The 10 most common strategic blunders?

For the U.S in Vietnam I see numbers 3, 6, and 10.

How about #4 for afghanistan, where we were supposedly going to impose a social revolution for women? Remember Laura Bush's PR tour? That was her Hillarycare, and it was very much hyped under the bush democratization push. Still, I don't know how much this adversely affected the war, but it reflected a broader arrogance.

Argentina ran afoul of #8.

To be fair, it is not hard to see how they figured that all that ocean + a supposedly washed up colonial power gave them an advantage... Oops.

How many of the errors listed here did the Bush administration not make in Iraq?

By the way, the picture of Eisenhower here is from 1944.

If we accept #9, the Straussian masses of us who are intuitive, tactical, or just screwy in our thinking are possibly not to be trusted as senders or receivers of those terms. Even after we've gotten specialized training in their use.

The list relies on near tautological recycling of "strategy" terms. It has 'strateginess", in the Colbert sense.

Re GWOT and Iraq in particular, I see evidence of 'all of the above'. And it aint funny. Gen. Odom said it best "We can't win a war that wasn't in our interest in the first place."

Krepinevich and Watts refer to a decline in "US strategic performance" only in military terms. That's wrong. National power, national political power or national strategic performance, whatever you might call it, has other components besides military power. The diplomatic/economic power of China, for example, has clearly made the Seventh Fleet, with its seventy ships and 40,000 personnel, a rusting anachronism in the Pacific.

Recall Eisenhower: ". . .each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration. . .In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Strategic performance, in other words, is too important to be left to the military, or even a to "business strategy expert", for that matter, and should encompass all the facets of national power including health, education and democracy as well as military and business interests.

11. Never forget: strategy is not solitaire!

gotta love academic lists that purport to explain everything. Here's a question: if before engaging in some 'strategic' pursuit an agent were to address all the failings stipulated above, would said strategic effort then be assured success? Ah.... Here's another question: if academics ruled the world how long before it would be a cloud of dust floating between Venus and Mars?

"The Irresistible Illusion"

http://www.hks.harvard.edu/cchrp/pdf/RoryStewart/LRB_RoryStewart_IrresistibleIllusion.pdf

describes the Afghan adventure in terms of 2 to 7.

Other adventures that might be illuminated by this list:

Manned mission to Mars: 4.

Health care reform: definitely 7.

McCain campaign, 2008: 9.

John Brown at Harper's Ferry: 6.

Anyone who teaches: 10.

Why's Eisenhower talking to a minstrel troupe?

I've probably been reading a little too much on World War Two lately, but the French decision to build the Maginot Line hits pretty well on points #5, #6, and #7.

There's a case one can make that the U.S. made all those mistakes in 2002 and after. It might take a little thought to make the case for #8, but the rest almost make the case simply by stating them.

The Southern decision to secede from the United States seems like a good example of #8 ("Cotton is king", "one country boy can out-fight ten Yankee factory workers", etc.).