In 2015 I wrote an op-ed in @RCDefense on the West’s failure of moral imagination re Russia’s “sudden and surprising” aid to the Assad regime. realcleardefense.com/articles/2015/10/13/blindside_-_us_foreign_policy_108572.html#!
My basic premise holds. Politics is a moral enterprise; good strategy demands we escape myopic views of what others want or will do. We (i.e., the West) were blindsided because we couldn't imagine Putin doing something we wouldn't do. It wasn't rational in our calculation.
But that's not how strategy works. Strategy is interactive. As the saying goes, the enemy gets a move.
What we think is irrational, might be perfectly rational, or moral, for our rivals.
The problem is not new, and I am hardly the first to draw attention to it. H.R. McMaster refers to it as strategic narcissism. What is needed, he suggests elsewhere is strategic empathy. I quibble with the term, but the basic logic is the same as my own. hoover.org/sites/default/files/03022022_statement_for_the_record_-_hr_mcmaster_final.pdf
Namely, by drawing our attention to the moral component of war and politics (something even hard core realists like Clausewitz and E.H. Carr did), we can begin to see the world, the strategic landscape, as they do. The ends and means are never the same for competitive rivals.
Luke M. Pérez, PhD
@lukemperez
Your friendly neighborhood grand strategist. Assist Prof, @ASU_SCETL. I research U.S. grand strategy, political theory, and religion. I teach civic education.