In the economic world, there is growing interest in the notions of ethics and strategy. However, the meaning and, above all, the relationship between these two notions are not always very clear. Military thinking, which is naturally at the confluence of ethics and strategy, can help to bring these two disciplines into dialogue so that they can enrich each other.

"Corporate values", "business ethics", "moralization of capitalism"... Everyday life and current events are constantly providing us with examples of moral dilemmas in the economic field. To the assertion that it is only possible and desirable to create value for shareholders is today opposed a reflection on the creation of value for the economy.The claim that it is only possible and desirable to create value for shareholders is today opposed to a reflection on the creation of value for all stakeholders (the notion of "stakeholders value" [1]) and even a value shared by the company for the benefit of all (the notion of "shared value" [2]). Thus, at the heart of the reflection on the function and responsibility of a company, there is inevitably today the question of the role of ethics, the founding element of a company that is three times responsible in economic, environmental and societal terms. Moreover, for several decades now, it has become commonplace to talk about strategy in business. However, the crisis now constitutes a new challenge and should lead companies to "regain a sense of strategy" [3] in the words of the HEC CEO.

Ethics and strategy are therefore now fundamental concepts in the economic field. In the business world, they are arousing growing interest. They are at the heart of the high-level training of future executives, as can be seen when following a training course such as an MBA [4]. However, they are two concepts whose meaning is not always well understood and, above all, whose relationships are often not studied in detail. Indeed, these two fields of reflection are studied separately and their relationships are not always very clear. Too often, "strategists" see "philosophers" as giving conceptual, abstract lessons, cut off from the real world, and as having no connection with the real world.Conversely, "philosophers" may have the image of "strategy" as a discipline where amoral cynics abound. It is therefore crucial to clarify the relationship between these two fields and their reciprocal contributions: how can ethics shed light on strategic thinking? How can strategy help the philosopher[5] to reflect and understand his field of study? To answer these crucial questions, the officer can bring a decisive expertise. By virtue of his culture, he is inclined to think strategically and to reflect on the key concepts of moral philosophy; better yet, he knows how to bring these two disciplines into dialogue so that they can enlighten and enrich each other in action. This article therefore puts forward the idea that military thought, which is naturally at the confluence of ethics and strategy, is particularly well placed to advance reflection on this subject by providing elements of a response to two problems: What is the nature of the relationship between ethics and strategy? What are the respective contributions of ethics to the work of strategists and strategy to the work of philosophers?

First, two extreme temptations must be ruled out from the outset: the first is to think that the two disciplines must coincide entirely in their conclusions, and that consequently the philosopher has nothing to add to what the strategist says (and vice versa); the second is the exact opposite.e and is based on the idea that the two fields necessarily diverge radically, that there is an inherent and insurmountable contradiction between them, and that there is something irreducibly immoral in strategy as such. Reality, as often, is more nuanced.

What is ethics? What is strategy?

The nature of the relationship between ethics and strategy obviously depends on how these two notions are understood. Specialists in moral philosophy sometimes distinguish between morality, which would designate the norms or principles of the permissible and the prohibited, and ethics, which would concern both the rooting, the source of these norms (fundamental ethics) and their insertion in concrete situations (applied ethics) [6]. However, both terms, one of which comes from Latin and the other from Greek, refer in one way or another to the common domain of morals. In this article, the terms ethics and morals will be used indistinctly to refer to the part of philosophy that concerns the search for the good and the just. In particular, ethics does not mean a set of fixed rules to be followed under any circumstances, but rather describes the process of reflection aimed at choosing the right (i.e., an action that has some positive value) and just (i.e., an action that should be selected as part of a choice) action. This conception of ethics is based on three premises. The first is that the choice of a good and just action is aimed at 'satisfying', 'realizing' human beings; therefore, any ethical injunction must be evaluated in the light of the beings towards whom one is trying to be just and good. What constitutes such "satisfaction" or "fulfilment" obviously depends on a concept of human nature and sometimes reflects, explicitly or implicitly, a religious conviction. The second postulate is that living beings are continually in conflict. Of course, conflict is not the only relationship between men, who always share common interests to varying degrees. But this more or less developed harmony never totally suppresses the conflictual relationship, which reflects competition for limited "goods". The third postulate is that there is no action that satisfies all living beings: human decisions satisfy some beings to the detriment of others. Consequently, the problem of choosing the right, just action is the problem of choosing the best possible action under given circumstances. Any conception of ethics that does not take circumstances into account may at one time or another come up against the pitfall of particular situations in which the 'right' decision is not the general case.

