Debate on Two Articles

For most scholars, the development of theory is highly valued. Generalization and simplification are of great significance. The use or misuse of scientific knowledge to achieve political agendas is a reason to keep being on the sidelines and away from the policy fray. The theory is perceived as an invective hurled at abstraction and irrelevance by most activists and policymakers. Practitioners are mostly worried about the sources underlying theoretical prepositions because flawed conclusions may follow in the event that sources are unreliable. Thus, policy relevance is prioritized over academic theory.

Although many policymakers fail to recognize academic theorizing and many academics continue to criticize the actions of government officials, theory can play an instrumental role in promoting international security and relations. Policymakers rely on purely factual knowledge, rules of thumb, typologies, and empirical laws for policy decision making and pay very little attention to the instrumental role played by theory in the conduct of foreign policy. A theory is a causal explanation. It establishes repeating relations between various phenomena and explains the existence of such a relationship. Theories invariably simplify reality to make it comprehensible by providing us with a picture of the primary forces that influence real-world behavior. International security theories explain security competition levels between countries, the level and forms of international cooperation, and the spread of ideas, norms, and institutions1

As the international strategic framework changed with the end of the Soviet Union, strategic studies are becoming less and less relevant to the world today. It is biased on its idea that force is the only universal remedy for solving disputes in international society. Strategic studies are conflict-oriented and are too narrow to see the world. Its conflict orientation is dangerous to both the international community and human society. Its false prediction of international security problems has resulted in the failure of its theoretical assumptions hence the need for the introduction of a new approach based on an interdisciplinary study that entails the integration of security studies and peace studies to prevent conflict2 .

Further, strategists operate in a way incompatible with the integrity of scholarship, given that they usually advise the government on a paid basis. It appears that they are entangled in policy advocacy, which is not part of the scholarship. Such individuals have an affiliation with the government and are mostly involved in the provision of suggestions on how to achieve policy goals and vindicating objectives with their own advice. Force and war are issues of great significance hence require to be studied in an academic way instead of being decided upon in a closed room with a selected group of policymakers. Furthermore, theories are an experience-based study. The utilization of universal principles that have been deduced and verified from practical makes theories testable in the real world. However, the testability and predictability of strategic studies is something that cannot be guaranteed. Suppose strategic studies are said to be inherently interdisciplinary. In that case, we can challenge its intellectual basis for disregarding its literature, making exaggerated claims regarding its objectivity, and being too simplistic because of its unique, short-term policy orientation, closely linked with the agenda government decision-making on issues regarding military and defense. Ethical and practical difficulties fraught the relationship between policy and academic worlds as strategic studies continue to be perceived as a pseudo-science covered with the apparent scientific method to grant it an illusion of academy.

2 Betts, Richard K. "Should strategic studies survive?." Cambridge University Press. 50 (1997): 7.

Bibliography

Betts, Richard K. "Should strategic studies survive?" Cambridge University Press. 50 (1997): 7. Nye Jr, Joseph S., and Sean M. Lynn-Jones. "International security studies: a report of a conference on the state of the field." The MIT Press, 12, no. 4 (1988): 5-27.