Military must know a war’s political aims. Or it risks doing the right thing for wrong reasons

News Snapshot:

In management principles, it is often said that a team will surprise you with their ingenuity if you tell them ‘what’ is to be done rather than ‘how’ it is to be done. This is equally true for the interplay between what is expected to be achieved at the political level and how it is to be done in the military domain. However, political and military aims are two distinct concepts in the context of war. The political aim refers to the ultimate goal that a state, or group of states, seeks to achieve through the use of military force....