All leaders are easily criticised for either having the ‘wrong’ strategy or ‘no’ strategy at all regardless of the issue. In politics, elections exacerbate these critiques without always offering an alternative. In 1968, trapped in Vietnam, President Lyndon Johnson’s (flawed) strategy was to continue the status quo of defeating the North Vietnamese army and Viet Cong in the south. Candidate Richard Nixon had a ‘secret plan’. That plan was so secret as to be nonexistent. Seven more years would lapse before that war finally ended with the North winning. But the US could have prevailed in Vietnam by invading the north. Clearly, at the time, that option was simply not plausible although in retrospect, who knows. Today’s international scene is more complicated, complex and less conducive to resolution by military force than 40 (or even 20) years ago. In the shadow of thermonuclear war, the Soviet Union provided a mechanism for strategic stability among the superpowers, their allies and other states. In 2012, flooding Afghanistan (or Syria) with an occupying army will not work either. This is not 1945 when the capitulated axis powers lay helpless and wholly dependent on the largesse of the victors for survival. The future of Afghanistan (and Syria) can only be determined by Afghans (and Syrians), not external powers. The forces that have transformed international politics and geo-economics are self-evident. The end of the Cold War, the diffusion and re-distribution of all forms of power, instant communications and limits on the use of military force are the most obvious. And what in the west is called an ‘asymmetric war’ (that is in reality smart ways for opponents who lack military forces in the conventional sense to defeat those states who have them either through attrition with improvised explosive devices or clever propaganda and ideology) has not been matched by a countervailing and effective response. To expect the Obama administration at this point to come up with a new or clever strategy to replace the national security documents that are strong on intent and lacking in viable actions is naïve. Similarly, Mitt Romney’s campaign does not want to be trapped by specifics for strategy that become tempting targets for a political counter-attack. Yet, the US needs a viable strategy. The dictum of George Marshal, chief of the staff of the army seven decades ago that, if you get the objectives right, a lieutenant can write the strategy sounds good. The problem is that this is not 1942 when the aims were to defeat the Japanese and German war machines, occupy the enemy combatant states and ensure that the new governments would be cleansed of the fascist and authoritarian Nazi and militarist regimes. Similarly, once the Cold War hardened, containing the Soviet Union while strengthening the economies of the ‘free world’ made strategic and common sense. That is what happened. Ultimately, the Soviet Union fell of its own weight and the irrationality of its political and economic systems. Unfortunately, no equivalently powerful unifying force as the Soviet Union exists today. Radical religions and extreme ideologies, Islamic or not, do not offer a similarly unifying attraction. And the siren-like calls for peace, stability and democracy likewise are pursuits, not hard-nosed objectives that can be put into achievable policies and strategies. That said, creating an achievable strategy is not unobtainable or delusionary. The first and most crucial component is building strong economies. So obvious, the failure of governments to achieve this condition is inexplicable yet understandable. Politicians refuse to take tough choices and prefer deferral to decision from Athens to Brussels, from Madrid to Washington. The second organising principle co-opts the unofficial motto of the Royal Canadian Mounties — “Never send a man where you can send a bullet.” And this principle does not apply only to drones. Regional powers and organisations are crucial to tackling regional issues in which the US and others can serve as facilitators or guarantors and not simply interventionists. This is not rocket science. Unfortunately, as Clausewitz observed, war consists of the simplest activities that can become impossible in the fog and friction of combat. The same caution applies more broadly to geo-strategy. Recommendations such as creating an off-budget infrastructure bank or re-establishing a Glass-Steagall banking law have frequently appeared in this space as economic fixes. Expanding alliances and partnerships using the UN, NATO, local and regional alliances and organisations as the basis for galvanising shared interests into action is straightforward. Yet, despite the pleas for a greater partnership action, little has transpired. An abundance of common sense would work nicely. Problems and challenges are acute. Some are not readily solvable. But until a real and not an expedient strategy is adopted and leaders have the resolve and political courage to implement it, expecting great things from any government, anywhere, is illusionary. The writer is the Chairperson of the Killowen Group that advises leaders of government and business and Senior Advisor at Washington DC’s Atlantic Council