Known and Unknown - Donald Rumsfeld [388]
Over my years in both the public and private sectors, I have come to see strategy and decision making as a four-step process that requires periodic recalibration and adjustment. At its most fundamental level, grand strategy is setting large, longer-term goals that are realistic and can be balanced with the means available to achieve them. It requires continual review of the goals in light of the means and of new circumstances as they come to light.
The first step of strategy is precisely defining one’s goals. “If you get the objectives right,” George Marshall is widely reported to have said, “a lieutenant can write the strategy.” Setting clear goals may sound obvious, but it is remarkable how rarely governments—or other organizations, for that matter—take the time and care to start a policy-making process by formulating strategic goals precisely and in writing. Failure to do so can doom an enterprise before it begins. There is a tendency to deal with challenging situations by plunging into discussions of options or courses of action. That approach takes for granted that the goals are self-evident and shared by everyone involved, and that the options to be considered are appropriate to the goals. When officials fail to define their objectives with care, it’s difficult for the entire government to make and execute decisions that advance them. Without a well-understood strategy, decisions can be random and even counterproductive. Setting priorities and defining limits can help to avoid what the military calls “mission creep”—the tendency to gradually increase a commitment without fully understanding the consequences and costs of doing so.
The number of goals has to be limited. Listing more than four or five means they are probably not at the strategic level. In early 2005, for example, I suggested to President Bush the three major goals in the struggle against Islamist terrorists: defending the homeland; disrupting terrorist networks abroad; and countering ideological support for terrorism.15 We had to make some hard choices about what to leave off that list—things that would have been desirable but that I ultimately concluded were not essential and could have become distracting, such as eradicating terrorist funding through the narcotics trade or promoting democracy. Without identifying which goals are the most important, one ends up with little more than a wish list that will not provide critical strategic direction. Strategy begins by planting a clear, recognizable flag in the distance that others can see and work toward.
The second step of strategy is identifying the major assumptions associated with the challenge at hand, always recognizing that they are based on imperfect information that can change or even turn out to have been incorrect. For an entrepreneur, a major assumption might be that a company’s newly developed product will receive patent protection from competition for a period of time. A major assumption in planning military action might be that a foreign country will cooperate by granting basing or overflight rights to an air force. These assumptions can turn out to be wrong. In war, for example, a common mistake is creating a picture of the battlefield based on a static picture of the enemy that fails to recognize that the enemy has a brain and will react and change his strategy, which in turn will require changing assumptions and plans.
The third step is evaluating the possible courses of action in light of the assumptions. At the upper levels of policy making almost all possible courses of action entail negative consequences that need to be weighed. This is particularly so when it comes