14 March 2013 -
I spent my Air Force career playing on most levels of the intelligence game. For example, as a younger officer, my analysis would tie a nation’s oil import, refining, storage, and distribution capability to its ability to sustain combat operations. I enjoyed the work because I built prioritized target lists of such systems: what to bomb during a war. Then, on the operational level of military analysis I would reprioritize all such tactical analysis in order to build operational-level air campaign plans: what to bomb, when to bomb, then reassess, and then do it again. I saw that operational plans support strategic military objectives that, in turn, support national objectives. We then would train our forces according to these tactical and operational level plans so that, when called upon, we could accomplish our portion of the strategic plan. In simple terms: We could then bomb our enemies back to the Stone Age. Ah, heat, blast, and frag, the essence of the universe! I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It’s the smell of…victory! Ahem…focus….back to the issues at hand. On those lower levels of analytic effort, the enemy was known. Planning principles and combat truisms worked more often than they did not. Life was clear.
As I moved from tactical to strategic analysis, my purpose did not change: Protect and defend U.S. interests at home and abroad. But, as a newly elevated tactical thinker that still meant to kill the bad guys as violently as possible and leave their rotting carcasses in the desert sun for the...ahem…ok, ok, I’ll stop. I was wrong in this thinking. On the strategic level of intelligence analysis and decision-making, military force is only one of a nation’s instruments of national power, and it is never decisive on its own in a conflict. More important, commitment of any instrument of national power without a clear strategy for achieving vital national objectives is doomed to failure.
I also learned that decision-makers on the strategic level often use military force a bit too quickly as their instrument of choice in a crisis. Then, when well-trained, lethal force is committed, leaders fall into the trap of seeing initial tactical successes as the sign of ultimate success in the widening conflict. Or, they think that when an initial military force is stymied, the response should be to commit more military force rather than to review a possibly ill-conceived strategy. Think of the tragic gradualism strategy of VietNam. An expensive and frustrating corollary to that erroneous thinking is when leaders are so impressed by the success of military forces in combat that they commit them to other strategic objectives that military forces are not equipped or trained to do. Think of nation-building in VietNam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Simply put, in a crisis, many decision-makers focus on how to execute operations—they focus on doing something—on the tactical and operational level. They may even mistake the excitement of heat, blast, and frag for legitimate strategic thinking.
Instead, decision-makers should coldly and clearly decide if what is happening constitutes a legitimate threat to the United States or to its critical interests in the world. If the situation does not threaten vital U.S. interests, then it isn’t a crisis and nothing should be done. However, if analysis says that vital U.S. interests are threatened, then leaders should coldly and clearly determine which instruments of national power should be used and how they should be used to protect our interests. In other words, leaders should create a legitimate strategy to achieve legitimate objectives and have the courage to defend their decision. Then, the tactical and operational levels of the execution of a plan, long our nation’s undisputed strengths, will pretty much take care of themselves. Compelling interests and a legitimate strategy are everything.
I posit that we often are outplayed on the multi-dimensional chess boards of the world because vital and compelling national interests are clouded by our leaders’ political, personal, and cultural interests, which often have more to do with transient desires than with protecting the U.S. or ensuring its strength in the world. They fail to understand that the tactical level is an often violent, but simple chess game between two players. The strategic level is a chess game between two obvious opponents, but the pieces on both sides are often moved by intervening alliances, historical groupings of nations and peoples, and even by domestic political opponents. Such a complex game requires that a leader move cautiously, without adventurism, and only with clear, vital objectives as a guide.
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