Factors Influencing Strategy: The Objective-Narrative Nexus
By Marshall McGurk
September 01, 2023
Earlier this year, The Strategy Bridge asked civilian and military students around the world to participate in our seventh annual student writing contest on the subject of strategy.
Now, we are pleased to present one of the Third Place winners from Marshall McGurk, a recent graduate of the U.S. Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies.
“We are all here. Our military is here, citizens are here. We are all here defending our independence, our state, and it will be so further. Glory to our defenders, glory to Ukraine!”[1] With those impassioned words, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, flanked by his Prime Minister and party leaders around a cell-phone screen, galvanized his country and sent a message of defiance to the world on the first night of Russia’s invasion. At the time of this writing, Ukraine has met the call of President Zelenskyy’s words. Russia and President Vladimir Putin remain unable to overthrow the Zelenskyy government or gain control of the Ukrainian state.
While 20th-century leaders used mediums such as radio and television addresses, President Zelenskyy leveraged the power of smartphones to film the speech and promulgate it into the 24-hour news cycle through social media dissemination. The narrative stands well with the day of infamy speech by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on December 8, 1941, or President George W. Bush’s impromptu bullhorn address at the World Trade Center site.[2]
The address gave not only the Ukrainian people, but Zelenskyy’s military commanders at all echelons clear objectives and a unified narrative to rally around, focused on the defeat of Russian forces and defense of Ukraine’s sovereignty. Ukraine has maintained its objectives and unified narrative since the outset of the war, leveraging the power inherent in the objective-narrative nexus to its advantage. The United States should look to Ukraine’s use of the objective-narrative nexus as a benchmark example as it competes with the pacing challenge of the People’s Republic of China, Russian aggression in Europe and Africa, and the states of Iran and North Korea.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/09/01/factors_influencing_strategy_the_objective-narrative_nexus_976782.html
