Aperture Book of the Month - February 2025

We were excited to see David Richards and Julian Lindley-French go to print together last September. Their book was well-timed, coming soon after the UK Government’s announcement of another Strategic Defence Review, and it has since been shown to be prescient, given the events of the last month. Against th

e current background of turmoil, ‘The Retreat from Strategy’ is our book of the month for February 2025.

The title, and what we expected to be the main theme of the book, chimes with our long-held concern about Whitehall’s ability to develop and implement strategy. The issue is complex and sometimes technical, but at heart it is driven by a failure to make connections, between the Cabinet Office and Downing Street; between politicians and civil servants and between departments of state; between policy and strategy (perhaps actually the most pressing problem) and between strategy and actions; between inputs and outcomes, between performance and effect; and between values and interests. Perhaps it is this last issue which particularly led to our disappointment with ‘The Retreat from Strategy’.

We have previously worked with both authors and can’t help but remember that our frustrations with Defence policy and strategy – and indeed with strategy across Whitehall – originated on David Richards’ watch.  Such remarks aside, their credibility, conviction, erudition, and experience is unquestioned. Perhaps because of these qualities, however, ‘The Retreat from Strategy’ appears in some ways to be less than fully objective in its analysis and therefore falls short of our expectations.

Instead of comprehensively exploring why successive UK governments have failed to clearly define and manage the direction of travel for Britain’s place in the world (even for internal consumption), the book is more a thesis about UK Defence capabilities and capacity based on the authors’ (very well-informed) beliefs. Much, if not all, of that thesis is well-argued and compelling. But it falls short of the point made in the title of the book.

‘The Retreat…’ doesn’t really return to the substance of the relationship between values and interests. Often confused they may be, but interests are often inextricably nested in values and the relationship should not be ignored. In the context of the book, that started us thinking about the nature and balance of relationships, they being one of the characteristics of effective strategy, and therein lies the weakness of the book in our view, and the source of our disappointment.

Grand strategy is not just about Defence. The authors assert it is the long pole in the tent of British interests at the moment. The book is wrapped around this principle and they may well be right, but it isn’t the only instrument of national power that needs to be integrated in coherent national strategy.

One of the attributes of effective strategy is its ability to unify themes and principles. In stating the three critical messages of their book, Richards and Lindley-French stress the vital need to balance the ends, ways, and means of strategy, lamenting a resource driven, constraint focused mind-set. We also agree with them wholeheartedly that there is a critical absence of a ‘system-of-systems’ approach across government, that the strategic mechanisms that exist are inadequate, and that ‘whilst strategies abound in London, the strategic is all too often absent’.

Unfortunately, the rest of the book does not further unpack these messages, focusing almost entirely on the recipe for Defence and military capability favoured by the authors. Take ends, ways, and means, for example. We agree with the book’s assertion that they should be balanced appropriately, but it then smacks of imbalance to focus so much on the ‘means’ that is the UK’s military capability and capacity. This imbalance is entirely against the principles of strategy, which – although it must link to the ‘means’ of delivery – should focus on the ‘ways’ of connecting the ‘ends’ to the ‘means’. That is strategy’s core contribution. What is the unifying approach that demands the structure and activities advocated?

In raw terms, policy leads on ‘ends’ or the ‘why’, strategy focuses on the ‘ways’ and the ‘how’, and delivery (which includes tactics) provides the ‘means’ or the ‘what’. If that is over-simplistic as a start point then it is difficult to see how else to avoid the confusion of what is currently an over-complicated general perception and understanding of strategy.

Critically, if in developing strategy the means becomes the focal point of discussion without strong contextual boundaries provided by the clear ‘ends’ and ‘ways’ of a well-balanced and aligned framework, then strategy risks becoming the opinion of the highest paid person in the room. We have seen that happen all too often in Whitehall, and we see it in ‘The Retreat from Strategy’. The arguments around ‘the means’ may be cogent and reasonable, but if they lack a binding framework of approach provided by a coherent approach, then they do not generate strategic momentum because implementation will tend to favour measures of performance over measures of effect.   

The agenda becomes repetitive and there is more than a shade of political polemic. The substance of the book’s agenda for Defence is hard to argue with, but if this is a book on strategy, it falls into a familiar trap of becoming too narrowly focused.

Strategy is about connections, and it is therefore ironic that the title and premise of ‘The Retreat…’ is dis-connected from most of its content. When that happens, strategy becomes hostage to good ideas and senior opinions. Perhaps the book should be re-titled ‘The UK Needs a More Robust Defence Capability’. Much of the detail lands extremely well, but if you’re looking for a book on how strategy might be more effectively developed and implemented, you may be better advised to look elsewhere.

With all that said, this is prescient work, and hugely thought-provoking given the most recent turn in current events. We look forward very much to reading the sequel which we hope will provide the authors’ views on the development and implementation of strategy at national level.