The West has forgotten the art of strategy

17 comments

1. Great article, encapsulates everything I feel about the West’s decision-making over the last few decades, namely that there is no foresight beyond a few years max. No thought for where we want to be in 20 or 50 or 100 years, just what’s the crisis RIGHT NOW and what can we do IMMEDIATELY to put out the fire.

2. I do agree with many of the articles points about China’s strategic success in particular. But when it comes it’s neighboring powerhouse like Russia, I fail to see how its strategic role in the world has improved considering the loss of important anti-Western factions in the Middle East with much of them not being able to host a Russian presence any more, nor can Moscow afford to send any influential elements to those regions via Iran. Additionally, as long as it’s not planning to invade the rest of Europe, the continent has shifting its stance on its military and industrial apparatus to reorganize it’s role in global affairs at minimum costs to its civilians. If anything, the worst Europe has to deal with is its immigration “crisis”.

   Powerhouses like India or Brazil are either very friendly with the West in spite of BRIC and there’s no strategic reason for their relationship with the West to ever sour, even if they gain more bargaining power on the world stage. It’s a mixed bag, where the East is certainly making instrumental gains but much of them are either neutral/friendly with the West or are tied up in their own conflicts except for China. Which is honestly better for the world if mutual interests can be fostered amongst the West and East as the latter becomes more powerful.

3. Interesting article, with a good overall point.

   However, this part just keeps getting parroted, and is not true:

   >Ukraine’s biggest regret is having agreed to give up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons. Had the country kept them, Putin would never have attacked.

   Ukraine never had functional control of the Soviet nuclear weapons, and lacked the means to maintain them even if they had gained control of them. Keeping them was never an option.

4. I think it’s a bit disingenuous to claim that the West is focused on only short-term goals.

   That might be the case here in Europe, but not in the US. Sure, sometimes the blue side of the coin wins, other times it’s the red side, but it’s still the same exact coin. Hardly anything changes when the coin flips.

   There are decades-long strategic plans in place.

   Case in point: Syria and the operation [Timber Sycamore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore) .

   If you are not averse to Jeffrey Sachs (some people don’t like what he’s saying, but he’s been directly or indirectly involved in many events), in his recent appearance on Tucker’s podcast, he talked about the beginning of the US plan to undermine and overthrow Assad .. in 2012. It took a while for the plan to come into fruition, mainly due to Russian interference since 2015, but eventually, the plan succeeded, and Assad was overthrown.
   That’s a long-term plan.

5. Yeah, I’ve said it before, but the article basically summarizes why Biden was one of the biggest disasters for US geopolitics in a century. This part in particular speaks to the folly of the sanctions we’re even now trying to impose, particularly Europe who continues to announce new packages with great glee:

   >The trouble with our misjudgements is they have no corrective mechanism. If you are a financial trader, your misjudgements cost you money. You cannot keep getting everything wrong and expect to stay solvent. That is not the case in foreign policy, because the people who keep on making those serial misjudgements are not the same people who are paying the price.

   In my opinion sanctions weren’t meant to slow Russia down or take 3+ years to cause a significant impact, they were one of a few different attacks meant to collapse the Russian economy and foment regime change. But it was such a big deal to create the measures and get our allies to go along with them, that politically they didn’t know how to back down when sanctions didn’t work, even when they were a dagger to the heart of our own economies and our lower/middle class wallets.

   The weaponization of the financial systems that the article talks about are Biden’s biggest failing though. Our markets and debt structure have always been the jewel in our crown and we ruined its neutrality for little impact. Again, a good try, although an extreme tactic for the situation, but when it failed there was no way to reverse the impact – we had tried to stab Russia and cut ourselves in the process. Now you have China rapidly divesting our debt and making themselves sanction-proof, and the one-shot tools we might have used to fire back over Taiwan are exhausted.

6. The key reason for Russia and China becoming closer is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What does the author propose, that the west should have let Ukraine fall just to try to keep Russia strong and therefore ‘competing’ with China instead of relying on China?

