Quote Originally Posted by Rob Thornton View Post
... Today, most everything is resitant to the wonder drug, and many of those things have also morphed and might even kill you.
bacteria, cancers and social afflictions do morph...

People -- not so much.

All goes back to Robert Fulghum; be careful what you want, you may get it. Seems to me that defining two things; (a) the National Interest; and (b) as Marc said "The point I am trying to make is that the ideology / symbology - what we stand for - must transcend any individual national interest." is the first step and that it is a quite difficult if not impossible step. Still, if one succeeds in doing that, then one must reconcile the two -- even more difficult.

Add to that the fact that one must do that under a governmental system that is, by design, prone to significant changes of course every four or eight years and one is confronted with the fact (IMO) that only an extremely significant and truly existential threat is going to prompt a coherent, stable long term strategy. One is further confronted with two more facts today; (1) the attention span and knowledge of history required to implement anything over the long term is in short supply; and (2) competing visions in a broadly egalitarian society are many and an overarching vision is generally selected by 600 pound Gorillas (or the loudest squeaking Wheels) on the basis of personal preference and only rarely on a logical needs.

All this leads to me saying what everyone already knows. The life of a Strategic Planner is not easy. Such planning is needed, no question but I also believe that it should aim for an achievable solution as opposed to the most desirable solution and, to get back to the 'people don't change much' meme, should be strongly influenced by the culture and history of the target and less so on what 'we' want or believe desirable.

Strategic planning must also accept the reality that is our political milieu (both in and out of uniform...) and should be aimed at inculcating the 'plan' from the bottom up over a long time as opposed to attempting a top down "fix this problem today" approach. The swamp / alligator tale applies...

IOW, to tacticalize the strategizing, it's not one up, two back, hit 'em in the flank and feed the troops a hot meal; rather one up, two back, infiltrate and don't feed the troops until they get the job done...