CHAPTER 2

THE ELEMENTS OF STRATEGIC THINKING:

A PRACTICAL GUIDE

Robert Kennedy

With 58,000 American lives lost, 350,000 casualties,

and untold national treasure forfeited, on April 30, 1975,
the last Americans in South Vietnam were airlifted out
of the country as Saigon fell to communist forces at the
height of the Cold War. A few days earlier, with the
end in clear view, a Four Party Joint Military Team,
established under provisions of the January 1973 Paris
peace accords, met in Hanoi, North Vietnam. At that
meeting, Colonel Harry Summers, Chief, Negotiations
Division of the U.S. Delegation, in a conversation with
Colonel Tu, Chief of the North Vietnamese Delegation
remarked: “You know you never defeated us on the
battlefield.” Colonel Tu responded: “That may be so,
but it is also irrelevant.”1 So was told the story of failed
strategy.
It might be facile to contend that the need for
systematic thinking about U.S. foreign and security
policies and defense issues peaked during the Cold
War. After all, during the Cold War the Soviet Union
came to pose a military threat to the United States that
was unique in American history—the threat of instant
annihilation. It also posed a direct military threat to our
allies in Europe and Asia whom we were pledged to
defend, as well as the danger of ever increasing Soviet
influence around the world through proxy wars and
other forms of political violence that seemed to some
to represent a more subtle, more likely, and perhaps
graver long-term threat to the overall security and

9
well-being of the United States. Thus the objectives
were clear. First, counterbalance Soviet strategic power
and its military might on the continent of Europe with
countervailing theater and strategic forces that could
deliver responses to any aggression by the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) so devastating that
no Soviet leader would dare take such a step. Second,
contain the growth of Soviet influence through policies
designed to thwart attempts by the USSR to subvert
governments friendly to the United States and its
allies. Though the objectives were clear, the methods to
accomplish these twin tasks were not. Here systematic
thinking was at a premium, albeit not always wisely
undertaken.
With the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of
the Cold War, these dangers disappeared. Reflecting
this change in environment, funds for intelligence,
diplomacy, and defense were initially cut and a
number of promising signs emerged. For example, the
latest available data indicate there has been a marked
decrease in armed conflicts. Notwithstanding Rwanda,
Srebrenica, and elsewhere, the number of genocides
and political murders has plummeted. The dollar
value of major arms transfers has fallen. The number
of refugees dropped. And five out of six regions in
the developing world have seen a net decrease in core
human rights abuses.2
Nevertheless, today’s world and most certainly the
world of tomorrow demand no less in terms of strategic
thinking than in the past. The events of September 11,
2001 (9/11) served as a painful reminder that we have
not yet reached the end of history, postulated and
described by one pundit as that time where conflict
is replaced by “economic calculations, the endless
solving of technical problems, environmental concern,

10
and the satisfaction of consumer demands.”3 The
world has become more, not less, complex. The single
great adversary, fixed geographically, is gone. But
in its place are multiple threats and challenges, few
of which emanate from a single nation-state and few
of which seem to pose the immense and immediate
danger that confronted the United States during the
Cold War. Today, ethnic strife threatens the stability of
nations and ethnic cleansing challenges America’s most
fundamental ideals. Drug cartels and transnational
organized crime and their handmaiden, corruption,
undermine governments and threaten our economy
and the economies of our allies and friends and nations
upon whom we depend for scarce resources and/or
markets. Trafficking human beings is an affront to
our moral values and violates our sense of what the
post-Cold War order should represent. Environmental
degradation challenges the health of our citizens and
future economic progress. These are but a few of the
challenges that we must now address.
There are, as well, some challenges, which if not
carefully confronted, are likely to pose unimaginable
dangers for the United States, its people, and others
around the world. Among the more prominent are
those resulting from the explosion of technology and
technological know-how. Attacks on cyber networks
can endanger national political, military, and economic
infrastructures, with global implications for the safety
and welfare of peoples. The increasing availability
of biological, chemical, radiological, and nuclear
technologies, which, if acquired by terrorists, so-called
rogue states, or perhaps even malevolent individuals,
could threaten the very existence of peoples and
societies. These challenges are real and demand today,
and in the future, careful attention and systematic

11
thinking if we are to preclude disaster. It will require
that America bring its domestic resources to bear. It
also will require that the United States build partners
abroad, both with governments and with individuals
ready and willing to contribute to our efforts. It will
require reducing the numbers of those who collaborate
with or knowingly ignore those insistent on doing
harm, and increasing the numbers of governments
willing to aid and individuals willing to risk their lives
to provide the United States and other governments
with information necessary to thwart those with
dangerous designs against individuals and nations.
In short, the challenges of today and tomorrow
will require well-designed strategies if we are to be
successful in preserving our values, our institutions,
and our nation.
This will not be an easy task. In general, Americans
are a pragmatic people. Frequently impatient when
confronted with complex solutions to problems they
must address, they tend to prefer direct approaches.
They are action oriented rather than reflective,
a-strategic if not anti-strategic, and all too frequently
anti-intellectual, favoring simple solutions rather than
the more involved. They prefer checkers to chess and
the approaches of Gary Cooper at High Noon and John
Wayne to the difficult tasks of examining alternative
solutions to complex problems.
French conservative Lucien Romier, writing early in
the last century, noted that Americans have a preference
for action, for speed or practical efficiency rather than
depth, and constant and lightning changes rather than
enduring qualities. Writing a few years earlier, Russian
political economist and sociologist M. Y. Ostrogorski
observed: “Of all the races in an advanced stage of
civilization, the American is the least accessible to long

12
views. . . . He is preeminently the man of short views,
views often ‘big’ in point of conception, but necessarily
short.”4 Alexis de Tocqueville, in his Democracy in
America, concluded: ”democracy is unable to regulate
the details of an important undertaking, to persevere in
a design and to work out its execution in the presence
of serious obstacles. It cannot combine measures with
secrecy, and it will not await their consequences with
patience . . . democracies . . . obey the impulse of
passion rather than the suggestion of prudence.”5
Closer to home, Clyde and Florence Kluckholm
in their mid-20th century study of American culture
contended that Americans believe in simple answers
and distrust and reject complex ones. According to the
Kluckholms, Americans also tend to be anti-expert and
anti-intellectual.6
To add to the problem, generally speaking,
American colleges and universities do not produce
strategists. Outside of business schools, few offer
courses on how to think strategically. Even in our senior
military educational institutions, the study of strategy
often devolves to the study of a few great strategic
thinkers, coupled with the study of the national security
processes (both necessary, but insufficient), rather than
an analysis of what it takes to be a sound strategist. Yet
the ability to think strategically is precisely the quality
that will be required of America’s leaders if the United
States is to deal successfully with future problems.

