Getting Strategy Right

[Ken White]

As Bill M. notes, I have long decried both the !947 amalgamation of War and Navy to form DoD and Goldwater-Nichols, contending both are deeply flawed and have harmed national defense and the conduct of foreign affairs. I'll have to read the article tomorrow but in the process of saving it, saw this picture, long a favorite. Note the posture and gaze of Admirals King and Leahy, General Marshall and the USAAF guy whose name escapes me now.

None of them are gazing at their illustrious leader much less each other. Note the gaze of all three Russians has a target. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words...

[Pete]

I wasn't born yet in 1947 so the National Defense Act can't be blamed on me. However, in regard to the other act of Congress I'm nearly positive that in 1964 one of our members had a bumpersticker on his car that said "In Your Heart You Know He's Right."

[jmm99]

How did you know that ?

But, you missed the plastic dashboard Curt LeMay cigar holder:





Mike

[Ken White]

People that mention them may not be but the stickers are...

Whoops -- caught again with two finger typing. Mike's bumper stickers would never have been tacky. Never...

[Pete]

Well, I admit to maybe having been wrong, the bumpersticker may have been "AuH20."

[Ken White]

Zilverwasser?

[Pete]

Something like that. In his defense I'll say he always had a kind of unique and idiosyncratic integrity about him, even if you didn't want him to be the guy in charge. Certainly my parents didn't in '64 but I was 14 at the time.

[Bill Moore]

Ken,

I didn't catch the symbolism, but I thought the author's use of Sun Tzu for this article was spot on:

The victorious strategist seeks battle only after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.

—Sun Tzu

It appears to me that we repeatedly throw together military plans in support of often poorly articulated policy, and then after the plan is formed we "socialize" it with the interagency and then start the tweaking process, and really end up with something that is sub standard.

I definitely think our strategy and planning process "would" work better if the Pentagon developed the strategy at their level with the National Security Staff (informed by the GCCs and Services), and THEN and only THEN would it be pushed down to the GCCs to develop and execute operational level plans. GCCs have a large strategy role down (some of it is appropriate), but this approach fails to explore how problems can be solved indirectly or if war is a necessity how to wage it "most effectively", because the strategy is largely confined by defined boundries.

It may be even more important to return to pre 1947 now based on greater global integration. For example, assume we're planning a defensive war against country Y in name your theater. If you leave it to the theater the strategy will be focused within that geographical space, yet country Y as financial, military, diplomatic and other vulnerabilities that we could pressure in three different theaters with a whole of government approach. Having participated in GCC level planning you may see this discussed, but rarely is it pursued because there isn't a mechanism compel others to act outside your theater. If the Pentagon was empowered once again to perform this role (there would be painful growing pains) then they could compel the global force to act, and work more effectively with the interagency through the National Security Staff to get the various agencies to support the strategy (USG strategy, not just a military strategy).

We have seen global plans, and we have seen various tasks given to various agencies to execute, but the ability to compel action (operationalize the plans) is clearly missing, and actual execution of these plans is spotty at best.

There are other shortfalls with our current methodology, but just wanted to try to get the conversation back on track.

[jmm99]

tacky:





Definitely not tacky:

Natalie Wood.jpg

From Bob Hope - what we are fighting for .....



Mike