This paragraph stood out to me...
All very well to discuss chains of command in the military, but in many cases we seek to exert influence in non-military situations, often with little regard for the political realities and processes of the country or countries involved. Even in the US, the government can't simply dictate what it wishes to be done at the behest of some foreign power.The self-enforced chain of command in the US military is a relatively new and impressive accomplishment for a human society. It’s taken a couple hundred years of relative internal peace to produce it. Pakistan hasn’t had that, and they don’t have that kind of chain of command. That’s something I really wish at least the analysts of the US military and intelligence community could learn and help US military leaders learn. But as plenty of US military leaders have pointed out, they haven’t.
I also think we're inclined to confuse influence with control. Expecting others to do what we want or to subordinate their perceived interests to ours is not a matter of influence, it's a matter of control. Talking about "influence" in terms of what you need to do "to get something done" represents a fundamental cognitive dissonance, a confusion between influence and control. Influence means you have some input, not that you get to decree what happens. Influence is shared: those we influence are also influenced by others. As long as we expect influence to assure that we get our way, we're bound to be disappointed, and we're likely to be seeking control rather than influence. That ends up doing little good, as those who seek control are often received... well, with about the same sentiment we'd apply to anyone who proposed to control us.
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