STRATEGY—AN ACTIVITY OF THE MIND

The word strategy comes from Greek words stratëgia

(generalship) and stratëgos (general or leader).7
Historically, the term strategy has been associated
with military activity. The father of modern strategic

13
studies, German Major-General Carl von Clausewitz,
defined strategy as “the use of the engagement for
the purpose of the war.”8 Field Marshall Helmut Carl
Bernhard Graf von Moltke contended that strategy
was “the practical adaptation of the means placed at
a general’s disposal to the attainment of the object in
view.”9 Placing less emphasis on the battles, Sir Basil
Henry Liddell Hart criticized Clausewitz, contending
that Clausewitz’ emphasis on battles suggests that
battles were the only means of achieving strategic
ends.10 Thus, Liddell Hart defined strategy as “the art of
distributing and applying military means to fulfill the
ends of policy.”11 Liddell Hart’s definition suggests a
somewhat wider variety of military means, and clearly
emphasizes that the political objectives are the ends to
be pursued by military means. Of course, Clausewitz
made the latter point early in his seminal On War by
his famous dictum “war is not a mere act of policy, but
a true political instrument, a continuation of political
activity by other means.”12
Increasingly in the 20th century, students of
strategy extended the definition well beyond the field
of military activity, applying the term regularly in such
fields as business, politics, and foreign and security
policy. While the Merriam-Webster dictionary, paying
partial deference to earlier uses of the word in a
military context, provides as its first definition “the
science and art of employing the political, economic,
psychological, and military forces of a nation or group
of nations to afford the maximum support for adopted
policies in peace and war.”13 It simplifies but broadens
the understanding of strategy, providing it with its
modern look, in its second definition: “a careful plan
or method; the art of devising or employing plans or
stratagems toward a goal.”14 Both definitions miss
the mark. In the simplest of terms, strategy is the

14
integrated application of available means to accomplish
desired ends. The emphasis is on integrated. The first
definition misses this important point. The second
definition, though perhaps too broad to be useful,
does emphasize that strategy is simply a game plan.
The haphazard or spontaneous employment of means
cannot be considered strategy.
At the national political or military level, a more
useful definition of strategy is the integrated application
of the instruments of national power (e.g., political/
diplomatic, psychological, economic, informational,
and military) in pursuit of national interests. Strategy
understood as the integrated application of available
means to accomplish desired ends, of course, does not
limit strategy to the use only of available means. A
well-developed strategy may include efforts that lead
to an enhancement of means.
Despite this seeming simplicity, strategy is a term
that is frequently misused. For example, during the
Cold War the security and defense community often
referred to the strategy of containment. Yet strategy
cannot be a simple restatement of an objective, such
as containment or the containing of the Soviet threat.
To do so ignores the fact that there can be multiple
avenues of approach to accomplishing an objective.
Nor can strategy easily be reduced to a single term. It is
a multiplicity of actions, carefully integrating available
means in order to achieve desired ends.
Strategy is neither strictly art nor science. Yet, in
some ways, it is both. As an art, the ability to think
strategically is a skill that can be acquired through
experience, observation, and study. As a science,
thinking strategically entails the systematic pursuit
of knowledge involving, among other things, the
recognition and formulation of a problem, the
collecting of information, and the formulation and

15
testing/analysis of alternative hypotheses. However,
strategy is preeminently an activity of the mind. As
was war for Clausewitz,15 strategy is an act of human
intercourse. It is about influencing behavior. It is the
formulation of a game plan designed to get inside
the decisionmaking loop of others, to get them to do
what they might not otherwise have done—whether
in the halls of government, in the boardroom, or on the
battlefield. So it was for Sun Tzu, who wrote: “. . . to
win 100 victories in 100 battles is not the acme of skill.
To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of
skill;”16 and, “those skilled in war subdue the enemy’s
army without battle. They capture his cities without
assaulting them and overthrow his state without
protracted operations.”17
Reflecting a similar thought, Tu Mu, writing
sometime between 619 and 905 A.D., observed: “He
who excels at resolving difficulties does so before
they arise. He who excels in conquering his enemies
triumphs before threats materialize.”18 Nearly a mil-
lennium and a half later, in a note to himself, Liddell
Hart wrote: “to influence man’s thought is far more
important and more lasting in effect than to control
their bodies or regulate their actions . . .”19
This is not to say that well-framed national
security or military strategy can always accomplish
its objectives without combat. Rather, it is to say that
a sound strategy (that is, the integrated application of
available means) may well yield the desired political
result without conflict. However, should conflict
occur, sound strategy surely enhances the prospects
of achieving desired military and, above all, political
outcomes. It is reasonable to interpret Sun Tzu’s
dictum that “a victorious army wins its victories before
seeking battle; an army destined to defeat fights in

16
hope of winning”20 as meaning that soundly prepared
strategy leads to victories. On the other hand, to quote
the title of Thomas Mowle’s book, Hope is not a Plan.
The absence of a strategy increases the likelihood of
defeat.

FALSE DICHOTOMIES

The Department of Defense (DoD) defines strategy

as “A prudent idea or set of ideas for employing the
instruments of national power in a synchronized and
integrated fashion to achieve theater, national, and/
or multinational objectives.”21 Gabriel Marcella and
Stephen Fought find this definition “bureaucratically
appealing, politically correct, and relatively useless.”22
For somewhat different reasons, I would agree. First,
the DoD definition raises strategy to a transcendent
entity—an idea, imbuing it with an ethereal quality
that is likely to mystify rather than clarify just what is
intended by the term. Second, though I find myself in
complete agreement with the DoD’s use of the word
integrated, the use of the word synchronized might
suggest to some that the available means must be
employed in a synchronous or simultaneous fashion.
Depending on the circumstances, however, some
means may be employed simultaneously while others
sequentially—as in a game plan in almost any sport.
Finally, the DoD definition wrongly ties strategy to the
“instruments of national power,” relegating strategy
solely to accomplishing “theater, national, and or
multinational objectives.”23 Such a definition, of course,
accords with what has generally been considered
to be grand strategy or perhaps national strategy, but
strips it of its utility as an important tool at every
level of human endeavor. For the military, the result
has been the establishment of a wall of separation

