At least part of the answer appears to be that we saw
Vietnam as unique rather than in strategic context. This mis-
perception grew out of our neglect of military strategy in the
post-World War II nuclear era. Almost all of the professional
literature on military strategy was written by civilian
analysts -- political scientists from the academic world and
systems analysts from the Defense community. In his book
War and Politics, political scientist Bernard Brodie devoted
an entire chapter to the lack of professional military strategic
thought. ² The same criticism was made by systems analysts
Alain C. Enthoven and K. Wayne Smith who commented:
"Military professionals are among the most infrequent con-
tributors to the basic literature on military strategy and
defense policy. Most such contributors are civilians. . . ." ³
Even the Army's so-called "new" strategy of flexible response
grew out of civilian, not military, thinking.

This is not to say that the civilian strategists were wrong.
The political scientists provided a valuable service in tying
war to its political ends. They provided answers to "why" the
United States ought to wage war. In like manner the systems
analysts provided answers on "what" means we would use.
What was missing was the link that should have been pro-
vided by the military strategists -- "how" to take the systems
analyst's means and use them to achieve the political scien-
tist's ends.

But instead of providing professional military advice on
how to fight the war, the military more and more joined with
the systems analysts in determining the material means we
were to use. Indeed, the conventional wisdom among many
Army officers was that "the Army doesn't make strategy,"
and "there is no such thing as Army strategy." There was a
general feeling that strategy was budget-driven and was pri-
marily a function of resource allocation. The task of the
Army, in their view, was to design and procure material,
arms and equipment and to organize, train, and equip
soldiers for the Defense Establishment.

These attitudes derive in part from a shallow interpre-
tation of the Army's mission. While it is true that the NationalSecurity Act

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