Casualty of war: A country whose leader needs to keep claiming victory is unlikely to be winning
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.George R.R. Martin offers an insightful verdict on leadership through Tywin Lannister of Game of Thrones. His grandson King Joffrey, seated on the Iron Throne, screams in frustration: “I am the King.
I will be obeyed.” Unflinchingly, Tywin looks at the boy and says: “Any man who must say ‘I am the King’ is no true king.” There is a war being fought right now where this distinction matters more than any weapon system. The mirror-image trap: US President Donald Trump has declared victory in this war. Several times.
We won in the first hour, on the very first day, etc. Their navy was destroyed, missiles degraded, army broken and leaders eliminated. While this destruction is not a lie, he seems to be making a more fundamental error.
Trump’s definition of victory reveals his own idea of a doomed state projected onto the enemy. If Iran had killed America’s entire military and political leadership and destroyed its navy and missile capabilities, the US would have suffered a constitutional collapse. So, in Trump’s apparent view, Iran must also be finished the same way.
This, however, is a strategic trap.Military history has a name for this failure: ‘Situating an appreciation,’ rather than ‘appreciating the situation.’ You assume your adversary thinks, values and breaks the way you do.During World War II, in 1944, the Allied command embarked on Operation Fortitude—a deception that placed US General Patton at the head of a phantom army opposite Pas-de-Calais in France. It worked because Nazi Germany was trapped by its own doctrine. If Patton was looking at Calais, that’s where Allied forces would be ready to invade.
Read on livemint.com