   And it’s easy to complement China when so far their long-term strategic aims haven’t reached a conclusion (namely overtaking the USA as the largest economy in the world, conquering Taiwan and establishing full strategic control over the South China Sea). Lets see how it actually plays out over the next decade or so before saying how amazing China’s strategy is

7. Hm, they say this but let’s have a look at the Middle East.

   If we ignore the morality of the situation, Iran was the West’s last real challenge in the ME, and they’re broken now. Israel have won. Sure, Iran is still kicking but the asymettry is clear – Iran can send hundreds of missiles at Israel and ten or so will get through to hit streets, apartments and occasionally a military target; Israel sends a few missiles at Iran and kills most of their high command.

   The ease with which Israel has killed Iran’s senior leaders without large numbers of civilian casualties ironically highlights the sheer amount of Palestinians they have killed.

   And now let’s look at Russia. Russia is stuck in a quagmire: their latest offensive in Sumy has now started slowly reversing. Ukraine keeps fighting and there are no signs they are breaking. Europe has filled the gap in aid that Trump left. But does it matter, to the West, whether Ukraine or Russia are slowly winning? No. Russia now has no freedom, all they can do is keep fighting in Ukraine. They have lost their overseas influence: their allies in Iran and Syria are gone or broken. The Wagner group have left some locations in Africa due to loss of funding. Thanks to Ukraine, Russia has no ability to affect the world through anything except psyops.

   Other BRICS countries – Brazil, India, South Africa – don’t like Israel for obvious reasons but they don’t like Chinese autocracy either. They’re pretty neutral. They’re in it for themselves and will support who they like. Good for them.

   China’s influence in Africa is the only battleground where the West is losing. Trump’s idiocy in cutting aid to Africa just cedes the ground completely. Economically, China is doing about as well as most sensible people expected: they keep growing, although they’re having problems. But so is the US, though Europe is struggling.

8. Did the ukrainians even have actual control over those nukes? I read somewhere even thr launch code where in moscow. Not disputing the conclusion that if ukraine had nukes Putin would not have invaded. But did Ukraine really had nukes if they couldn’t even use them?

9. Well…the west has made some dumb errors in this century but I doubt the rest of the world is some kind of master of strategy?

   Let’s start with the middle East….before I fire away, I’ll state, fck Netanyahu he deserves hell.

   Iran had been propping up proxies for more than a decade now to undermine American and Israeli influence in the region. The axis of resistance was actually a real concern for the US, but this was all before October 7.

   Israel should treat them better and work towards a two state solution. But in hindsight, October 7 marked the end of the so-called Axis. Hamas is smashed, they can’t even launch a stone at Israel now, the two state solution is now decades away if not dead.

   Hezbollah has been neutralized, they have refused to help their master in the war against Israel. Israel has proved that Hezbollah is a paper tiger. And Syria and Assad, this one had real potential to cause Israel problems, but there government collapsed like a stack of cards, literally the rebel fighters just walked their way to rule Syria. And Israel destroyed military as well, completely.

   Russia, where do I even begin? The best way to get rid of American influence in Europe was to keep Europe addicted to Russian gas, because Europe was never gonna militarize itself, now they have to stick with the US because the Americans have the biggest dixk flying around. And Europe and America aren’t heading towards a divorce, a more balanced partnership maybe, but Europe knows it needs the muscle of the US, that’s why America is still flying planes to Europe for their upcoming middle eastern adventures.

   China, is the only rare exception who has made great decision over the past decades or I’m just not aware of them because I don’t really see China that much in news.

   If you consider Israel a non-western nation, than don’t even get me started on the amount of bad decisions they have taken. I mean…even since October 7, I’m not gonna go before that, that will be longer than the fcking bible.

   Ok…a terrorist attack happened, your innocent people didn’t deserve it, no one does. But has Israel actually followed a more restraint approach to this war, they will would have been able to take out Hezbollah and Syria but with a good PR. But no…that monster Netanyahu had other ideas.

10. Nice words, I like to think this is also a result of our broken political model. We are no longer idealists we are reactionaries fueled by corporate dollars who can only see the next term limit.

