TY - GEN
T1 - Portuguese strategic thinking at the dawn of the twentieth century
AU - Duarte, António Paulo David Silva
N1 - info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/5876/147250/PT#
UID/HIS/04209/2013
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Any historical study of strategy must necessarily challenge the nature of that field of knowledge by outlining its characteristics and by dissecting it to better highlight its features. Strategy has its own history, which derives from a socially and culturally developed construction. Strategy, as a field of knowledge constructed by the thinkers who engendered it and by the political and military agents who implemented it, is a recent phenomenon dating back to the eighteenth century. Furthermore, over the last two centuries, the disciplines contained in that field of knowledge have varied as the scope and framework of strategy expanded. What, then, must we analyse and dissect when attempting to study the strategic thinking of yesteryear? The strategic treatises of the time? War-related political thinking? Or geopolitics? And can strategic thinking occur in periods when the concept of strategy did not yet exist? And if it did occur in some form, in what terms was it framed? These are important issues for those who seek to conduct a historical study of strategy. The present text considers that, just as with the study of economy, strategic thinking and strategy in general can be studied even during times when the concept did not yet exist, because for both sciences reflection and practice are not an end in themselves, but a way to understand specific external realities: the problems with overcapacity and shortages, in the case of economy; violent and hostile conflict between organized groups and human communities, in the case of strategy.
AB - Any historical study of strategy must necessarily challenge the nature of that field of knowledge by outlining its characteristics and by dissecting it to better highlight its features. Strategy has its own history, which derives from a socially and culturally developed construction. Strategy, as a field of knowledge constructed by the thinkers who engendered it and by the political and military agents who implemented it, is a recent phenomenon dating back to the eighteenth century. Furthermore, over the last two centuries, the disciplines contained in that field of knowledge have varied as the scope and framework of strategy expanded. What, then, must we analyse and dissect when attempting to study the strategic thinking of yesteryear? The strategic treatises of the time? War-related political thinking? Or geopolitics? And can strategic thinking occur in periods when the concept of strategy did not yet exist? And if it did occur in some form, in what terms was it framed? These are important issues for those who seek to conduct a historical study of strategy. The present text considers that, just as with the study of economy, strategic thinking and strategy in general can be studied even during times when the concept did not yet exist, because for both sciences reflection and practice are not an end in themselves, but a way to understand specific external realities: the problems with overcapacity and shortages, in the case of economy; violent and hostile conflict between organized groups and human communities, in the case of strategy.
KW - Política
KW - Estratégia
KW - I Guerra Mundial
M3 - Conference contribution
SN - 978-989-99532-4-6
T3 - Coleção ARES
SP - 51
EP - 77
BT - Seminar Proceedings
A2 - Afonso, Carlos Filipe
A2 - Lourenço Borges, Vítor
PB - Instituto Universitário Militar (IUM)
CY - Lisboa
T2 - 'The portuguese campaigns in Africa: from the imposition of sovereignty to the Great War
Y2 - 25 June 2015 through 26 June 2015
ER -