To operationalize foreign affairs strategy, statesmen need not just latent, potential power but actual, mobilized power: the instruments or tools of strategy. Critical choices for these instruments arise on two levels. First, strategists must decide which instruments to buy and in what quantities; these decisions turn largely on assumptions about the international environment and the threats and opportunities it holds for the future, as discussed in Chapters 2 and 4. Second, strategists must decide which of the available instruments to use to pursue their chosen objectives – to seize immediate opportunities or deal with clear and present dangers. This second kind of choice turns on the specific strengths and weaknesses of the instruments – the subject of this chapter – and on how those relate to strategic objectives, the contexts within which they must be pursued, and their targets – the subjects of Chapters 7 and 8.

Focusing on the tools through which strategy is implemented shifts our consideration of power from the general to the specific. In fact, the whole of foreign affairs strategy must now be seen from a slightly different perspective as the strategist moves from analysis to planning, from concept to detail – in short, from thinking about strategy to doing it. In the process, our attention will also shift from Washington to the field: to the effects various actions are likely to have on other actors, how they will react, how we will respond to their reactions, and so forth.