11. I really dislike the handwaving of the EU. Yes its lacking in foreign policy, but it was not really intended to have a unified foreign policy.
    As the longterm strategy that it was devised as it fulfilled the role admirably, keep europeans together, prevent fighting, promote prosperity and ensure common values, its ambition is without compare in world history, nowhere before have that many independent nations worked together for that long. Its the 2nd or 3rd most powerful military alliance on earth, the second biggest currency and third biggest economy on the planet.
    If you want to see the sucess of the EU you have to look at the old tariff stations that rot away forgotten, look at nations like the baltics or poland that saw a renesaince in the EU, that has been a 70 year strategy, hugely ambitious and majorly sucessful, I hope we can push it ever further

12. All true.

    Any country without a nuke is now gunning for one if they have the cash and the ability to acquire the material.

    Why wouldn’t you? It’s the ultimate get out of jail free card as demonstrated again and again by the US, Russia, China, Nk, and Israel. You don’t have to fear reprisal for your actions if you have a nuke and you can be a giant dickhead to everyone around you.

    The era of proliferations fuse was lit by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and accelerated by the Israeli actions in Iran.

    If I were to put money on it within 10 years dozens of new nations will have nukes or will be actively in development of them with no chance in hell that a EU, US, or Chinese brokered deal will stop them.

13. This article makes some fair points but seems to badly mischaracterize the current state of the world.

    First off, it’s not that the US didn’t have a strategy, it’s that republicans and Trump are actively making moves that undermine the dollar as the global reserve currency, the US military’s global logistics network, and the western alliance itself.

    The dollar was seen as stable and reliable. No one wants to use the Ruble or Yuan, their parent nations aren’t trustworthy.

    BRICS still uses the dollar for all their transactions. No one in that alliance trusts each other enough for there to be a viable alternative, and for good reason.

    Then we need to look at the result of China’s, Russia’s, and Iran’s “grand strategy.”

    Putin looked at Trump abandoning Afghanistan and thought “I can just plow into Ukraine and do whatever I want.”

    All these years later no one fears Russia anymore, the Ruble is near worthless, Europe is moving away from dependence on their energy and now they’ve got things thousands of miles away from Ukraine exploding on the regular, and estimates have them a million soldiers down.

    Their fifth gen fighter program is a joke, years behind with barely any in service. They can’t replace their ammo, they can’t replace the 1/3 of their bomber force the Ukrainians blew up a few weeks ago, and now Ukraine has their own ballistic missile manufacturing and it’s suddenly clear that Russian air defense isn’t exactly impenetrable.

    Their training is so bad one of their planes shot down his wingman this week. We were even saved from WW3 a few years ago when one of their pilots tried to shoot down a British AWACS only to have not one but two of his missiles simply not work.

    Then we have China. China has a lot going for it and has made a lot of shrewd moves, but they’ve also got a lot of serious institutional problems.

    Chief among them is their impending demographic collapse brought on by the CCP’s one child policy and subsequent “master planning.”

    https://www.populationpyramid.net/china/2024/

    I’m not sure how they deal with the fact that their workforce is aging and they have far, far fewer people replacing them. Maybe AI and automation saves them to a degree but they’ve still got infrastructure and society to run, and not enough people to do it.

    Belt and Road hasn’t exactly been a smashing success either.

    What HAS worked well is that Russia is now highly dependent on China due to sanctions, and China is manipulating the Yuan to utterly rape them economically. India has done something similar.

    China is also not energy or food independent and needs partners like Russia and Iran to trade for those items. It’s not impossible that China annexes the Russian Far East and the energy deposits there before they go for Taiwan. They’ve been sending Chinese immigrants there for years and they’ve already publishing maps showing that region as Chinese, as it was before Russia conquered it.

    Russia, for their part, probably can’t stop them from doing exactly what they tried to do to Ukraine due to their misadventure there.

    And finally there’s Iran… for a few more days at least.

    Israel rolled out their nukes in 1973 when Egypt and Syria briefly had them on the ropes, and that brought an end to the idea that a conventional war could be waged against them.

    Iran and the USSR moved to a proxy strategy, where attacks and reprisals happened in other countries with the idea being that Israel would be torn apart by a thousand tiny cuts.

    Thing is… with western sanctions Iran couldn’t actually afford to maintain their own country’s military, air defense, or Air Force while they financed the proxy network, nor did they apparently have a particularly great way to keep everyone coordinated.

