Why Is Strategy So Difficult?

O ne might think that the meaning of a word as common as strategy is clear, but it is not.

The invaluable Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus inadvertently captures the confusion: “master plan, grand design, game plan, action plan, policy, program, tactics.” But a master plan is something more specific than a grand design, a policy is what should direct strategy, and tactics exist at a level of intentional action below strategy.

The muddle becomes serious when applied to strategy’s original and most important field of human endeavor: war.

The roots lie in ancient Greek, which is why stratēgos was the word for “general.” Many weighty works on strategy in war make the basic ideas clear, and yet, as one can see from the badly botched American war with Iran, strategy is acutely difficult.

Here we have a war in which the United States has the world’s most advanced technology, highly skilled personnel, and well-trained and -staffed organizations.

The U.S. is operating in a theater of war that it has studied for many decades, in partnership with Israel—the most militarily advanced country in the Middle East—as well as, more quietly, most of the Gulf States, and it is receiving the tacit support of countries such as Great Britain.

Its enemy is poor and corrupt, and recently lost a large chunk of its senior leadership in a series of bombings and assassinations.

But the result is, in important respects, a shocking setback, as Iran continues to throttle one of the world’s most important waterways.

This article has been adapted from Eliot A.

Cohen’s new book, The Strategist: How to Think About War & Politics .

This happened not because America’s weapons malfunctioned, its sailors and airmen were incompetent, or the problems were novel and unanticipated.

Rather, America’s battlefield reversals represent a strategic failure of an acutely embarrassing kind.

Nor is the issue simply incompetent American political leadership, although that has played its role.

The history of strategy is a tale of errors, misjudgments, poor assessments, and inadequate follow-through.