LESSONS ENCOUNTERED

The Surges in Iraq and Afghanistan
is also important because the perception of progress has an effect on the
sustainability of the war effort. 16
Operational metrics and campaigns assessments are necessary but not
sufficient. An operational assessment may provide valuable insights into the
progress of a strategy or campaign plan, but it should not be confused with a
national strategic-level assessment, which must incorporate a larger perspective
involving international risks, coalition dynamics, and national resources.
It must also account for domestic political constraints, resourcing, and opportunity
costs. The policy community must be prepared to engage in strategic
assessments, but the two cases studied here suggest that it is handicapped by a
similar lack of grounded analytical structures and processes.
Adaptation
Historians identify the failure to adapt as a principal contributory cause of
poor organizational effectiveness in conflict. 17 They fault institutions over individuals
and focus on organizational elements in their analyses. Adapting to
unexpected circumstances tests the organization, “revealing weaknesses that
are partly structural and partly functional, whose full potential for disaster
may not previously have been noticed.” 18
Scholarship in this field has been principally focused on operational and
tactical, rather than strategic, adaptation. It is not enough to be tactically effective.
19 Historian Williamson Murray has stressed the importance of getting
the strategy right, as any campaign’s operations and tactics can always be fixed
later. But good tactics cannot compensate for a poor strategy. As he puts it, “No
amount of operational virtuosity [can] redeem fundamental flaws in political
judgment. . . . it is more important to make correct decisions at the political
and strategic level than it is at the operational and tactical level. Mistakes in
operations and tactics can be corrected, but political and strategic mistakes
live forever.” 20 That said, strategic adaptation is also necessary.
This chapter is oriented at the strategic level to offer insights on the drivers
and process of change at the strategic and national level of government. 21 There
were numerous forms of operational and tactical adaptations made in both
wars, including organizational changes (for example, Human Terrain Teams
and Provincial Reconstruction Teams), enhanced integration of special opera-
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