The great paradox: strategic thinking in an unstrategic world

Jan. 8 (UPI) -- Much of my 2025 will be devoted to co-authoring a book with my great English friend, David Richards. The title is The Great Paradox: Strategic Thinking in an Unstrategic World. Richards' more formal title is General The Lord Richards of Herstmonceux, a peerage conferred for his long and distinguished service culminating as chief of the U.K. Defense Staff, equivalent to the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

David and I first met more than 20 years ago in Kabul, where he was commanding NATO's International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan. His views on dealing with the Taliban based on reconciliation at the tribal level conflicted somewhat with NATO and U.S. doctrine. Sadly, David would be proven correct.

One of the reasons for this book was the dramatic failings and failures of government, both democratic and autocratic. Whether one loved or hated presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump, some 80% of Americans believed the United State was headed in the wrong direction. A similarly large proportion had lost trust and confidence in government and most institutions, even in the private sector. And America's $36 trillion debt is nearly 1 1/2 times GDP -- an economically unsustainable level.

The U.K. had gone through a string of Tory prime ministers. Despite the victory of Labor in the last election, it has not fared much better in governing. Germany and France are in political disarray. And South Korea is running out of presidents to impeach.

Life is no better in Moscow or Beijing. Vladimir Putin has bankrupted his country to wage a war in Ukraine that might well become Russia's next Afghanistan. Nearly a million Russians have left to avoid the draft. And last year's birth rate of about one-half million babies, the lowest on record since 1945, makes demographics a critical issue.

Xi is not much better off. The Communist Party's compact with the people is that to retain power, public needs will be met economically, socially and culturally. That is not happening. Two rather obscure measures of this malaise confirm this observation: the large increase in the number of stabbing deaths of local officials and the large percentage of 20-to-30-year-old males not seeking work.

Given these failures in governance and the friction and tensions between the United States and the West and China and Russia with the threat of possible escalation of ongoing armed conflicts, can sound strategic thinking compensate for what we call an unstrategic world? In his last book co-written with the well-known academic Julian Lindley-French, "Retreat from Strategy," David developed themes that are applied to "Paradox."

The thrust of "Paradox" relies on an examination of presidential strategic thinking since World War II to determine where it succeeded and where it did not. Especially regarding the key purpose of protecting and advancing long-term national security, our argument is that the West lacks an overarching strategy and a political decision-making process compatible with sound strategic thinking. The inevitable result is strategies that are aspirational and not executable or affordable. Why? This is the paradox.

We propose to reverse this paradox through sound strategic thinking that produces relevant strategies for the coming decades of the 21st century.

Characteristics common to these failures were a profound lack of knowledge and understanding of the conditions for using force; failure to challenge underpinning basic assumptions while ignoring possible unintended consequences; groupthink that dismissed other options; arrogance about the superiority of American thinking; and an over-reliance on technology.

Yes, the Cold War was won. Why? The USSR could not maintain its irrational political structure under communism without what the USSR's last president, Mikhail Gorbachev, would call "perestroika," or radical restructuring, and "glasnost," or openness. By injecting reality into an otherwise sclerotic and corrupt process, the USSR would collapse.

Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq 2 were colossal strategic failures. But Sierra Leone, the Falklands and the first Gulf War were stunning successes. We explain why.

One further example makes our case. The current U.S. national defense strategy aims to contain/compete with; deter; and if war comes, win or prevail over a number of potential adversaries headed by China and Russia. Beyond the essential task of deterring an existential thermonuclear war, where have Russia or China been contained or deterred? Further, the aspirational national defense strategy is neither affordable nor able to currently meet recruiting goals. And no one wins a nuclear war.

What must be done we hope will be made clear in Paradox.

Harlan Ullman is UPI's Arnaud de Borchgrave Distinguished Columnist, a senior advisor at Washington's Atlantic Council, the prime author of "shock and awe" and author of "The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD: How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Danger to a Divided Nation and the World at Large." Follow him @harlankullman. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.