17
between strategy, supposedly only undertaken by
senior political and military officials, and the so-called
operational art, undertaken at the theater or campaign
level of a conflict.
The U.S. military borrowed the term operational
art from the Soviets to describe the conceptualization
of warfare at the campaign/theater level. Of course
operational art isn’t an art, or at least not solely art,
thus a poor descriptor in the first place for what is
intended. The DoD defines operational art as “The
application of creative imagination by commanders
and staffs—supported by their skill, knowledge, and
experience—to design strategies, campaigns, and
major operations and organize and employ military
forces. Operational art integrates ends, ways, and
means across the levels of war.”24 Now that is a lot
of bureaucratese to describe thinking strategically at
the operational level of warfare, which the DoD
subsequently defines as:

The level of war at which campaigns and major

operations are planned, conducted, and sustained to
achieve strategic objectives within theaters or other
operational areas. Activities at this level link tactics
and strategy by establishing operational objectives
needed to achieve the strategic objectives, sequencing
events to achieve the operational objectives, initiating
actions, and applying resources to bring about and
sustain these events.25

Furthermore, the DoD definition of operational art

suggests that designing campaign and major military
operations is on an equal footing with designing
strategies, rather than products of strategy.
Similarly, the military has established a wall of
separation between strategy and tactics, the latter of
which it regards as an activity undertaken by lower

18
level officials. As with the word strategy, the word
tactics has a long history, derived from the Greek
word taktika and its plural taktikos or fit for arranging.26
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary provides as a first
definition of tactics: “the science and art of disposing
and maneuvering forces in combat,” amplifying that
with “the art or skill of employing available means to
accomplish an end.”27 While the first pays deference to
earlier uses related solely to military forces, the latter
bit sounds curiously enough like strategy. Regret-
tably, the DoD defines tactics as “The employment
and ordered arrangement of forces in relation to
each other,”28 thus condemning those who operate at
the tactical level of warfare to the implementing of
procedures and the employment of approved tech-
niques—two synonymies to which one is referred for a
better understanding of the term tactics. Thus, we are
left with a largely useless definition for the full panoply
of tasks undertaken by lower level commanders,
particularly given the conditions of modern warfare.
This is, of course, not to deny that commanders at
the tactical level often confront problems that are
amenable to “engineered” or structured solutions in
which repetitive training and the application of ap-
proved techniques and procedures significantly in-
crease the prospects for success once militarily engaged
with the enemy. However, the modern battlefield
seldom mimics classical models, particular in an age
of asymmetric warfare. Ceteris paribus seldom, if ever,
applies as adversaries adjust to American strengths
and probe for weakness. Thus, tactical commanders
are and will increasingly be required to exercise not
just intuitive skills based on pattern recognition and
procedural responses employing approved techniques,
but also reasoned analysis and judgments that bring

19
to bear all available tools at the commander’s disposal
in order to achieve success.
The point here is that, in reality, success at each
level of military activity—strategic, operational, or
lower levels—requires that commanders at those levels
think strategically, employing in an integrated manner
available means to achieve desired ends. Perhaps more
importantly, these means should and often do include
means beyond those of preparing military forces and
engaging in combat. For example, military operations
below the campaign or theater level often include
working with local leaders and others to provide
intelligence and force security (political), cutting of
supply routes to adversaries (economic), undertaking
local projects to provide safe water or the delivery of
food to the local population (economic/psychological),
and/or the use of deception to alter the mind set of the
adversary (psychological).
Liddell Hart wrote: “In peace we concentrate so
much on tactics that we are apt to forget that it is merely
the handmaiden of strategy.”29 There is a greater truth
in this statement than Liddell Hart had intended.
That truth is that those generally accepted tactics (i.e.,
procedures and employment techniques) are there to
serve the game plan of the tactical commander. They do
not relieve him of his responsibility to develop a game
plan that includes all instruments available to him nor
do they relieve those who prepared him for tactical
level command of their responsibility to educate and
train him in an understanding of and ability to develop
strategy at tactical levels.

20
DELINKING STRATEGY FROM THE WORD
STRATEGIC

Perhaps part of the problem we confront in

terminology is that as the use of the word strategy
was becoming more prominent in the military as well
as nonmilitary fields of endeavor, there was a corre-
sponding increase in the use of the word strategic. As a
part of Allied strategy for defeating Nazi Germany, the
United States and Great Britain undertook “strategic
bombing” aimed at crippling Germany’s war effort
and will to fight. Following the end of World War II,
the United States established the Strategic Air Com-
mand, whose task it was to deliver a withering blow to
the Soviet Union should it attack the United States or
its allies. Strategic bombers, submarines, and missiles
were defined as those that could deliver weapons over
long-ranges, affecting the prospects for the survival of
a nation. In juxtaposition, tactical forces were those of
lesser reach, which, when employed, had little impact
on the survivability of a nation. In business, industry,
and education, institutions were charged with
developing strategic plans detailing how they would
advance their long-term objectives. Unfortunately,
the word strategy, particularly through past military
usage, too often has come to be linked to its derived
cousin, strategic, and has come to signify only what
is done at the strategic level of military or business
endeavors, rather than being understood in terms of
a game plan. One pernicious result is the perception
that only national leaders and perhaps senior military
officers are the ones who engage in strategy.

21
POLICY VS. STRATEGY CONUNDRUM

It is common to contend that strategy must follow

policy. For example, if it is U.S. policy to support a two-
state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli problem, then
it is the task of those charged with carrying out U.S.
policy in the region to devise a strategy to meet the
needs of policy. Similarly, if it is U.S. policy to support
democratic movements in foreign countries, then it
is the charge of those assigned to implement policy
in the various regions and countries of the world to
devise strategies to accomplish the task. This is policy
as setting objectives.
However, there is another way of looking at policy,
that is, policy as a means. For example, the two-state
policy set by the U.S. Government is likely to be a part
of a broader set of policies with grander objectives.
Other policies might include restricting arms flows
to Hamas, encouraging human rights and greater
democracy in the region, opening a dialogue with
Syria in order to find common ground for cooperation,
encouraging outside actors to support U.S. efforts in the
region, etc. Taken together, these policies thus serve as
a means to achieve broader national goals. Such goals
might include reducing the probability of conflict,
increasing the general welfare of the region’s citizenry,
reducing likelihood that the region’s problems serve as
a breeding ground for terrorism, stabilizing the region
to ensure the orderly flow of oil from the region and
increased stability in world oil markets, and improving
global cooperation on vexing problems that threaten
the international community. Thus the sum total of
such policies, in fact, is (or at least should be) a product
of a grander strategy. Under such circumstances, one
could properly conclude that policies serve strategy.

