Strategy vs. Tactics

Some may assume that one good at strategy is good at tactics and vice versa. Some others may think they are independent of each other. Reality is more nuanced and complex. A person who is good at tactics may hang on to the wrong strategy longer. For example, withdrawing from Afghanistan (for the USA) was the right strategy, but the way it was executed showed poverty in tactics. A tactical person would have waited longer for the right time and that time would never have come. A good tactician may even be a good trapeze artist. Finally, the best recourse is to get off the rope, even risking a temporary fall as long as it is not fatal.

Thus we may have situations when with good people bad strategies continue to operate as they manage to compensate for their shortcomings. Then someone who appears to be clueless comes on board and it may force a strategic rethink or new strategy may materialize as fait accompli.

Thus, a bad strategy may perpetuate because of good tacticians and bad tactics easily undo a good strategy. Strategy and tactics have to go hand in hand. However, what should be given greater focus is contextual. To put it in other words, how do we know if a given strategy is right or wrong? Strategy is about choices to reach a goal, which is a consequent. Any consequent flows from a set of antecedents. In many cases, people miss out on defining the antecedents thoughtfully. They take antecedents for granted. Without a clear understanding of antecedents, the consequents also are loosely/wrongly defined. Then we go by a lot of dogmas which queer the pitch further, Thus, more time should be spent on assessing ground reality(antecedents) or what are our real needs, and then only goals should be defined. Only after that strategy and tactics have to be determined.