Strategy is a term of military origin that has long meant the art of leading armies[7]. 7] Over time, its meaning has evolved: from the XIXth century, strategy designated the art of ^combining battles to win the war (what is called today in military language the operative art), then in the XXth century the art of ^combining battles to win the war (what is called today in military language the operative art), then in the XXth century the art of ^combining battles to win the war (what is called today in military language the operative art).century the use of human, moral and material resources to achieve political ends, the use of armed force being only one means among others to impose one's will. Lucien Poirier attributes to the nuclear fact this considerable drift of the concept of strategy: before the nuclear age, the concept of war included the concept of strategy; today, the concept of strategy includes the concept of war and is not limited to it (for example, nuclear deterrence is a non-war strategy)[8]. In fact, since Schumpeter's introduction of the essentially strategic figure of the entrepreneur, the central actor of the capitalist system[9], and then the appearance in the 1950s of the expression "corporate strategy"[10], the concept of strategy has become more and more important.9], the term has become so generalized that any approach aiming at an objective is now qualified as strategic, sometimes a little excessively so (from "slimming strategies" to "seduction strategies"). Without wishing to reduce strategy to the military domain alone, or even to limit it, according to General Beaufre's famous definition, to "the art of the dialectic of wills using force to achieve the desired result.10], it's useful to recall that strategy consists in acting on the will of another, susceptible to react, and that, as such, it obeys specific rules and follows a specific logic [11]. 11] To summarize the contributions of many authors who have tried to define what strategy could be for an economic entity (such as a company), strategy consists in choosing its activities and allocating its resources in such a way as to achieve a level of performance that is durably superior to that of its competitors in those activities, with the aim of creating value[12]. More generally, in the context of this article, if we call strategy the way an entity chooses its objectives and uses its resources (not only military) to achieve them against the will of other actors, the question arises of the relationship between this strategy and morality.

The apparent contradictions

There are at least two points where there is a risk of contradiction between strategy and ethics. The first is the concept of "interests" (individual, collective, national). The second is the use of consequences as criteria for evaluating action. First of all, any strategy is aimed at consolidating or at least preserving interests; in the case of the major strategy ofIn the case of a State's grand strategy, we speak of national interests; in the case of a company, we speak of the interests of the company and its shareholders. In any case, a strategist is naturally led to prioritize the interests of some (e.g. his fellow citizens) to the detriment of those of others. However, an ethic aiming at the satisfaction of all human beings cannot stop at borders; there is therefore a potential contradiction between a naturally universalist ethic and a strategy with a more limited scope of application. Does this mean that the strategy then comes into conflict with the universalism of the philosopher? Not necessarily. The strategist has to distinguish between the beings to whom he attributes "value" and the functions he occupies from which he can effectively enforce his value judgements. Let us take the example of a State: for a statesman, it would be morally unjustifiable to say that certain beings (his fellow citizens) have value and that others (foreigners) have less or no value. But there is no executive function that really allows him to reflect this conviction in practice. In the international system, there is no central authority to enforce the peaceful resolution of conflicts of interest. On the contrary, the international system requires each nation to balance the power of the others; it is from this overall balance that global regulation proceeds. Thus, in this system, a statesman can only express his value judgement on foreigners through the defence of certain (not all, it is crucial to note) national interests. So the moral question is not: should we defend our interests at the expense of those of foreigners? It is rather: what should the national interest include and how should it be defended? There is no opposition between strategy and morality, but rather the illumination of strategy by morality.

The second possible contradiction relates to the way in which strategic choices are made and evaluated. In many cases, consequentialism prevails, that is, the theory that in order to evaluate an action and, in particular, to choose between several possible actions, it is necessary to examine their consequences, their effects on the world and to compare them with each other. In other words, when faced with several policy options, one is often tempted to choose the one with the best - or least worst - consequences. However, this approach is not the only one in moral philosophy, and even often conflicts with a deontological approach that evaluates the morality of an action without taking into account its consequences, according to the principle that "the end does not justify all the means". Thus, the philosopher Immanuel Kant, the most famous defender of this morality of duty, argued that it was always wrong to lie, even to save a life[13]. 13] However, here again we can try to reconcile the two approaches, by nuancing each of them. On the one hand, deontological morality is not totally disconnected from the study of the consequences of an action: Indeed, often, when we reject an action in the name of a moral principle, it is not only because we reject as a matter of principle the transgression of a rule, but because we take into account the ultimate consequences - in the broadest sense - of that action on human beings. On the other hand, strategic consequentialism can be enlightened by deontological morality, particularly with regard to three congenital weaknesses: the first is the tendency to think too narrowly about the consequences of our actions; the second is a misunderstanding of the time factor (i.e. - most frequently - that the study of consequences favours the short term over the long term).The second is a misunderstanding of the time factor (either - most often - the study of consequences focuses on the short term rather than on the long term, or, on the contrary, positive consequences in the distant future justify actions whose immediate consequences are more questionable); the third is an overconfidence in our ability to calculate the consequences of our actions reliably and accurately. Thus, again, there is no irreducible opposition between morality and strategy. The morality of duty and intention is not incompatible with the strategic calculation of consequences: at their intersection is the notion of virtuous consequentialismas developed, for example, by the British philosopher and strategist David Fisher[14].

