Strategists Have Forgotten the Power of Stories
The arts are invaluable to national security policymakers facing an ever-changing future.
Two armies faced each other for 10 years without victory in sight. The Trojans, who favored Ares—the god of war, tactics, and brutality—sat behind their walls and endured the siege. But the Greeks, claiming as their patron Athena—the deity for strategy, art, and war—decided that conventional warfighting approaches would not turn the tide in their favor. Through a combination of creativity and disinformation, the Greeks not only built a giant horse filled with soldiers; they managed to convince the Trojans to bring the massive statue through Troy’s gates. As a result, the Greeks bested the Trojans, Athena humiliated Ares, and the whole episode underscored that militarism without strategy and creativity is a losing proposition. The long shadow of the Trojan War reminds us that creative methodologies are essential components of the national security and foreign-policy toolkit. And we will need to use all the tools we can get in order to figure out our way forward while COVID-19 ravages an already complicated world.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/19/national-security-policymaking-mythos-logos-strategy/
