Strategy formulation within the United States is a difficult and messy process that can differ substantially from administration to administration. The president’s flexibility within the National Security Council system enables frequent changes to its process and influence as the nation’s primary strategy-making device. This variance, in turn, makes it difficult to ensure long-term, inter-administration strategic consistency. Furthermore, even within individual administrations, strategy is not the result of a monolithic policy machine, but of multiple sub-optimized positions informed by a variety of security perspectives and moderated by organizational equities.
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.
