New Guidance on Counter-Insurgency

[William F. Owen]

With respect to the construction analogy consider the impact of differing site conditions, change orders and contract modifications upon the strategy...you are still going for the structure, pipeline, or levee but tactical and operational realities have just intruded into that nice plan dreamed up in the air-conditioned office far from the sound of construction machinery.

Sure, you have to alter how you do something, as the conditions change, or you yourself change them. My point is that Strategy is the link between the Policy and how you use tactics to achieve them. A strategy cannot have a life of it's own. It is instrumental. It can be both good and bad.