22
Strategy comes first. Then follow policies as the means
to accomplish one’s strategic design.30
This is important to keep in mind, because as one
moves from grand or national strategy to policies at
multilevels below grand strategy, one must remain
aware of the fact that lower level policies are but a
means to accomplish national level tasks. Furthermore,
as means they remain among a variety of choices
governments can make to accomplish desired ends.
The danger is always in allowing lower level policies,
which serve as means, to become national level
objectives. Perhaps this was the case, for example,
during the 1960s and 1970s, when, in pursuing the
objective of enhancing the security of the nation, the
United States engaged in a long war in Vietnam in
order to check the worldwide growth of communism.
Indeed, for years Vietnam was considered a vital
national interest—one worth the shedding of the
blood of many young Americans. Following the defeat
of South Vietnamese forces by the North, Vietnam
ceased to be a vital interest. Had we for many years
transformed a means into the end itself, failing to
realize, until the administration of President Nixon,
that there were other means to enhance the security of
the nation?
A more insidious problem in the policy vs. strategy,
chicken vs. egg, debate, particularly where military
strategy is concerned, is that the very separation of these
two terms suggests that there are two clearly identifi-
able realms of activity. In fact, where national security
policy is concerned and the instruments of military
power are to be employed (e.g., covert operations,
displays of force, deployments, and the wide range
of potential employment options), judgments by
policymakers must be formed only in close consulta-

23
tion with their military advisers. As Clausewitz noted
in his tactical letter to General Muffling: “The task . . . is
mainly to prevent policy from demanding things which
are against the nature of war (italics in original), and
out of ignorance of the instruments from committing
errors in their use.”31 More importantly, those whose
task it is to undertake military activity on behalf of the
political goals set by the nations leaders must be well-
educated in the strengths and weaknesses of all the
instruments of national power, so that they can advise
best on what other instruments should be employed
and in what manner so as to maximize the useful-
ness of the military options that might be chosen.
To better illustrate this point, during the troubled
times in Central America and the Caribbean in the late
1970s, the U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute was
called upon to undertake a study of the role of the
military in that region. When the study was completed,
it recommended the United States undertake a number
of political/diplomatic and economic initiatives in
conjunction with recommended efforts by military
personnel. When this study was briefed to a senior
military official, that official asked why he needed to
know about the political/diplomatic and economic
initiatives, since his task was to salute and undertake
whatever military tasks were assigned. In response, the
briefing team noted that the probability of success of
any specific military option hinged on its careful selec-
tion from and coordination with the other instruments
of national power. Thus, it was the task of senior military
leaders to ensure that the nation’s political leaders
were well aware of the need for a strategy that integra-
ted the instruments into an effective plan to advance
U.S. interests in the countries of the region.

24
ELEMENTS OF THINKING STRATEGICALLY

Some years ago, Kenichi Ohmae in his seminal

The Mind of the Strategist said: “successful business
strategies result not from rigorous analysis but from a
particular state of mind.”32 He went on to contend:

[In] the mind of a strategist, insight and a consequent

drive for achievement . . . fuel a thought process which
is basically creative and intuitive rather than rational.
Strategists do not reject analysis. Indeed, they can
hardly do without it. But they use it only to stimulate
the creative processes, to test the ideas that emerge,
to work out their strategic implications, or to ensure
successful execution of high-potential “wild” ideas
that might otherwise not be implemented properly.33

One might infer from such a statement that strat-

egists are born, not made. Not so, Ohmae responded,
“There are ways in which the mind of the strategist can
be reproduced or simulated, by people who may lack
a natural talent for strategy . . . there are some specific
concepts and approaches that help anyone develop the
kind of mentality that comes up with superior strategic
ideas.”34
If Ohmae is correct, what then are these concepts
and approaches that, if taught, can help develop good
strategists? What then are those universal elements that
constitute sound approach to dealing with a problem?
What are the concepts that, through practice, will train
the mind to think rationally and methodically, yet serve
to stimulate the creative processes and thus lead to the
development of well-framed game plans, elements
that can be applied at all levels of human interaction,
whether one is dealing with a crisis, an immediate
confrontation, or engaged in long-term planning?

25
 I would suggest seven broad categories of inquiry—
(1) defining the situation, (2) detailing your concerns
and objectives, those of your principal antagonist(s)/
competitor(s), and those of other important players,
(3) identifying and analyzing options that might
be pursued, in terms of such factors as costs, risks,
and probabilities of success, (4) options selection
and alternatives analysis in the light of potential
frictions, (5) reoptimization in light of changing
events, (6) evaluation of the option in terms of its
success in achieving desired results, and finally, (7)
option modification or replacement. The proposed
processes are rational and methodical; yet involve
thinking that is nonlinear as well as multidimensional,
thus stimulating creativity. In examining each of the
elements, I will refer to the development of strategy at
the national level. However, the model can be applied
at all levels of activity.

Defining the Situation.

The first step in developing a sound strategy for

dealing with a problem is to detail the facts of the
situation: what the actual situation is as best can be
known at this point—i.e., the objective, not subjective
reality. In a military environment, this would include
an elaboration of the characteristics of the operating
area, including political, economic, and sociological
factors that may affect operations and a detailing
of enemy, as well as friendly, forces, much akin to
that what is often provided in the Commander’s
Estimate of the Situation, though not so cursorily
drawn, as is too often the case. Unconfirmed reports
or speculative information must be set aside for
further investigation—perhaps intelligence tasking.
Statements of values and the ascribing of intentions to

26
any of the actors should be avoided. Facts are value
neutral. At this point, any introduction of values and
speculation about the intentions of other players will
cloud rather than help clarify the situation. Similarly,
interjecting one’s concerns and one’s own objectives,
though one could argue are indeed facts, are steps that
should only be taken after the factual situation has
been clearly defined. On first blush, this may seem a bit
mechanical. However, it provides a necessary clarity
essential for the development of effective strategies.

Identifying One’s Concerns.