14] Thus, the apparent contradictions between ethics and strategy are not absolutely insurmountable. Moreover, it is undoubtedly possible to identify principles common to both disciplines.

Possible common principles

The study of common principles between ethics and strategy requires a more specific definition of their scope. In the context of this article, we shall confine ourselves to the strategy for the use of force. The British strategist Basil Liddell Hart has written that "the object of war is a better peace situation" [15]. 15] He agrees with Aristotle, for whom war is only a means to achieve peace [16]. From this common understanding between a philosopher and a strategist of the political objectives of war, it is possible to consider three principles common to strategy and ethics: the restriction of the use of force, the economy of forces and the limitation of damages.

Both the strategist and the philosopher share the same concern for restricting the use of force. From a moral point of view, the use of force can only be a last resort and must be proportionate. Strategically, extreme objectives such as revenge or victory at any price do not obey the logic of preserving national interests. As early as antiquity, Flavius Vegetius put forward the old principle of Scipio the African according to which a path of retreat must always be "a last resort".be provided to the adversary so as not to force him to fight excessively[17]. 17] Taking up this same idea, Montaigne was able to write that "one of the greatest wisdoms in military art is not to push one's enemy to despair" [18]. Moreover, rationality leads the strategist to adapt the means to the ends he pursues, but also to limit his objectives to the means at his disposal. This is one of the reasons - along with the notion of friction - why, according to Clausewitz, absolute war is a pure concept that the reality of war can approach, but not achieve [19]. 19] Strategy is thus an art of weighing up the possibilities and combining the means to achieve them. Its success depends first and foremost on a sound appreciation and adequacy of the end and the means. This search for an exact fit naturally leads to the principle of economy of forces.

This principle of warfare was defined by Foch as the art of successively weighing up the resistances one encounters with the weight of all one's forces, and for this purpose to assemble these forces into a system [20]. 20] In other words, the principle of economy of forces prescribes the unified use of all available resources in the most efficient way possible. It is a matter of avoiding any waste of one's forces, but also of using all one's forces when and where they are needed. This is not an unethical principle, even if at first glance one might consider that the use of force should be avoided whenever possible. When this is not the case and given a just war goal (a better peace situation), ethics does not oppose the use of force and converges with the strategy to make it as effective as possible. Finally, the strategist and the philosopher converge in seeking to avoid unnecessary destruction (i.e., not useful in achieving a better state of peace). The competent strategist, although not compulsively seeking to avoid battle, tries to limit the fight to the maximum in order to achieve victory. In other words, strategic thinking considers that neutralizing the enemy's ability to fight does not necessarily require the annihilation of his forces. This is an idea dear to the theorists of the indirect approach. Liddell Hart writes that strategy is "aimed at reducing combat to its leanest proportion" and that strategic perfection "is not the same as the battle itself".Liddell Hart writes on this subject that the objective of strategy is "to reduce combat to its leanest proportion" and that strategic perfection would be to "reach a decisive outcome without fighting seriously" by the movement, surprise, dislocation and, in fine, the moral disarmament of the enemy [21].

What reciprocal contributions can be made by the two fields?

To conclude this article, we can return to the two initial questions: what is the appropriate relationship between the two disciplines, ethics and strategy? What insights can ethics bring to the work of the professional strategist, and vice versa? As this article tries to show, the two fields of thought are not foreign, but related. They are structured by a number of common principles. Their respective thinkers must therefore be able to enlighten each other. In particular, ethics is not and cannot be a veneer added to the strategy to decorate it. In this respect, the contributions of the philosopher can help the strategist to carry out his task more fully and satisfactorily. More concretely, there are many ways in which the philosopher can contribute to strategic thinking. By sharing his thoughts on man in society and man at war, the philosopher can deepen the strategist's understanding of the factors that determine - implicitly or explicitly - many of his decisions. The philosopher can also increase the strategist's sensitivity to the value of the human beings affected by his decisions. In this way, ethical thinking broadens the scope of strategic calculation and provides a useful safeguard against blindness. Furthermore, the philosopher can critically examine crucial strategic decisions in order to better reveal the possible choices and moral costs of different alternatives. This contribution is particularly useful when strategists consider that there is no alternative and that "necessity is the law". Finally, the philosopher can try to help the strategist by devising principles to guide action. In this task, the philosopher must find the narrow path between two opposing intellectual pitfalls: the first is legalism which prefers to state very general principles while abandoning the idea of "best possible action" in given circumstances (the primacy of theThe second is an antinomism that claims that nothing sensible can be said concretely about responsibility in advance of the time of the decision (the primacy of circumstances over the absolute). Conversely, the strategist is very useful to the philosopher. As a field of concrete decision making, strategy offers ethics the (much needed) possibility to test the applicability of theoretical principles. Basically, the strategy poses the irritating (and therefore welcome) question to ethics whether ethics has something to say to the real world as opposed to the dream world and, therefore, whether it deserves to be listened to. To answer this question, one must ask whether real decisions are truly informed when one takes the trouble to reflect on them in the light of ethical reflection. For a member of the military, there is little doubt about that.

