Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
That sentiment is useful and correct, but I would emphasise that there is no relationship between Doctrine and Strategy, except that Doctrine must provide a useable description of Strategy.
Saw this yesterday and mulled it a bit. If you mean that Doctrine must provide usable description of how to enable a Strategy to succeed, then I agree with what you say. However, I'd also posit that frequently, there is a reversal and Doctrine begins to drive Strategy -- a very bad outcome IMO. Selil in effect said that:
Your doctrine is how you want to see stuff come out in the end, the strategy is a series of goals to meet that overall vision, and your tactics are the discrete elements, tools, methods, or things you do to implement the goals (would be strategy). Not completely aligned but the security paradigm I work within is completely flipped anyways.
Taking his statements in reverse order, I believe all security paradigms are eminently flippable. That is, in the realm of 'security' to have a fixed view is likely to lead to a more flexible opportunists breaching your security simply because you elected a dogmatic, complacent or egoistic approach -- or a 'Doctrinal' approach...

I think that goals are discrete aiming points. Those goals are determined by national policies. Those goals are achieved by developing a strategy or strategies to attain them. Doctrine is the hopefully coherent methodology and BROAD guidance you use to develop the operational and tactical methods to implement various strategies. Doctrine must not only allow but must encourage maximum flexibility in the selection of appropriate operational methods and TTP to implement strategies.

The alternative is to allow your doctrine to become dogma and drive your methodology and thus constrain your strategy. That requires less hard thinking and is the easier route. It also allows others to predict your probable responses with ease...

Should one decide to use one's doctrine to develop strategy, it seems one would be constrained to doing only what one firmly decided in advance to do -- a very problematic approach -- instead of determining what was needed and how best to achieve that.

I submit that problematic approach has been the US operating methodology for a number of years -- and that hasn't worked too well...