Once the facts of the situation have been detailed,

then one should clearly define just what it is that is of
concern. What is it that is causing that uneasy state
of blended interests, uncertainty, and apprehension?
What is it that disturbs or creates angst? Here the
trained strategist is disciplined to avoid simply
restating the facts, for example, country X has invaded
country Y, but rather why should we care? Why should
we be concerned? He or she also avoids exaggerating
the dangers. Exaggeration of the potential dangers,
more often than not, impedes rather than advances the
prospects for the emergence of effective strategies, as
fear conquers rationality.
Furthermore, the trained strategist will consider not
just immediate concerns that emanate directly from the
existing problem, but also broader, short-, medium-,
and long-term concerns that might be the product of
the nonresolution of the current problem. Thus the
mind must be trained to wander beyond the confines
of the existing issue and the immediate parties to the
broader arena of issues among a wider range of parties
and interests that might be affected. For example, the

27
testing by North Korea of missiles capable of putting
a satellite in orbit, when coupled with their continued
development and acquisition of nuclear weapons,
not only raises concerns about stability on the Korean
peninsula, but also a wide variety of concerns ranging
from the future of stability, arms races, and the
proliferation of nuclear weapons in Asia to the future
dangers such developments might pose for America’s
security.
Where a developing situation raises multiple
concerns, as is most often the case, concerns then must
be prioritized. For example, if a country such as Iran
is seeking to acquire nuclear technology ostensibly for
the production of nuclear energy, the U.S. President
may be concerned that those materials might be used
in the production of nuclear weapons. He also might
be concerned that such weapons, if developed, might
upset the balance of power in the region in which the
country is located, undermine U.S. interests and those
of friends and allies, and result in a further breakdown
in efforts to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons
and the spread of such technologies to terrorist groups
and others bent on doing harm. Furthermore, the
President might well be concerned that such weapons
could be used against one or more friendly countries
in the region, or might result in a preemptive or
preventive attack by one of the threatened countries
and subsequent regional conflagration, eventually
forcing the United States to take military action with its
attendant loss of innocent lives and potential regional
and global political and economic implications.
Additionally, he might be concerned that any failure
to act on his part may be perceived by Iran as well
as others, including some in the United States, as
weakness. Countries in the region might start paying

28
deference to Iran, and/or other countries reliant on
the security provided by the United States might lose
confidence in those guarantees. All of such concerns
are not of equal weight. Prioritizing concerns before
making recommendations to the President enables the
strategist to analyze and evaluate options for dealing
with the problem in terms of their ability to address, if
not all concerns, the most critical ones.

Identifying One’s Objectives.

Once concerns have been identified and prioritized,

it is then time to specify one’s short-, medium-, and
long-term objectives for the country, region, and
worldwide objectives. A number of objectives may be
long-standing in nature or an outgrowth of current
events or both. For example, in the Iranian example
noted above, an objective of preserving or improving
regional stability not only would be a reflection of
long-standing American policy, but also the result of
concerns raised by the emerging crisis.
However, objectives should also be viewed in an
expansive context. Sound strategic thinking at the
national level demands that seemingly unrelated
regional and global objectives also be understood and
delineated. In today’s globalized world, crises and
their solutions seldom exist in isolation. Actions in
one part of the world often beget actions, even if not
equal and opposite, in other parts of the world. Thus,
it is imperative that strategists have a well-rounded
understanding of the broader policy objectives before
undertaking analyses of potential options for dealing
with given situations.
Though the contention that the Chinese pictograph
for crisis is made up of two characters, one standing

29
for opportunity, the other for danger, is a matter of dis-
pute, history is replete with examples of opportunities
derived from danger. Peoples have been mobilized,
decisions made, and energies expended that would
not otherwise have occurred in the absence of a crisis
and the dangers it entailed. Thus nearly every crisis
affords the opportunity to advance or, depending on
the policy options chosen, endanger the successful
accomplishment of broader objectives. Thus, for
example, the United States might have such broader
political objectives as improving relations with Russia
and China, forging a just peace in the Middle East, and
further advancing cooperation with and among our
European allies. A clear understanding of such broader
objectives would permit strategists seeking solutions,
say to the Iranian dilemma noted above, to evaluate
policy options in terms of their impact on such broader
objectives.
Perhaps more importantly, where policy objectives
are unclear, poorly articulated, and/or in conflict
with one another, the strategist must be a visionary,
identifying the road ahead, clarifying objectives, and
engaging in carefully articulated discussions with those
responsible for setting the broader national or military
objectives. In simple terms, to travel the correct road,
you need to know where you are going. For example, at
the end of World War II, President Truman ultimately
rejected the plan of Secretary of the Treasury Henry
Morgenthau, Jr., which, among other things, would
have divided Germany, allowed for the annexation
of parts of Germany by its neighbors, and reduced
Germany to an agrarian state. President Truman opted
instead for a united Germany and a policy of economic
reconstruction. By 1951 the Truman administration
also had spent about $12.4 billion under the Marshall

30
Plan to assist Europeans in their economic recovery.
Such efforts gave both the Germans and others hope of
a brighter future, which has resulted in a historically
unprecedented era of peace and cooperation in all of
Western Europe.
No such vision accompanied U.S. assistance to
Afghanistan following the 1979 Soviet invasion. When
the last Soviet troops were withdrawn from Afghan-
istan on February 15, 1989, following nearly a decade
of war, the United States abandoned Afghanistan. Thus
Afghanistan was left to deal with its own problems
of political and economic stability and the explosion
of Taliban influence and subsequent human rights
violations. Today the United States continues to suffer
the consequences of this lack of foresight.
Like concerns, objectives also should be prioritized.
Failure to do so may ultimately lead to choosing options
for dealing with a situation that, while they success-
fully resolve the current problem, place in jeopardy
higher priority regional and global goals. For example,
some have argued that, while it may have been laud-
able for the United States to remove the brutal dictator
Saddam Hussein, the invasion of Iraq became the poster
child for recruiting terrorists around the world, thus
undermining a major post 9/11 objective of American
foreign policy.

Identifying the Objectives and Concerns of Others.

