three pieces in concert--or not
ends-ways-means
Many of you probably wonder why I so often talk, as I did only yesterday (in ‘Academy Grounds’) about objectives versus methods. Frankly, it’s because I am still going through academic withdrawal, I suppose, from discussing it with students or audiences of some sort over this past 11 months. It’s what engrossed me for so many years. And I take seriously the idea that each and every one needs to be aware—like it or not— that strategy matters in their lives. There are lots of books on the topic and the College had three faculty members create a Primer as one plausible approach four years ago.1 I am not asking you to read it but I want you to know people besides me find this interesting! There ought be absolutely no doubt it is also relevant.
Part of the motivation for ActionsCreateConsequences, along with generating measured, evidence-based, civil discourse, is for you to know why the Strategy Equation (I suppose some could label it the Strategy Trinity but that risks confusion with the Great Clausewitzian Trinity of primordial passion, chance, and the military as an instrument of government) matters. The heart of what successful strategy requires, not matter how you examine it, is that somone have a clearly defined end for which means used in various ways will help accomplish; strategy is ends-ways-means need some relative balance. You can’t accomplish something without appropriate means or successful applications of ways to use the means.
Strategy—common activity for many human aspirations well beyond national security— is really hard for a variety of reasons. not the least of which is the more people involved, the greater the variety of understandings of the ends. If two people can’t see the ends as the same, that is a problem. The annual trip to the lake for four in a family requires a strategy for most people. The end is pretty straightforward (spending a week at the lake) but what are the steps necessary?
You must figure out which lake.
You must figure out which week.
You must figure out who is going (that may be easy but not if you have two sets of 3 year old twins).
You must figure out how to get to the lake—car, bus, boat, airplane, hike, train, or semi (I suppose Jeff Bezos or Elon might also add rockets but most of us aren’t there yet).
You must figure out what you can take with you to the lake.
You must figure out how you will pay for the lake trip.
You must….
You get the picture. Each of these steps requires some thinking, some actions, some assumptions, some reconsiderations after examining assumptions, some trade offs, and an awful lot of work even if we do it annually. Each of these items is a decision with consequences or trade offs involved, almost invariably dependent upon prioritising something as a result or before the decision is taken.
You WILL also have to pay for all of this at some point, even if it is after you spent the money as creditors invariably demand payment.
What if you can’t agree on what the endstate should be? Ukraine is increasingly looking that way. We seem far less united 15 months into the conflict on what we want the endstate to look like. Many people want Putin ousted and incarcerated, Russia humiliated further, and the Ukrainians celebrating their democracy under an elected government which ultimately brings the nation into NATO at some point. Others are underwhelmed by the Russian threat versus the Chinese behemoth so they seek every dollar currently going to arm and aid Kyiv as a dollar to prepare against the PLA in the future. This view seems to focus far less on a vision for Europe or Russia because of the overwhelming nature of China’s global ambitions. But it certainly has a bill for the choices, regardless which we take as arming Ukraine costs money as does prearing for major conflict with the PLA.
These differences cascade into policy decisions on means to help Ukraine (provide more or cut them off or somewhere between these extremes) or the ways by which we should engage (deterring Russia with a more aggressive support to Kyiv or preventing assistance to Ukraine altogether for fear it is supporting greater Sino-Russian ties while draining U.S. resources needed elsewhere). In other words, having a clear idea what you want things to look like when a strategy conclues is rather important.
But we have already taken steps for both of these scenarios whih costs a lot of money we borrowed to pay for the actions.
We will return to this topic periodically as it’s at the heart of ActionsCreateConsequences. And I am just an educator wanting greater public knowledge of our commitments.
As you enjoy your Mother’s Day weekend, you are likely to hear or read someone railing on about a government decision. Few decisions in government exist in a vacuum. The Ukraine case doesn’t operate in a vacuum as increasing war weariness challenges those advocating more for the Ukrainians daily. The decision-makers know what the ends are at their disposal, the means by which they can use them to avoid imprisonment (invariably a good thing if you like sleeping in your own bed nightly), and the goal they seek to achieve. But pressures only continue to mount as strategies unfold over time if that balance of ends-ways-and means gets awry. Too little aid to Ukraine makes its ability to fight off Russian actions much harder. At the same time, a Russia strengthening its links with China may have substantial long-term costs for this country—or it may be beneficial if Beijing were to become Putin’s lifeline as China increasingly depends on Russian energy.
But aid costs money. We cannot borrow any more money for what we have already spent, much less make further expenditures, after the beginning of June 2023.
The problem is that we don’t really have an succinctly articulable endstate in mind. We know what we don’t want which is a start but way too insufficient for a meaningful assessment of the decision we are taking.
We are not uniformly comfortable that we have spent money to support the variety of outcomes the country desires but we owe money for what we have already spent regardless.
Government decisions happens within a system representing more than 339 million citizens, only about half of whom ever register their votes on who actually speaks for them in either the Legislative and Executive Branches, much less the Judicial. So, many of the decisions about Ukraine, decriminalising narcotics at the national level, or building a water pipeline from the snows of Minnesota to the Colorado River only draw the attention of a tiny segment of the country yet they are part of a huge interrelated budget and political system. These small decisions frequently unleash anger or frustration these days. Billions of decisions are made but too often without appreciation that they are operating within a bigger environment because strategy is so big and there are so many different aspects at work in any second of the day. The result is that voters and non-voters alike feel ignored, disillusioned, and ignored more often than not.
But we will have no money after 1 June to pay what we owe the creditors, much less discuss news ways to satisfy the ignored, disillusioned, right or left. We have no authority to borrow money after early June with financial institutions intolerant of government worries. They are legally bound to protect their stockholders and investors…
Are decision-makers simply stupid? No, it’s far more likely because the citizen doesn’t encourage her or his own government to think through even the basic ends-ways-means equation I mentioned above. Those same citizens rarely ponder consequences for themselves, focusing instead on the pleasant outcomes that any decision might bring. The consequence of the panoply of means the government uses for seemingly infinite reasons is that we borrow money because we do not want to pay sufficient taxes to pay for the means nor do we collaboratively discuss scaling back the means because we have had a public policy agreement to decrease the number, scale, and scope of the ends.
Strategy-making is tough for everyone, no matter who it is. No one has a monopoly on doing it flawlessly and no one can be sure how other factors like the context within which this is all occurring will develop.
As we approach the debt ceiling cliff, this is even more important as we are asking our representatives to pay for what we have already spent in strategies. The impending debacle is real as are the debts we as a nation have accumulated. One guarantee, however, is that if we don’t address the debt ceiling crisis by the time the U.S. federal borrowing authority climaxes, we will have even fewer means by which for anyone to do anything on our behalf.FIN
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Steven Heffington, Adam Oler, and David Tretler, editors, A National Security Primer, 2nd edition (Washington: National Defense University Press, 2019) retrieved at https://nwc.ndu.edu/Portals/71/Documents/Publications/NWC-Primer-FINAL_for%20Web.pdf?ver=HOH30gam-KOdUOM2RFoHRA%3d%3d