“'Kairosthenic Power' — In an Era of Contested Equality, the Most Important Factor in Strategic Competition May Be Timestrength"

A bit of strategic thinking from the U.S. Army's Mad Scientist Laboratory's blog:

Editor’s Note:  Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to publish today’s post by Mr. John C. Bauer, who expands our geostrategic lexicon with a new term:  Kairosthenic Power.  History is replete with empires, kingdom’s, and nation’s that once strode the world’s stage with globe-girdling power and influence, yet with the inexorable march of time, have been consigned to half-forgotten shelves in dusty archives.  Mr. Bauer explores the constituent elements of kairosthenic power — enduring national strength — and reveals the essential role that culture plays, complementing the more conventional measures of economic, political, and military clout. This begs the question, which ascendant powers today will prove enduring through the Twenty-First Century?]

In retrospect, it may have been one of the most ironic moments of the Cold War. Early in the Dwight Eisenhower’s first term, during a meeting of the National Security Council, the President asked his advisors to propose an economic strategy to counter the emerging global threat posed by Soviet foreign economic policies. Not only were the Russians promoting their rapid industrialization model to foreign governments, the Marxist ideology that supported it was proving increasingly attractive to anti-colonial movements around the world. European empires were in full retreat, leaving a void the communists were eager to fill.

Eisenhower believed Western liberal democratic ideals, and the free enterprise and open trade that supported them, were under direct threat. The United States confronted a new “Era of Contested [Strategic] Equality.”¹  Two superpower-led blocs were contending for global dominance and economic considerations were becoming increasingly important. Expansion of American export controls and foreign development aid were not enough. The Soviets had the strategic initiative in the economic domain.²  Something had to be done, so Ike needed new ideas, a new strategy, and he needed it fast. But those attending the Council meeting remained silent. No new strategy emerged.

The grand irony of that moment was that the best strategy proved to be no strategy at all. Less than forty years later, the Soviet economic model was so discredited it had lost its global appeal. It had even contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union itself. Free trade and private enterprise proliferated around the world, leading to an era of growth and prosperity unprecedented in history. Communist countries, even China, were rushing to emulate capitalist success. The American economic model had proven superior without any strategy whatsoever. It was such a decisive repudiation of the Marxist material dialectic—the inevitable march of history toward communism—that Soviet ideology would never again pose an existential threat to Western democracies. All Eisenhower really needed was time.

There is a lesson here in geopolitics that can be oversimplified. One might conclude that the Cold War is evidence that economics determines long-term geopolitical outcomes. That would certainly seem apparent, given the example above. While partly true, the deeper lesson is that the longer the duration of strategic competition, the more the ascendancy of nations, peoples, and ideas depends on the defining, fundamental characteristics of those nations in contest. Economics, while central, comprises only one of these fundamental characteristics.

As we enter a new Era of Contested Equality, I propose Mad Scientists employ a new term that captures the power of a nation to prevail strategically over time: kairosthenic power or, literally, timestrength. By kairosthenic power we combine kairos – the opportune time, season, or epoch plus sthenos – a condition of mental and moral strength and determination.

The first term, Kairos, comes from the ancient Greek. Unlike chronos, a linear measure of time, kairos has a qualitative meaning. It considers context, for example “a time for every purpose under heaven.” Most commonly understood as momentary opportunity, it also describes a season of exigence, or the right thing(s) at the right time in the right measure. Within the realm of international competition, it can be understood as an era – one of national power and ascendancy, or the perpetuation and defense of national identity or a set of ideals.

Sthenos is the strength of will and purpose derived from moral character and energy. The familiar word calisthenic employs the term with regard to physical conditioning and beauty as well as the need to be disciplined in their pursuit. Sthenos combines psychological and physical strength. Thus, individuals, groups, and nations with more energy and determination have superior strength, compared to those with less.

Kairosthenic power is more than Soft Power or Smart Power, which employ various instrumentalities. In contrast, Kairosthenics captures the idea that the strategic endurance of nations will depend on both their willpower and their attributes applied over a season in the environmental context in which they compete. It is the quality of national strength derived from the inherent qualities of a nation’s (or, perhaps, an alliance’s) most fundamental, or defining, characteristics. Kairosthenic power will certainly include military, technological and economic aspects, but it also includes culture, social psychology, military ethos, political and legal institutions, scientific rigor, openness and freedom of thought, and more.

How would one identify and measure these kairosthenic characteristics? Academic research on this question is surprisingly abundant, though not in explicitly kairosthenic terms. Some scholars, for 
instance, view weather,
geography, or natural resources as the primary, even deterministic, sources of a nation’s timestrength.³ Political scientists may point to leaders, legal characteristics, and institutional or ideological power dynamics. Other social scientists have their own theories.

What is striking about most social science theories is that, while compelling, they are rarely multi-disciplinary and, hence, rarely cohere with one another. Kairosthenic power is overwhelmingly multivariate. It depends on complex societal attributes that interact and reinforce (or weaken) one another to affect strategic competitiveness over the long term. Thus geography and resources, and even economics, contribute significantly but are unlikely to be decisive in themselves....

....MUCH MORE