Understanding the objectives and concerns of

the principal antagonist(s), as well as other principal
players, is of paramount importance in devising any
game plan. Here informed speculation can play a
significant role. One can seldom know with a high
degree of certainty the objectives and concerns of others,

31
particularly nation-states. Indeed, actions often may
reflect bureaucratic, institutional, or political factors
that are not easily accounted for in a simple rational
actor model of behavior. Thus, in-depth knowledge of
such factors as the country’s history, culture, past act-
ions, and those bureaucratic, institutional, and political
factors that might affect the country’s decisionmaking
processes is required. Former Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara correctly identified one of the major
reasons for our failed strategy in Vietnam, noting that
our judgments of friend and foe, alike, reflected our
profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics
of the people in the area, and the personalities and
habits of their leaders.35
A trained strategist does not necessarily require
such knowledge, though it would enhance his ability
to undertake informed speculation. However, in the
absence of such skills, the strategists must surround
themselves with those who do, and be trained to ask
the right questions.
The question, of course, that always arises is:
What if the adversary behaves irrationally? Without
disputing the fact that individuals and groups may
act irrationally, their actions, from their point of view,
seldom, if ever, are perceived as irrational. Thus, an
understanding of what motivates the behavior of
leaders, what they seek, what they fear, what may
drive them to make decisions that from our perspec-
tive may seem irrational, is essential in the formula-
tion of sound political and military strategies.
The absence of an understanding of such factors
may have led to a profound strategic failure that culm-
inated in the 2003 Iraq War. The White House contin-
ued to believe, despite significant if not overwhelming
evidence to the contrary, that Saddam Hussein had

32
weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In August 1995
General Hussein Kamal, the defecting son-in-law
of Saddam Hussein, had reported to senior United
Nations (UN) officials: “All weapons—biological,
chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed.”36 UN
inspectors, despite having the best available intelligence
from the United States and other countries, were unable
to discover any WMD. Other evidence suggesting
that Saddam Hussein had continued or renewed his
efforts to acquire WMD rested on thin reeds.37 One
can imagine that from the White House perspective,
given the circumstances of an impending attack by the
United States and other allied forces, it simply would
have been irrational for Saddam Hussein not to take
all steps necessary to assure the United States that Iraq
did not possess such weapons. But, according to the
post-invasion Duelfer Report which confirmed that
no WMD could be found, Saddam, greatly weakened
following the war with Iran which ended in 1988 and
the Gulf War of 1991 and concerned about his enemies,
did not want to appear weak and therefore was
deceiving the world about the presence of WMD.38 The
result: a long war that has cost the United States dearly
in lives, treasure, and reputation, and more than likely
added fuel to the flames of terrorism.

Options Identification and Analysis.

The next step in the process is to identify potential

options that might exist that can advance one’s
objectives, while allaying or limiting one’s concerns
and to analyze the costs and risks that each option
or group of options entails. At the level of grand/
national strategy, options usually include one or
more instruments of national strategy, which are the

33
multifaceted means that are to be used to accomplish
desired ends. Such instruments usually fall into such
categories as political/diplomatic, informational,
economic, psychological, and military. Options
may include the use of two or more instruments
simultaneously or sequentially or both or primary
reliance on a single instrument.
For example, during the Gulf crisis and war of
1990-1991, the administration of George H. W. Bush,
determined that Saddam Hussein’s occupation and
annexation of Kuwait should not be allowed to stand,
reached into its tool bag of implements, and selected
a number of political/diplomatic, economic, and
military instruments. Among those instruments used,
diplomacy initially was employed primarily to garner
support for the removal of Saddam’s forces from
Kuwait. Economic sanctions, though often imperfect
in effect, were employed to demonstrate to Saddam
and others the severity of the situation and perhaps as
a necessary step in the process of getting later approval
for the employment of force. Since publics and nations
often expect the use of all means short of war before
agreeing to the use of force, the economic instrument
may play both an economic and a psychological role.
Later the economic instrument, including promises
of aid, debt forgiveness, and direct payments, was
used in conjunction with the diplomatic instrument
to encourage support by other nations for military
efforts to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Additionally,
significant numbers of ground, air, and naval forces
were deployed to the region to prevent Saddam’s
ambitions from extending to the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, to serve as a warning that failure to comply
with UN resolutions calling for a withdrawal of forces
might result in war, and later to force Iraqi withdrawal.

34
 Shortly following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the
psychological instrument also was employed. To those
concerned about what kind of order the post-Cold
War world would involve, Bush linked the success of
a “new world order, a world where the rule of law, not
the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations,”39
with the international community’s response to the
invasion of Kuwait. To those appalled by such overt
aggression, the Bush administration raised the specter
of another Hitler, this time in the Middle East. To
those concerned about the cost of living and future
economic progress, the administration linked failure
to firmly confront Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait with high
oil prices, and declining economies. The psychological
instrument proved helpful in securing the support of
the American public and a favorable Congressional
vote to authorize the use of military forces to end Iraqi
occupation of Kuwait.
This was a nonlinear, multidimensional, simul-
taneous, and sequential use of multiple instruments of
national power to achieve national objectives—in short,
a well-framed strategy. On August 2, 1990, the very
day Iraq invaded Kuwait, all five permanent members
and nine of the other 10 members (Yemen did not
vote) of the UN Security Council voted in favor of UN
Security Council Resolution 660, condemning the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait and demanding the withdrawal of
Iraqi troops. Four days later, 13 members of the UN
Security Council voted in favor of Resolution 661,
placing economic sanctions on Iraq (Cuba and Yemen
abstained). On November 29, 1990, 12 members of the
UN Security Council voted in favor of Resolution 678
(Cuba and Yemen voted against and China abstained),
which gave Iraq until January 15, 1991, to withdraw
from Kuwait and authorized “all necessary means to

35
uphold and implement Resolution 660,”40 a diplomatic
formulation authorizing the use of force. On January
12, the U.S. Congress authorized the use of U.S. military
forces. On January 17, the air war began. On February
24, allied ground forces began their attack. Thirty-four
countries lent their support. Within about 100 hours of
the initial ground assault by allied forces, the world’s
fourth-largest army was defeated.
On the other hand, there are times when a single
instrument of power has been the primary tool in
attempts to advance American policies. This, for
example, has been for the most part the case in U.S.
attempts to achieve a just settlement in the Middle East,
where it has often relied primarily on diplomacy with
an occasional suggestion of the use of the economic
instrument in efforts to cajole parties in the Middle
East to the American point of view.
Understanding the objectives and concerns of the
adversaries or potential adversaries and other principal
players—what they seek, what they value, and what
they fear—is a major ingredient in identifying how
their behavior can be influenced. Thus, the option(s)
ultimately selected not only should promise to allay
U.S. concerns and advance U.S. objectives within
bearable costs and risks, but also should be formulated
in such a way that failure on the part of the other actors
to adopt behavior in line with U.S. preferences would
lead to an increase in their concerns and a reduction in
the possibility that they would achieve their objectives.
Ideally, adoption of the U.S. preferred option(s) also
would allay some, if not all, of their concerns and
advance some of their objectives. In other words,
at the national level wise policies seek to create the
perception, if not the reality, of a win-win scenario.
This, of course, was the strategy pursued by the United

