Small Wars in the "new" cash strapped Western economy

[Dayuhan]

you are entering the realm of political argument. Arguing about politics is, to my mind, a pretty fruitless exercise.
My concern is "strategy and tactics." Tis what I study and write about.

I study and occasionally write about policy. Entirely pointlessly, as far as I can tell: to the best of my knowledge nothing I've written has ever had a vestigial shred of impact on actual policy.

I'm not sure that strategy and tactics stand apart from policy. If policy is not sensible, doesn't discussion of strategy and tactics become sort of pointless? Policy is where it starts: if we get that wrong, we're going to have a damnably difficult time getting anything else right. "Assume a policy" seems to me a rather shaky basis for the sort of discussion that goes on here.

If we've entered a situation and things are not going as we planned and expected, doesn't it make sense to start our reassessment with a review of policy?

I use SWJ as a mental running track, to hone arguments and ideas

As do I, though realistically to no end beyond my own amusement.