A National Strategic Learning Disability?

A National Strategic Learning Disability? By Lieutenant General James M. Dubik (USA Ret.), Army Magazine. LTG Dubik’s BLUF:

At the national strategic level, we still appear to cling to the notion that war is best defined conventionally. America’s national security institutions as well as the international norms and conventions are optimized for this type of war. Ten years of evidence that war has more than one form seems to have been insufficient to prompt adequate adaptation—domestically or internationally. Current discussions often find adherents claiming that the conflict in Libya is not a war, for example, or that war cannot be waged in cyberspace. Without adequate strategic imagination, America perpetually risks not only applying a strategy that does not match the specific enemy and situation of a given case, but also having a set of institutions and procedures equivalent to attempting to fit a round peg into a square hole. Thus we risk more examples of spending our strategic capital— lives, sacrifice, money and will—in not attaining our strategic aims.