy. For instance, some military instru-
ments of strategy are miscategorised as strat-
egy, and some technology in weaponry is
mistaken for strategic weapons.
Perspectives on Strategy is not only a most
welcome volume for scholars working on strat-
egy and international relations but also a book
that will fundamentally challenge how people
view strategy.
Kai Chen
(Xiamen University)
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929916653043
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Cyber Warfare: A Multidisciplinary Analysis
by James A Green (ed.). Abingdon: Routledge,
2015. 196pp., £85.00 (h/b), ISBN 9781138793071
Cyber warfare is certainly a subject that is
simultaneously in vogue and vague. Anybody
at least slightly interested in the topic seems to
be inundated with information. At the same
time, however, as James Green notes in the
Introduction, many authors seem to be talking
past one another rather than to one another.
This is in part due to the interdisciplinary
nature of the subject: scientists and practition-
ers from different fields have no or limited
access to one another’s professional vocabu-
lary and concerns. Crucially, this volume both
reflects and rectifies this trend.
The volume is reflective of this trend
because it is a collection of contributions that
range across the disciplines of computer sci-
ence, public international law, military ethics,
strategic studies and the information technol-
ogy industry. However, simultaneously the vol-
ume counters the trend in the sense that the
contributions come together to form a reasona-
bly multi-faceted account of what cyber war-
fare is about. The reader is not left to their own
devices to make sense of the wide-ranging
debate: cross-chapter linkages identifying the
connections, similarities and oppositions across
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