    Again, Russia’s misadventure in Ukraine kept them from delivering the weapons systems Iran ordered, and the ones they did deliver were completely ineffective due to a combination of being made in Russia and the fact that the Iranian people hate their government with enough passion to work with the Israelis to take it out.

    Israel is the nation who just enacted a multi step strategy clearly in the works for years to methodically dismantle Iran’s proxy network that’s harangued them for decades.

    Hamas is over. Hezbollah, seen as implacable, barely lasted a month once Israel began their campaign.

    The fall of Hezbollah brought down Assad. That curtailed Iran’s ability to arm them and also opened Syrian airspace to the Israeli Air Force, making Iran itself vulnerable for the first time.

    Israel goaded Iran into a ballistic missile attack last year, and it seems clear now it was a probe to see what they’d do, and now they’ve spent a year planning to do to Iran what they did to Hezbollah, and Iran is their final boss.

    Israel badly damaged Iranian air defense and their ability to produce and fire rockets last April, and looking at what they did in hindsight it might even be reasonable to say they actually won this war way back then.

    But despite the success of the military strategy, even they might not have thought it all the way through on the political side.

    Iran was a counterbalance to Turkey and Saudi Arabia and without them and the military threat they represent the west and even the US could effectively lose interest in maintaining their alliance, particularly given the PR damage the Gaza war has done internationally.

    They’re still nuclear armed, but it’s going to be a very different game without Iran rattling the saber and freaking everyone out.

    Iran being gone probably lowers the global temperature a lot. Russia loses a key strategic partner, China probably makes nice with the new management or enacts a version of their economic stranglehold they have Russia in if the IRGC does make it through.

    The criticisms of the west in this article are valid, but he’s giving a free pass to the other actors on the world stage who are by no means running the table.

14. Feels like capitalist countries always do short term planning while China plans for the next 20 to 30 years.

    My favourite example are the train stations and underground stops to the middle of nowhere, which was used in the west as proof China is collapsing and making bogus construction for no reason.

    But then 10 or so years later those stops and stations are now huge metropolitan centers and cities with tens of millions of people.

    Same with the so called “ghost cities”. Empty homes built by the thousands also ridiculed by the West. But now they’re all houses by millions of people.

    Like, I fucking wish we had built thousands of homes before the need for them arose.

    It seems China plans for what’s coming ahead while we don’t really plan, we just respond to shit as it happens. When it’s usually too late.

15. I like the chess analogy, but chess is a very tactical game. You can choose openings that are more positional, but you still need to be looking for tactics every turn. I think Risk does a better job of teaching strategy, because

    1. All the pieces move identically, so there’s a smaller per-move demand on your brain.

    2. You play with (up to) six players, rather than just two, so you need to learn to negotiate.

    3. Games with top players end up being very positional.

    Positional thinking is different than either strategy or tactics, but it’s the main element of building a long-term strategy. Chess has a pretty constant tactical demand, which models battles fine, but not geopolitics over years or decades. Risk is much better for this.

16. This speaks more to American lack of strategy, rather than a Western lack of strategy.

    For example, enlargement of the EU, rather than being a “sprawling mess”, was in effect a remarkably successful take-over of most members of the former Soviet bloc without firing a single shot. It was Ukraine’s desire for rapprochement with the EU that triggered *Euro*maiden and Russia’s invasion in 2014. At the time, Ukraine was nowhere close to joining NATO or forming military alliances with NATO members.

    Similarly, the [Iran Nuclear Deal Framework](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal_framework#International_reactions), set the ground for preventing nuclear weapons development in Iran more effectively than any US sanctions or attacks by Israel. Until America decided on “tactics” instead, that is.

    Compare the above with the Iraq War and the catalogue of catastrophes that followed it, including, ironically, a strengthening of Iran’s local influence.

17. It all started with America’s complete moral panic about communism and how it must be stopped at all costs. They took a “shoot first, ask questions later” approach to warfare and completely abandoned long term thinking.

    It explains why pretty much every conflict the US has embroiled itself in over the past 80 years has ended in complete failure.

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