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This paper uses the strategic dimensions concept and content analysis of nine key defence white papers published between 1957 and 2010 to assess which factors most influence declaratory policy. The paper also notes that the development of defence policy has been accompanied by the “muddling through” vs. decisive choice debate which reflects the tensions within policy between the thesis of strategy and the antithesis of fiscal parsimony. The paper maintains that defence policy is ultimately contingent upon external threats and it is these, rather than the desire to economise, which are the key policy drivers. It concludes that this extrinsic factor will determine the outcome of the next SDSR and though this is not necessarily incongruent with the desire to economise, events may prove otherwise. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Strategy has become a term so widespread that it has lost virtually all value. Its meaning has expanded so that it no longer applies solely to the application of military power. Even for those who seek to apply the discipline of strategy to matters that affect national, regional or even global security, the impact of transnational factors and the increasing imperative to act as part of a coalition or alliance suggest that strategic theory is increasingly different from practice. Multilateral responses challenge the clear articulation of ends, ways and means, and the act of intervention changes the context in ways that are often impossible to anticipate. This paper explores oblique decision-making, and its role in addressing complex problems for which scientific processes seem ill-suited. It challenges the assumption that shortage of resources and inadequate analysis of the theatre of operations are at the heart of our difficulties with strategy. Greater problems result from failures to clearly articulate the purpose for which we are employing military, and other instruments of power, and from identifying ends for which the prescribed ways and means are mismatched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]