The Seven Questions Every Military Strategist Must Ask

This episode unpacks what strategy really is, the seven questions every strategist must ask themselves before initiating a military operation, and why war stays so stubbornly unpredictable.

Host:

James M. Lindsay, Mary and David Boies Distinguished Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy, CFR

Guest:

Eliot A. Cohen, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and author of The Strategist: How to Think About War and Politics

We Discuss:

What strategy can actually accomplish, and whether the outcome of war is ultimately a matter of chance.

Why Eliot Cohen adopts a deliberately narrow definition of strategy—and why he has little use for the fashionable term “grand strategy.”

The distinction between strategy and planning, and why execution is what separates a strategist from a planner.

The seven questions every strategist must ask, from “what else is going on?” to “what is your theory of victory?”

Why understanding the adversary—“Who are those guys?”—is a recurring American blind spot, including in the Iran war.

How surprise, groupthink, and the limits of human judgment repeatedly derail even the best-led war efforts.