Conclusion

In his lectures to the officers of the War School, the philosopher Jean Guitton warned his listeners about the omission of the moral order in their strategic considerations. According to him, strategy could not be constituted as a science by ignoring metaphysical and moral problems and truths. He thus called for the emergence of a "metastrategy"...[22]. Today, these words seem more relevant than ever. At a time when there is growing interest in ethics and strategy separately, there is an urgent need to examine their relationship and mutual contributions in order to clarify how these two disciplines complement each other in action. As this article tries to show, the officer can make a useful contribution to this, as military thought is naturally at the confluence of ethics and strategy. This reflection can contribute to the construction in the economic world of a new style of management or leadership, the absence of which our society sometimes seems to suffer from. This leadership, beyond skills, will have to be based on a societal and metaphysical awareness. In fact, as André Maurois, who, in his famous "The New Management Style", foresaw it, ".Dialogues on Command"23], it is in fact the problem of leadership that is posed by the dialogue of ethics and strategy.

1] R. Edward Freeman, "[1 ] R. Edward Freeman, "The Problem of LeadershipStrategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach"( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p.25.

2] Michael E. Porter and Marc R. Kramer, "Creating Shared Value: Redefining Capitalism and the Role of the Corporation in Society" Harvard Business Review vol. 89 , no. 1/2 (January-February 2011), p. 62.

3] Bernard Ramanantsoa, "Éviter la catastrophe, retrouver une légitimité", Le Monde, 18 September 2012 .

4] MBA: Master of Business Administration.

5] In this article, the term "philosopher" is used to describe what Anglo-Saxons call an "ethicist", i.e.a thinker of applied moral philosophy.

6] Paul Ricoeur, "Ethics," in "Dictionary of Ethics and Moral Philosophy"edited by Monique Canto-Sperber (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2004), p.689.

7] Laurent Henninger and Thierry Widemann, "...Understanding War: History and Concepts"( Paris: Éditions Perrin, 2012), p.17.

[8 ] Lucien Poirier, "[8 ] Lucien Poirier, "Theoretical strategy"( Paris: Éditions Économica, 1997), p.116.

[9 ] Joseph Schumpeter, "Theory of Economic Evolution"( Paris: Éditions Dalloz, 1999).

[10 ] André Beaufre, "Introduction to the strategy"( Paris: Hachette, 2003), p.34.

11 ] Edward N. Luttwack, "The Strategy Ledger"( Paris: Éditions Odile Jacob, 2002), p.130.

12] Bernard Garrette, "[12 ] Bernard Garrette, "Strategor: the whole company strategy"( Paris: Éditions Dunod, 2009), p.6.

13] Emmanuel Kant, "On a supposed right to lie from altruistic motives," in "Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy"(New York: Garland Publishing Company, 1976), 172.

14] David Fisher, "Morality and War: Can War be Just in the^21st Century?"(New York: Oxford

University Press, 2011), p.134.

[15] Basil H. Liddell Hart, "Strategy"( Paris: Éditions Perrin, 2009), p.539.

16] Aristotle, "[16] Aristotle, "Ethics in Nicomaque"( Paris: Librairie Philosophique, 1990), 511.

[17] Flavius Végèce, "[17 ] Flavius Végèce, "Treatise on Military Art"( Paris: Éditions Hachette, 2012), p.128.

18] Montaigne, "[18 ] Montaigne, "Tests"( Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1962), p.271.

19] Carl von Clausewitz, "[19 ] Carl von Clausewitz," p. 271.From the war"( Paris: Éditions Ivrea, 2000), p.36.

20] Ferdinand Foch, "[20 ] Ferdinand Foch.Principles of war"( Paris: Éditions Économica, 2007), p.47.

[21] Basil H. Liddell Hart, "[21 ] Basil H. Liddell Hart, "[22] Liddell Hart, "Strategy"( Paris: Éditions Perrin, 2009), p.521.

22] Jean Guitton, "[22 ] Jean Guitton, "Thought and war"( Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1969), p.211.

[23 ] André Maurois, "[23 ] André Maurois, "Dialogues on Command"( Paris: Éditions Grasset, 1963).

Saint-Cyrien of the promotion "de la France Combattante" (1997-2000), Squadron Leader Charles-Emmanuel DAVIET is a cavalry officer. He graduated from the British War College in 2012 and is currently studying for the Master of Business Administration at HEC Paris.