His latest book is The Strategist: How to Think About War and Politics.
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book → think → War
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Eliot Cohen discuss what genuine strategic thinking requires, why America’s war with Iran represents a failure of strategy rather than of military capability, and what Winston Churchill’s wartime memoranda reveal about what good strategy actually looks like.
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strategy → discuss → what
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
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transcript → condense → clarity
Why is this term “strategy,” which people throw around in all kinds of contexts, often very loosely, actually very important if you’re trying to understand the world, and if you’re using it rigorously?
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you → throw → it
Well, I think you have to go back to the origins of the word, which come from the Greek, strategos, general.
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which → think → Greek
We live in an age of war.
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We → live → war
I suppose that’s really my central point.
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that → suppose → ?
I begin the book by saying you undoubtedly live in a state that may be at war, or whose borders have certainly been shaped by war.
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borders → begin → war
That’s true of pretty much all of us.
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I think what’s happened is that the word “strategy” has gotten so diluted, and the considerations of it really so bloated, that people have in some ways lost the ability to think about it.
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So what I wanted to do was to write a book, a relatively brief book, that would not be a massive tome, to try to focus people on the original meaning of the word.
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that → want → word
Because if there’s one thing particularly Americans have learned, but plenty of others have as well, you can have the most advanced weapons, you can have very professional and skilled soldiers, you can have perfectly sound tactics, and you can still fail.
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you → ’ → tactics
Perhaps I’ll start with that, and we might be able to come back to it, because I want to get into some of the interesting, meaty theoretical concepts in your book.
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I → start → book
But what’s striking about the Iran war at the moment is that America continues to be militarily supreme compared to any of its competitors—certainly compared to any of the competitors that have been fighting in the Iranian theater.
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China may be catching up to the United States on various military metrics, but China’s not directly involved in this war.
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China → catch → war
And yet, despite the fact that very few American soldiers have died, America has superior planes, superior operations, is able to carry out these very impressive, technologically sophisticated operations—this looks like one of the biggest humiliations for the United States in a long time, and it comes after other humiliations, from the Iraq War to the Vietnam War and so on.
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it → die → War
So, should we lay the fault for all of that at the feet of strategy?
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Is it Trump’s total lack of strategy going into this war which explains this?
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The fact that American installations suffered as much damage as they did, that American aircraft suffered as much damage on the ground as they did—that is really more of a kind of military-technical result of people failing to take precautions which, in some ways, you just can’t understand.
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you → suffer → ways
But it does seem to me that the big failures have really been at the strategic level, in a whole bunch of ways.
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failures → seem → ways
Failing, I think, to operate within a real strategic context.
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I → fail → context
The Trump administration goes into this war having alienated almost all of our allies, when actually you really do need their support if you’re going to be in this conflict.
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you → go → conflict
It goes in, I think, failing to understand the Iranian regime—I’m not sure even now that it does.
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I think it’s failing to have thought through what are the means it can really bring to bear to achieve what it wants, and really without having a clear—what I call—a theory of victory, an explanation for how all this is supposed to work.
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this → think → victory
Now, you could have had a much better strategic approach to the war, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that you succeed, but you have a much better chance.
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you → have → chance
I guess I would also just say, on the Iran war specifically, we still don’t know what the final outcome is.
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outcome → guess → war
I do think a lot of people have been surprised by the way in which Trump has not simply walked away from it, which many friends of mine who share a similar view of the president that I do really expected—that he would, in the now-stock phrase, “chicken out.”
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So the end of the story has not been written.
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end → write → story
But yeah, I would say fundamentally, the major missteps that we’ve seen are very much strategic missteps.
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I wrote an ill-timed article back in January arguing that Trump doesn’t have a doctrine, but he has a playbook.
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And the playbook is that he goes for these rapid strikes, spectacular actions, that don’t risk many American lives, don’t cost a lot of money, and by the time people wake up, it’s kind of over.
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It’s very much not true for this.
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Now, I think I’m going to slightly defend my ill-timed article and say I think they believed it would be similar.
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They believed they had a plan that’s very similar to Venezuela, where they’re going to go in, use massive force, and decapitate the Iranian regime.
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they → believe → regime
They seem to have believed they had some kind of deal with Ahmadinejad, who was going to be able to go in and take over in the same way that Delcy Rodríguez had taken over in Venezuela.
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Rodríguez → seem → Venezuela
Presumably they thought, if it somehow doesn’t work, we just retreat—we’ve destroyed a bunch of Iranian facilities and planes, and that’s the end of it.
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But they don’t seem to have reckoned with the Iranian ability to close the Strait of Hormuz.
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they → seem → Hormuz
Now, ironically, Trump is in the same situation that he has repeatedly criticized George W. Bush for, which is to get into a war for which you don’t have an exit plan.
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you → criticize → plan
I would say I mostly agree with that, but not entirely.
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Let me spell out—well, first, I would say I agree that he does not have a deep understanding of military affairs, and I do think the Venezuela episode influenced how he thinks about this.
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…and 249 more, not listed.
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