Originally Posted by
AtomKraft
But if you are in the wrong fight, then all's lost. Doesn't matter how good you are. The best tactics in the world are worthless if the Strategy is wrong.
Yeah, they teach that at staff college. Most civilian leadership seems not to take that course, however. The point is to establish an objective and figure out which means to achieve it. Sometimes it is believed that military means will be faster, and thus able to achieve an end "while I am still in office."
The long game is often not popular domestically here.
LBJ fell into that trap, for sure, and W seems to have done the same. What I think anchored his vision in this 'short and not too expensive war' was the belief that because the economic basis for Iraq's economy (oil reserves easy to get to) would allow for a "self funded" post war economic healing the post conflict phases would be both short and easily handed off to "the Iraqi People." (He and his team even had their own favorite expat in the wings, Chalabi ... ) All this even with the evidence of how hard this break up and repair operation is, see Yugoslavia. (We won't make their (previous administration's) mistakes) ... No, W, you made your own.
Needless to say, those assumptions at the geo strategic level were built on sand.
One of the places where I think Mattis can be of great value, which Rummy didn't for W, is his sanity check due to his credibility.
"Mr President, if you want to achieve this end, the military can get you X, or Y, but it can't get you Z." I think his habit of candor will be useful in mitigating or killing of bizarre policy/means mismatches.