36
States and the Soviet Union as they entered into arms
control negotiations begun in Helsinki, Finland, in
1969.
On the battlefield, of course, this non-zero sum,
win-win approach often fails the test of reason, since
the object of combat is defeat of the enemy. Yet the
basic principles remain, where available means are
used to alter and direct the behavior of an adversary,
perhaps luring him to actions that favor his defeat. The
use of deception as a tool to affect the psychology and
thus decisionmaking of Hitler prior to the invasion at
Normandy is a prime example.
The options development phase of strategy is the
phase that demands the greatest degree of creativity.
Too often this is the weakest point. Options are
frequently too narrowly drawn. Choices are sometimes
framed in terms of three options—one at one extreme,
the other at the other extreme, and one somewhere
between—that all reasonable decisionmakers are
expected to elect. Or perhaps choices are framed even
more narrowly—concede/surrender or fight. All
too often, options are the product of linear thinking.
Typical of a linear approach is a formulation and
analysis of options that focus solely on solutions to the
existing problem. Thus, linear thinking often fails to
consider an option’s medium- and long-term impact
on the objectives and concerns of other players, as well
as on the objectives and concerns that seemingly stand
quite apart from the contemporary problem, perhaps
relating to issues and countries not directly affected or
involved in the current situation. In short, the strategist
must have an understanding of the entire strategic
environment at his or her level of activity if an effective
strategy is to be devised.41
The well-trained strategist also understands that,
“as with other aspects of life, there may be problems

37
for which there are no immediate solutions. . . . At
times, we may have to live with an imperfect, untidy
world.”42 On the other hand, good strategy is not risk
free. Seeking risk free options is a common prescription
for inaction or failure.

Options Selection and the Frictions and Fog of Events.

This is the final stage of the initial process of

strategy building. Each multifaceted option, having
been rationally examined in terms of its costs and risks,
is exposed to the scrutiny of the strategist in terms of
its probability of allaying concerns and advancing
objectives. It is at this stage that intuition can play a
significant role. Intuition is not a guess. It is the “power
or faculty of attaining direct knowledge or cognition
without evident rational thought and inference.”43
It is a quick and ready insight, that immediate
understanding that comes from previous knowledge
and experience. Thus a successful strategist is likely to
be one who has a sound understanding of the players
(at the national level—other nations or nonstate
actors; in military situations—of opposing forces and
their leadership), a well-rounded knowledge of the
strengths and weaknesses of the various instruments
at his or her disposal, and enough experience to know
that seldom if ever do things go according to plan.
Of course this is what Clausewitz labeled “friction.”
To paraphrase Clausewitz, everything may look
simple, the knowledge required may seem to be at
hand, and the strategic options may seem obvious.
However, once the clash of wills is engaged, stuff
happens. Or as Moltke put it: “No plan of operations
survives the first collision with the main body of the
enemy.”44 However, it would be wrong to conclude as

38
Moltke that under such circumstances strategy is little
more than a “system of expedients.”45 Rather it is to
underscore and broaden the context of a view of war
held by Marshall Maurice de Saxe: “. . . it is possible
to make war without trusting anything to accident.”46
Factoring in the potential for frictions to arise and for
situational changes that may affect the game plan is
a part of thinking strategically. Thus it is at this stage
that the strategist must be trained to ask the “What
if” question. What if things do not go according to
plan? What additional alternatives remain? Again, not
unlike sports, all other things being relatively equal,
success comes to those who are best able to respond
flexibly, to plan for and pursue alternative courses of
actions should their preferred approach fail to succeed.
Indeed, to paraphrase a cardinal principle of French
General Pierre-Joseph de Bourcet, who was infected by
thinking similar to that of de Saxe: a game plan should
have several branches.
One should study the possible courses of action
in the light of the obstacles to be overcome, of the
inconveniences or advantages that will result from
the success of each branch, and, after taking account
of the more likely objections, decide on the part which
can lead to the greatest advantages, while employing
diversions and all else that one can do to mislead the
enemy and make him imagine that the main effort is
coming at some other part.47
Failure to ask the “What if” question and plan for
alternative approaches may well have been the single
most significant factor that has resulted in a long-term,
costly engagement in Iraq. Though warned beforehand
that large numbers of forces would be required to keep
the peace in Iraq following any successful invasion,
President George W. Bush chose the comfort of rosy

39
predictions rather than ask such critical questions as:
What if chaos ensued and things went south? What
might be the resulting implications for the American
game plan? What steps should be taken ahead of time
to either preclude chaos or bring quick order to Iraq to
prevent an ensuing breakdown in the social order that
surely would be costly in terms of additional lives lost
and might threaten the very success of the objectives
sought by the invasion in the first place?

FOLLOW-ON ACTIVITIES

Sound strategies never end with the implementation

of the selected option. Constant vigilance is demanded
with an eye toward ever evolving situations. Thus any
selection of means will require a re-optimization in
light of changing events and then evaluation in terms
of the success in alleviating concerns and achieving
objectives relative to the current situation, as well as
other short-, medium-, and long-term concerns and
objectives. Modifications will be made, which in turn
will require further evaluation, in a continuing process,
which may see major alterations to the original plan.
In this regard, strategists must retain a flexibility of
mind until such time as the designated objectives are
achieved.

CONCLUSIONS

Strategy can best be understood as the integrated

application of available means to achieve desired
ends. At the national level such means usually include
a combination of political/diplomatic, informational,
economic, psychological, and military instruments.
However, the need to think strategically permeates

40
all levels of decisionmaking. False dichotomies, which
suggest that strategy is what is undertaken at higher
levels of government or the military and tactics is what
lower levels undertake, are not only misleading, but
also counterproductive. Individuals must be trained
to think strategically at all levels. Only then can they
employ the means at their disposal in ways that
maximize the probability of achieving success.
Also misleading is the artificial separation of
policy and strategy. Policies understood as objectives
cannot succeed without a corresponding strategy for
achievement. Likewise, the aggregation of policies,
understood as means when well thought through and
well-integrated, constitute a strategy.
The primary task with which we are confronted is
to educate and train individuals to think strategically at
all levels of endeavor. This chapter has identified those
elements that, if practiced iteratively, will help train the
mind to think methodically, rationally, and creatively,
that is, to think strategically. There are those who come
by such methods naturally but, as with good artists
and scientists, most are educated to their profession.
As we look to the future, the need for strategic thinking
and sound strategists will be at a premium. We must
therefore develop a solid cohort of those who can do
so, whether they are dealing with a crisis, handling
an immediate confrontation, or engaged in long-term
planning.

