States do this too, either b/c the personalities of leaders or b/c public opinion/outrage. See: the feedback loop of nationalist gov't's encouraging jingoism in the people, then being forced by those people to be more aggressive, even when it isn't strategically wise. 4/20
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'Make a desert and call it peace' is, in nearly all cases, not intended end-state (and also morally wrong), just delivering pain won't get you where you want to go. Strat. bombing falls into this trap easily, with the connection between means (dropping bombs) and ends... 15/20
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...ends (surrender, moral collapse) being mostly wishful thinking. So the next time you see Important Leader Person getting up on a microphone and explaining what they've done, or are going to do, listen for any traces of actual strategy. 16/20
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Ask yourself - what is the end-state here? Is it something I want? Are multiple end-states mutually exclusive (e.g. undermine influence of country Y, but also leave region) What are the means intended to produce the end-state? Are they likely to actually do that? 17/20
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And are actions being justified on strategic grounds ('this gets us where we are going') or emotional grounds - e.g. 'he was a bad guy' or 'getting them back.' Clausewitz sets the strategic layer - w/ the political object - in the realm of *reason* deliberately. 18/20
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Not that the emotional - will - is pointless in war. It's in that trinity too! Moral grounds matter - a strategy that requires immoral means is bad strategy and unlikely to succeed because it undermines the will to continue. But strategy is in the head, not the heart. 19/20
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And no citizen (or citizen-soldier) in a democracy should accept political leaders who aren't willing to be up-front about what the national strategy is, and how we're trying to achieve it. Something is very wrong if nobody outside DoD/State knows WTF is going on or why. end/20
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