By Richard E. Friedman

Richard E. Friedman is the President of the National Strategy Forum and Publisher of the National Strategy Review.

In sport competition, the difference between winners and losers is measured by preparation and the ability to plan for future events and the unforeseen consequences of contemporary events.  In business and commerce, the same metric applies: the acquisition of applicable information, future planning, and positioning for rapid adaptation to unforeseen events.  Most successful businesses rely on strategic planning.  However, this was not the case for financial institutions that invested in toxic mortgages for quick profit.

In brief, there is a critical difference between tactics—how immediate events are handled—and long-range strategy.  Only infrequently do policymakers consider the consequences of tactical decisions.  Today’s fires may be extinguished, but the causation and likelihood of future fires is rarely addressed.

There is a political reason for focusing on tactics and ignoring strategy.  Elected officials and government policymakers are constrained by the election cycles.  The administration in power is evaluated by voters on their performance.  Consequences are rarely discussed and do not motivate voters.  Politicians do not want to be held responsible for short term political consequences.  In a business example, for many years very few U.S. railroads invested in their roadbed infrastructure.  The result was severe infrastructure deterioration.  Railroad executives failed to invest in infrastructure because it was thought that this would reduce annual profitability and diminish executive compensation.  This “not on my watch” mentality is present in international affairs and national security.

In this issue of the National Strategy Forum Review, we have focused on Mexico and its national security strategy and how the U.S. and Mexico's national security strategies could complement each other.  Many examples of failed long-term strategy exist, providing potent lessons for policymakers as they consider the shape and the direction of U.S. efforts throughout the world:

• Iran began its nuclear enrichment program in 2002 when it acquired centrifuges to make fissionable nuclear material.
  
• North Korea began exporting nuclear weapons technology and long-range missile development technology in the 1990’s.
  
• The U.S. demand for Latin American drugs has been increasing for many years and the drug trafficking route through Mexico into the U.S. is obvious.  In addition, U.S. immigration policy has been cyclical, depending on U.S. prosperity and the need for low-wage immigrant workers.
  
• U.S. dependency on imported oil has been apparent since 1973.  Scarce water resources in the western U.S. have been an enduring agricultural and demographic problem for more than a decade.  Energy discussion has not reached the policy level and there is no anticipation that there will be informed discussion of scarce water resources in the immediate future.
  
• The issue of how to handle battlefield detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq was identified immediately before the invasion of these states.  Eight years later, the U.S. is deciding how and where to try terrorists.
  
• The U.S. has provided billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan since 1953.  After 1979, the tactical objective was to interfere with and degrade Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.  At that time, the consequences were not recognized—training and equipping the mujahideen which developed into a leadership cadre for the Taliban.  Ever since, U.S. aid money to Pakistan has fed an insatiable appetite for governmental, NGO, and police corruption.  Post 9/11, the U.S. has spent over $12.3 billion in aid to Pakistan, with roughly 1/3 going to economic and development aid sources.  The result is that Pakistan is a kleptocracy where aid will be used, in large part, for corruption rather than for the purposes intended.
  
• For at least the past five years, it has been apparent that critical U.S. information infrastructure has been successfully attacked by cyber hackers, both foreign states and lone individuals.  Yet, the U.S. is focusing on offensive cyber-warfare capabilities and bureaucratic turf battles over control of the program, rather than organizing an effective defense against cyber attacks on critical U.S. infrastructure.

These are examples of limited tactics, failure to consider the consequences of tactics, and an absence of over-arching, long-range strategy.

We have asked NSF friends and scholars to examine regions and issues in search of a cogent U.S. strategy.