Alessandra Nisch
Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of ...

President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.

Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of Applied Friction

Models

On the Business Models of War

On the Business Models of War

The ultimate question begged by these musings is to consider what effect more than fifty years of trying to implement business management models into the American military has had? Are we more efficient and monetarily lean than ever before? It doesn’t seem so. We have the world’s most expensive military, with the costliest equipment and highest operating margins. It is difficult to  draw a direct causal argument, despite the apparent correlation in time, and beyond the scope of this article to do so. The  argument is simply that military effectiveness is a matter that ought not to be judged by monetary value (profit or cost-savings efficiency) of the services performed, and it is thus not appropriate for business management models. More bluntly, whenever a public organization (as opposed to a private one) is so conceived the result will be unavoidably perverse.

Right, Wrong, & Relevant

Right, Wrong, & Relevant

...if the model is wrong, we must demand a new model more closely aligned to the question of interest, a model right enough to be useful. And this is not just a task for analysts and mathematicians, though it is our duty. This is a task for planners, strategists, operators, decision makers, and everyone else. We must seek the truth, even if we may not find it in all its Platonic perfection and even if its pursuit is paradoxical in the sense that it requires both humility and the belief that we can reach toward perfection.