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 2

1. Harry G. Summers, Jr., On Strategy: The Vietnam War in

Context, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War
College, 1981, p. 1.

41
 2. “Overview,” The Human Security Report 2005: War and
Peace in the 21st Century, New York: Oxford University Press,
2005, p. 1.

3. Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” The National

Interest, Summer 1989, p. 18.

4. Moisei Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Organization of

Political Parties, Vol. 2, Frederick Clarke, trans., New York:
MacMillan Co., 1902, p. 579.

5. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. 1, The

Henry Reeve Text as revised by Francis Bowen and further edited
by Phillips Bradley, New York: Random House Vintage Books,
1990, p. 235.

6. Clyde Kluckholm, who died in 1960, had an enduring

influence on the anthropological study of culture.

7. Walter W. Skeat, Rev., A Concise Etymological Dictionary of

the English Language, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1980, p. 522.

8. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter

Paret, eds. and trans., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976,
p. 177.

9. Quoted in B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy, London, United

Kingdom: Faber & Faber Ltd, 1967, p. 320.

10. Liddell Hart was well aware of the greater subtleties of

Clausewitz’s approach to strategy. He noted that Clausewitz
admitted that “the object of a combat is not always the destruction
of the enemy’s forces,” and “its object can often be attained as
well without the combat taking place at all.” His criticism of
Clausewitz was that everyone would catch such ringing phrases
as “We have only one means in war—the battle,” “The combat
is the single activity in war,” “We may reduce every military
activity in the province of strategy to the unit of single combats,”
and “let us not hear of generals who conquer without bloodshed.”
See B. H. Liddell Hart, The Ghost of Napoleon, New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1935, pp. 124-126.

42
 11. Liddell Hart, Strategy, p. 321.

12. Clausewitz, On War, p. 87.

13. Merriam-Webster Online, available from www.merriam-

webster.com/dictionary/strategy.

14. Ibid.

15. Clausewitz, On War, p. 149.

16. Samuel B. Griffith, Sun Tzu: The Art of War, New York:
Oxford University Press, 1963, p. 77.

17. Ibid., p. 79.

18. Ibid., p. 77.

19. B. H. Liddell Hart, “Thoughts on Philosophy, Politics and

Military Matters,” June 7, 1932, Liddell Hart Papers II/1932/20,
quoted by Christopher Bassford, Clausewitz in English: The
Reception of Clausewitz in Britain and America, 1815-1945, New
York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

20. Griffith, Sun Tzu: The Art of War, p. 87.

21. See Joint Publication (JP) 1-02, Department of Defense

Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, Washington, DC: Joint
Chiefs of Staff, April 12, 2001, as amended through October 17,
2008, p. 525.

22. Gabriel Marcella and Stephen O. Fought, “Teaching

Strategy in the 21st Century,” Joint Force Quarterly, Issue 52, 4th
Quarter 2009, p. 60, note 2.

23. JP 1-02. p. 525.

24. Ibid., available from www.dtic.mil/doctrine/dod_dictionary/.

25. Ibid., p. 399.

43
 26. Skeat, Etymological Dictionary, p. 539.

27. Merriam-Webster Online, available from www.merriam-

webster.com/dictionary/tactics.

28. JP 1-02, available from www.dtic.mil/doctrine/dod_

dictionary/.

29. B. H. Liddell Hart, Thoughts on War, London, UK: Faber

and Faber, 1944, p. 48.

30. On the other hand, if one understands policy in terms of

one of the definitions provided by Merriam-Webster, as “a high
level overall plan embracing the general goals and acceptable
procedures, especially of a government body", then at the national
level policy is strategy by another name. Unfortunately, however
the term policy seldom seems to reflect the degree of integration
of available means to achieve desired ends that is conveyed by the
term strategy.

31. Daniel J. Hughes, ed., Moltke on the Art of War: Selected

Writings, New York: Ballantine Books, 1993, p. 36.

32. Kenichi Ohmae, The Mind of the Strategist: The Japanese Art
of Business, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1982, p. 4.

33. Ibid.

34. Ibid., p. 5.

35. Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons

of Vietnam, New York: Times Books. 1995, p. 322.

36. On August 22, 1995, the Executive Chairman of the Special

Commission, along with a member of the International Atomic
Energy Agency and another member of the Special Commission
met with General Hussein Kamal in Amman, Jordan. For a
transcript of that meeting, see “Note for File,” UNSCOM/IAEA
Sensitive, available from www.fair.org/press-releases/kamel.pdf. For
the specific quote, see page 13.

44
 37. For example, see Robert Kennedy, Of Knowledge and Power:
the Complexities of National Intelligence, Westport, CT: Praeger
Security International, 2008, pp. 84-85, 95-100, 149-157.

38. See “Regime Strategic Intent, “Comprehensive Report of

the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, September 30, 2004,
available from https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/
iraq_wmd_2004/index.html.

39. George H. W. Bush, Address to the Nation Announcing

Allied Military Action in the Persian Gulf, January 16, 1991,
George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, Public Papers
1991, available from bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/public_papers.
php?id=2625&year=1991&month=01.

40. United Nations Security Council Resolution 678, available

from daccess-dds-ny.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/575/28/IMG/
NR057528.pdf?Open Element.

41. See Richard Yarger’s sixth premise. Richard Yarger,

Towards A Theory of Strategy: Art Lykke and the Army War College
Strategy Model, available from dde.carlisle.army.mil/authors/stratpap.
htm.

42. McNamara, In Retrospect, p. 323.

43. Merriam-Webster Online, available from www.merriam-

webster,com/dictionary/intuition.

44. Hughes, Moltke, p. viii.

45. Hughes, Moltke, pp. ix, 47.

46. Liddell Hart, Ghost of Napoleon, p. 30. Marshall de Saxe

(1696-1750), considered by some as the greatest European general
and military intellectual in the early to mid-1700s, was a French
military commander whose Mes reveries (My Reflections), later
published in English as Reveries upon the Art of War, framed the
efforts of many military officers who followed. See Ibid., pp. 30-50.

47. Liddell Hart quoting Bourcet. See Liddell Hart, Ghost of

Napoleon, p. 56.

45