Blackwell Reference Online

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Comment on this article   Strategic/security studies is arguably the most historically minded branch of international relations. A historical approach is the conscious use of past incidents and situations as a source of inspiration, as a laboratory for the testing of hypotheses, and as a pool of illustrative examples. The above concepts require some clarification. How far back into the past should scholars delve in order to be considered as following a “historical approach”? The yardstick adopted in the present essay is the 20-year mark: a work will be considered to follow a historical approach if it deals with events at least 20 years old at the time of the work's writing. One should of course be flexible on such matters; thus, it would be clearly absurd not to include Thucydides (1972) among the practitioners of the historical approach because he analyzed contemporary or near-contemporary events, or to say that Clausewitz’ On War (1989) does not use a historical approach because many of its past examples were less than 20 years old at the time of Clausewitz’ writing. Much more important is the definition of strategic studies and security studies. The present essay will treat these terms as synonymous and as pertaining to the study of the interaction of policy ends with military and other means under conditions of actual or potential conflict. This definition means that ... log in or subscribe to read full text