Using a Clausewitzian Dictum to Rethink Achieving Victory

"The U.S. National Security Strategy should not be conflated with the concept of grand strategy. The National Security Strategy addresses certain matters of particular Congressional concern as required under the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act. Recent National Security Strategy documents have been examples of the relatively rare and problematic milieu type. This type addresses the whole international system whereas the positional type addresses one specific state or a small group of states.[11] Most grand strategies are positional with a well-known example being the U.S. grand strategy of containment during the Cold War era. This grand strategy gradually grew to involve taking actions across the globe however it was consistently focussed on addressing a single bilateral relationship of concern, that between the U.S. and the USSR. Other issues of concern to the U.S. were then addressed using methodologies and techniques appropriate to each problem.[12] States have many different problems so relying on one grand strategy even of the National Security Strategy example is demonstrably inadequate.[13] The National Security Strategy deals with certain congressionally mandated issues but is not the sum total of the grand strategy problem solving methodology."