Giles Moon - British Army
Making Sound Strategy: Back to the Basics of Ends, Ways, and Means
Soundness.
In introducing the concept of soundness, we must first be clear about what we mean when we describe a strategy as ‘sound’, and how soundness differs from efficacy. A strategy’s effectiveness, as Smith notes, “can be evaluated according to one unimpeachable criterion: namely, did you succeed in achieving your objectives?”[iii]. Efficacy can thus only be assessed in retrospect; the strategy must be implemented and the resultant plans carried through to completion (or at least nearly so) before we can determine whether it is effective. Soundness, on the other hand, can be assessed in advance. A sound strategy is one that has the component parts in place such that it stands a chance of proving effective once implemented. A useful analogy is that of a racing yacht – an effective yacht is one that wins, something that can only be judged once the race has finished; a sound yacht is one that has a rudder, a decent sail, and is watertight. We know before the race even starts that the leaky yacht with a torn sail, or the one that has lost its rudder, cannot possibly be effective. The yacht simply isn’t sound and thus stands no realistic prospect of success.
So too with strategy, although we need to work harder to identify the component parts. For that we can turn to Arthur Lykke and his ‘ends, ways and means’ framework. First proposed in 1989[iv], it has since become the dominant formulation for understanding and describing strategy in the American and British armies[v] and, while by no means uncontested, is almost certainly the most widely accepted conceptualization of strategy within the field of strategic studies. Even the great Colin Gray, towards the end of his life, seems to have accepted ends, ways and means (plus assumptions) as the component parts of his famous bridge[vi]. Ends, ways and means therefore provide a useful checklist of components that need to be identifiable in any given strategy for us to establish that it is sound. To wit: does it have clearly defined and plausibly achievable military objectives, or ends; does it have (to use Lykke’s phrasing) military strategic concepts, or ways, that can plausibly achieve those ends; and are there sufficient military resources, or means, to plausibly achieve the objectives using the chosen concepts. We should note that the concepts and resources needn’t guarantee success, not least because, as everyone’s favourite Prussian reminds us, “chance [is] the very last thing war lacks.”[vii] Likewise the objectives need not be definitely achievable – that can only be revealed once the strategy is turned into action. For a strategy to be sound, it is merely enough to identify that all three components could plausibly lead to success.
Several prominent authors have rightly decried the poor use that practitioners have made of the ends, ways and means framework. For example, Antulio Echevarria has lamented its use as a pseudo-scientific formula “as recognisable to modern strategists as…E=MC2 is to physicists”[viii], with strategists acting as if the answer to constructing good strategy lies simply in balancing the equation, and forgetting that the creation of good (or effective) strategy is an art. Similarly, Jeffrey Meiser has bemoaned the Lykke model as “a crutch undermining creative and effective strategic thinking” [ix] because it is being used in the US as “a literal formula”. David Ellery and Lianne Saunders, meanwhile, find ends, ways and means to be a caricatured understanding of a linear approach to strategy and “insufficient as a shorthand for the strategies needed for complex conflicts.”
- All of these critiques take aim not at Lykke’s original concept but at the way in which it has been interpreted within the armed forces: a ‘thick’ interpretation in which the Strategy=E+W+M construct is seen by military strategists as a comprehensive formula that is not only necessary to ensure success, but sufficient on its own.
https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/making-sound-strategy-back-to-the-basics-of-ends-ways-and-means/
