Ivo, former Foreign Service Officer here. I used to catch your sessions at the Chicago Council, and I still read you for the same reason I did then. You start from the structure and not the headline.
The Clausewitz inversion is the right frame, and I would push it one step further. The three flaws you name are not really flaws of strategy. They are flaws of accountability. A war fought without a defined political objective is a war no one can be said to have lost. That is not a bug for the people who order it. That is the appeal. Ambiguity at the front end guarantees deniability at the back end. Nobody signs their name to “kingdom come.”
Vietnam, Iraq, now Iran. The constant is not bad planning. It is that the planners face no cost for the absence of a plan. Force gets reached for because it photographs as resolve, and resolve polls well (usually, if it happens), and the bill arrives long after the news cycle has moved on. The means are inverted because the incentives are inverted.
Define winning before you fight, and you create a standard you can be measured against.
Washington has learned, across both parties, that the safest war is the one with no finish line.
Good to be reading you again.
Johan 🐌
P.S. On March 8, I wrote an article titled the Cascade—Iran, Game Theory…this is the slow burn I predicted back then. I invite you to take a look.
The start of an important American long-overdue discussion, perhaps. But Ivo doesn't touch the military itself -- the thinking, advising, executing up and down the chain of command. In fact, there really is no 'agency" in Ivo's analysis. How does this counterproductive thinking happen? How far -- into the military, into the media, into the world of policy wonks and for-profit "military-industrial" operatives does it extend? How is to be fully explored and, perhaps combatted? What political prices have been or will be paid for public disupute of its premises? And so on. This piece is a helpful start, but it only scratches the surface of something much, mugh bigger. Respectfully offered by a novice at all this (onetime academic China historian, later trade association head).
Ivo, can you not make this piece available in full on Subsyack, or via Blue Sky, in some other way? I cannot open the relevant page in Politico, despite having a login and password there. This piece is supremely important and should not be restricted only to those with Politico access. Thks.
Disregard this message; the link problem was identified by a reader earlier (below). But you still should be putting this piece in front of the largest audience possible.
Ivo, former Foreign Service Officer here. I used to catch your sessions at the Chicago Council, and I still read you for the same reason I did then. You start from the structure and not the headline.
The Clausewitz inversion is the right frame, and I would push it one step further. The three flaws you name are not really flaws of strategy. They are flaws of accountability. A war fought without a defined political objective is a war no one can be said to have lost. That is not a bug for the people who order it. That is the appeal. Ambiguity at the front end guarantees deniability at the back end. Nobody signs their name to “kingdom come.”
Vietnam, Iraq, now Iran. The constant is not bad planning. It is that the planners face no cost for the absence of a plan. Force gets reached for because it photographs as resolve, and resolve polls well (usually, if it happens), and the bill arrives long after the news cycle has moved on. The means are inverted because the incentives are inverted.
Define winning before you fight, and you create a standard you can be measured against.
Washington has learned, across both parties, that the safest war is the one with no finish line.
Good to be reading you again.
Johan 🐌
P.S. On March 8, I wrote an article titled the Cascade—Iran, Game Theory…this is the slow burn I predicted back then. I invite you to take a look.
Thanks, Johan. I agree that accountability is a key issue. If you don’t know where you’re going every road will take you there.
Great to hear from you!
The link to the article in Politico is not working because the link is in there twice. The correct link is: https://www.politico.eu/article/america-us-donald-trump-way-of-war-isnt-working/
Well said.
The start of an important American long-overdue discussion, perhaps. But Ivo doesn't touch the military itself -- the thinking, advising, executing up and down the chain of command. In fact, there really is no 'agency" in Ivo's analysis. How does this counterproductive thinking happen? How far -- into the military, into the media, into the world of policy wonks and for-profit "military-industrial" operatives does it extend? How is to be fully explored and, perhaps combatted? What political prices have been or will be paid for public disupute of its premises? And so on. This piece is a helpful start, but it only scratches the surface of something much, mugh bigger. Respectfully offered by a novice at all this (onetime academic China historian, later trade association head).
Ivo, can you not make this piece available in full on Subsyack, or via Blue Sky, in some other way? I cannot open the relevant page in Politico, despite having a login and password there. This piece is supremely important and should not be restricted only to those with Politico access. Thks.
Disregard this message; the link problem was identified by a reader earlier (below). But you still should be putting this piece in front of the largest audience possible.