LESSONS ENCOUNTERED

How System Attributes Trumped Leadership
security environment and risks, the Chairman has noted that the consequences of a terrorist
attack “are relatively insignificant in terms of national survival.” Martin E. Dempsey,
“Risky Business,” Joint Force Quarterly 69 (2 nd Quarter 2013), 3.
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Rumelt, 6.
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This issue was briefly discussed in the opening of the chapter.
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Hadley, interview.
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Lute, interview; Petraeus, interview.
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Rayburn.
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Another indication that the impact of critical assumptions is often exaggerated is the
tendency to focus on just those ostensibly responsible for untoward developments. For example,
much greater attention has been paid to the assertion that naïve optimism explains
the invasion of Iraq than to the assumption that a successful terrorist attack against the
United States with weapons of mass destruction would change the American way of life.
Yet the latter is a far more consequential assumption for the Bush administration’s entire
approach to the war on terror, a critical difference between the Bush and Obama administrations,
and a more foundational issue for future counterterror strategy.
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The author concurs, but notes the methodology used in this chapter is biased toward
reform. The decisionmaking methodology we used was “choice-based” and assumes
decisionmaking is an instrumental activity. The corollary assumption is that unified effort
is useful, which reflects a bias in favor of coherence and in turn inclines us to sympathize
with “reformers” who “advocate more systematic attempts to define objectives, establish
knowledge about the world, coordinate among different aspects of a decision, and exercise
control in the name of some central vision.” This bias is probably appropriate for a “lessons
learned” effort but needs to be acknowledged. For a discussion of the bias, see March and
Heath, 205–206.
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Cited in Lamb and Munsing, 7.
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Myers, 302.
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McChrystal, interview. For Rumsfeld, see National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission
on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Including the Executive Summary (New
York: Norton, 2004); Neumann, Blair, and Olson; Secretary Gates noted in 2007 “that if we
are to meet the myriad challenges around the world in the coming decades, this country
must strengthen other important elements of national power both institutionally and
financially, and create the capability to integrate and apply all of the elements of national
power to problems and challenges abroad” (emphasis added). Robert Gates, “Remarks as
Delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates,” Manhattan, KS, November 26, 2007.
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Dempsey notes one such insight is that most changes are effected through budget
adjustments and thus in conjunction with budget cycles rather than events in the field.
Dempsey, interview.
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