Strategy as a tactic
Strategy refers to management activities, as it determines the movement of an organization/ country/ person towards a strategic goal. Strategic analysis determines the main players and the rules of the game in the long term. Strategic intelligence defines the same area of priorities not only from its side, but also from the side of the enemy/opponent. Thus, strategic analysis defines strategic goals and means to achieve them. However, this can be done if there is one important component - the mission, i.e. a certain meta-goal that an organization/country/person sets for themselves. As a result of such a study of the situation, the management space is structured, we get a clear and understandable version of our movement.
Having defined our movement for the future, we can build it today.
The mission is being implemented within the framework of a certain vision of the future.
The strategy in this regard is a movement at the meta-level, when not only real, but also potential actions are taken into account, both your own and the opponent's / opponent's. A multi-level system is formed, which includes goals of different levels, both distant and close.
Exploitation at the meta-level allows us to expand the field of possibilities, as we begin to look at the situation from a different point of view, from multiple angles. By the way, V. Lenin's famous expression "We will go the other way" may be the slogan of the strategy. At the same time, it is based on the intersection of two opposite requirements: on the one hand, we demand an expansion of the field of possibilities, on the other, we are interested in narrowing this field in reality.
The strategy in this regard is quite creative, since it expands the field of action (both in business and in the case of hostilities). What works is that it wasn't a "working" toolkit before. Thus, the strategy strengthens the strategic player by providing him with a new kind of toolkit, which, in principle, non-strategic players will not have. Therefore, the strategy is often implemented as the use of new factors, new parameters that were not previously included in the action. Their appearance in the arena of counteraction is due to a change in the general paradigm characteristic of a qualitative strategy, which makes it possible to change the existing or imposed by the opponent / opponent configuration of factors.
In politics, this can be dragging an opponent into an area that is not a win-win for him. However, due to the creation of the phenomenon of publicity, he cannot avoid discussing it. The visible effect of CNN is from the same series: the media, organizing discussions of the problem, exert appropriate pressure on politicians or the military, who could make a different decision without the close attention of public opinion.
D. Morris at one time, working with B. Clinton, proposed the option of intercepting the enemy's idea in order to turn it into his own. This is exactly what B. Clinton did in a number of cases. In this case, the "my" field is expanded by using "someone else's". By the way, Goethe once said something like this: no, whose idea is it, what matters is who used it better.
A new factor may be the publication of fundamentally new information that has negative consequences for the opponent. For example, K. Builder considered the Cuban missile crisis from this angle. In this case, the struggle for public opinion was to find out who was telling the truth about the missiles in Cuba. The parties to the conflict produced contradictory information. At the crucial moment, A. Stevenson showed photographs of the aerial footage at the United Nations, which was completely unexpected in terms of the public display of intelligence photographs.
A strategy is a series of tactics that may even contradict each other if combined with a single strategy. In this case, losses at one level are offset by gains at another.
Strategy, unlike tactics, is at the same time the management of the opponent / opponent. For example, the message of the fake landing site of the Allies in World War II or the United States in the Gulf War. As a result, the enemy's actions are being prepared and developed at the wrong point in space-time, where he was deliberately lured.
Strategy differs from tactics in that it works within a multidimensional space. As a result, there is a variant of inter-level influences, when an action within one space gives results within another. The opponent/opponent may not even feel danger, because he sees everything within the same level.
Examples of negative interdimensional communication can be given, when events within the information space affect public opinion, causing changes in the space of political and military decision-making:
The Vietnam War ended when a television show of it formed a certain view of public opinion;
The United States withdrew its troops from Somalia after the corpse of an American was shown on the screen being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu (the so-called CNN effect);
the first Chechen war caused a sharp rejection of it by Russian public opinion.
In all such cases, the chain of influence is fundamentally inter-level.
Examples of positive inter-level communication can be given:
Putin's first elections against the background of an aggravation of the internal situation due to the Chechen factor;
the second election of George W. Bush against the background of the anti-terrorist war.
This is an impact on the political space. Similarly, there is an impact on the economic space when, say, the cultural expansion of the United States in the form of mass culture causes understandable results in the economic and political spheres.
Interestingly, the Cold War was an information war, but it was not transferred (almost transferred) to other spheres. The Cold War was fought primarily on its own territory: The USSR and the USA were ideologically and informationally active within their borders, and since the tension did not go out, the level was constantly growing. It can be said that he even acquired caricature forms, if it were not so dangerous.
The strategy works on the principle of "multi-move", whereas tactics offers only one move. The more complicated the situation, the more complex the design should be proposed to overcome it.
The strategic vision considers further horizons, so in such a situation, short-range goals become clear. The one who has only tactics sees even these short-range goals through the lens of uncertainty.
The strategy sets priorities. For example, Nokia directs almost half of its budget to scientific research.
The definition of priority goals allows you to concentrate resources to achieve a result, which turns from the category of potential into an opportunity.
The strategy identifies risks because it is developed in an aggressive environment. The development of a counteraction strategy is always influenced by two players. The presence of an opponent is constantly felt in the arena. There is not and cannot be one hundred percent confidence in the achievability of strategic goals, but you can move towards them by weighing the risks and your capabilities.
The strategy is a multiplier of the available forces, as it provides them with a favorable way to apply. If an entrepreneur is looking for his niche in business, where the level of competitive pressure will be the lowest, then the military is looking, for example, for favorable conditions for striking. The strategy makes it possible to see not only the goal, but also rational ways to achieve it. In this regard, it is as systematic as possible, since it considers a set of "working" factors, moving to a paradigm that no one has used before.
Time also plays an important role in strategy development. Although the strategy has a time resource, unlike tactics, but, however, the pressure of deadlines is felt. Therefore, in the first place is often the one who intuitively, rather than rationally, feels the future movement of the situation, helping his object to adjust to this future alignment of forces. Attention to strategy does not negate the role of intuition. A strategy strengthens a strong player, but it can weaken a weak one because he does not have enough resources to implement his own strategy. The implementation of someone else's strategy will be unprofitable both in the short and long term.
