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.
The imperative to make choices in the face of constrained resources, to devote resources to some purposes and to sacrifice other purposes, remains a perennial concern, handed down from the founding of the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS) and the Systems Analysis effort founded under Robert McNamara in 1961, and it is on this question that The Strategy Bridge focuses in our first series of 2022. Submissions should conform with our guidelines and must be received no later than 12 January 2022.
