As the British media has receded – power is always relative – so does the culture of grand strategy at the heart of government. Worse still, the relationship between strategy and tactics has been desperately broken, undermining the very important mechanism of implementation through purposes, ways and means. Post-Brexit Britain is trying to rekindle such a culture through the mantra of “World Britain”. From my own management experience, restoring the grand strategy as a “dogma” of power in the heart of government will be difficult. Catchy slogans are a useful indicator of intent, but devising and then consistently executing the strategy to achieve it is a completely different matter. I saw first-hand how the short-term goals were prioritized at the expense of the long-term strategy: unfortunately, the problems I encountered during my career are now clearly visible in our approach to the conflict in Ukraine. In 2003, during the Second Gulf War, as an Assistant Chief of Staff and occasionally a member of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, I observed Western political leaders quite close by. Both President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair had a relatively clear strategy for Iraq in 2003, but their tactics were (not for the first time) desperately flawed. There were also clear limits to British influence. For example, I visited Ambassador Paul Bremer, the head of the US Interim Coalition in Baghdad. My instructions from London were to try to overturn US decisions on the Ba’athist regime and to dismantle the Iraqi army and police. The situation is only now improving, but the failure in 2003 to properly understand the rational goals and the best ways and means to pursue them has led to a very long and tragically protracted process. It was the slowest possible path to what some might argue now looks like a strategically successful outcome. As Commander of the International Security Assistance Force, like my successors in the United States, I have been repeatedly challenged by both NATO and the United Kingdom’s strategy and tactics in Afghanistan, but to no avail. Despite accepting the logic of my arguments, politicians back in Washington, London, and elsewhere have never taken ownership of the campaign with the profound consequence that goals, means, and means have never been synchronized. Last summer, the campaign reached its strategic end and a chaotic withdrawal. Even then, political leaders focused, and sometimes seemed to enjoy, a regular retreat ignoring the harsh truth – complete strategic failure. The withdrawal was possible only with the cooperation of an “enemy” who had killed and maimed thousands of Allied soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent civilians.
Good strategy is about difficult choices
In 2011, as Chief of Staff of the United Kingdom, I disagreed with Prime Minister David Cameron on the Libyan strategy. It is in the public record that I was relentlessly opposed to regime change because of the long-term strategic consequences for a country that was inherently unstable. Like many politicians, both Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, aided by a strategically ousted President Obama, have confused politics, strategy and tactics. They were too focused on the short term and tactics, and their corresponding political needs to be considered the heroic winners of a war. Good strategy is about difficult choices. As Chief of Defense Staff, my excellent team devised a coherent strategy for Syria, which independent experts agreed had a good chance of leading to a successful strategic outcome. Once again, political leaders were reluctant to align their intentions, manners and means with Washington, to the point of saying that “the General’s plan is more than the market can afford.” Which “market”? Consequently, my advice was to let Assad win quickly and to stop encouraging and providing insufficient support to opposition groups to ensure their success. The cost of deaths, lives lost and cities destroyed would be enormous and a huge strategic setback for the West. Russia already felt an opportunity and so it turned out.
