Bret Devereaux

Back to our 3 parts: strategic failures are usually in (2) and (3). (1) - current assessment - is crucial of course. No map will help you if you don't know where you are in the first place. But those are usually intelligence failures, and their own issue. 5/20

The worst problem is a 'strategy' without an end-state (strategy without strategy). That is a sneakier trap than it sounds. Decision-makers on the ground are absorbed by the day-to-day of (3), making it easy to telescope in and lose sight of end-state goals... 6/20

...which can lead to a strategy which is backfilled from operational concerns, rather than leading them. E.g. Pearl Harbor - Japan declaring war on the USA to get oil with which to solve an operational/logistical problem in China. Not a great plan, it turns out. 7/20

...my impression is that USA has fallen into a similar trap at several points in both Afghanistan and the Mid-East. We're *there* and stuck, and we have no path to old end-states, so we keep doing what we are doing without a sense of where it is supposed to lead. 8/20

A related problem is the 'everything's a nail' problem: you have a pre-selected set of means (3), regardless of your end-state (2). E.g. looking to do conventional battles to the problem until it goes away, without ever asking "how does a conventional battle solve this?" 9/20

Sure, if the problem is another uniformed army, conventional battles can solve it. But if the problem is centered on popular support and legitimacy (e.g. Iranian influence in Iraq), trying to 'go kinetic' on it can (emphasis, *can*) be like trying to hammer a screw. 10/20

The other problem is emotional responses, passed off as means, with no connection to ends. As humans, when the 'enemy' hurts us, our instinct is to hurt them back. This is where strategy is essential - if you have an end-state strongly in mind, you can stop and ask... 11/20

"Does retaliation get me closer to my end-state? What *kind* of retaliation would get me there?" The question isn't about 'hurting the enemy' anymore, but about getting to a specific positive goal. But it's easy to get tied up thinking about 'delivering pain' to the enemy. 12/20