Robert Pape

are military.

They are doing a fantastic job with what they're being ordered to do.

They're doing it above and beyond what you might know, shirking here and so forth.

And that's true with the blockade as well.

So tactically, you're seeing success.

But what we're doing is it's too easy to confuse tactical success with strategic success.

And this is one of the big points I make on the escalation trap.

But since I taught for the Air Force in the 1990s,

This is one of the things I discovered by teaching colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors, who were the best of the best.

I think of them as like the top guns.

that was too easy for them to confuse tactical success with strategic because for their last 12, 15 years, they were tactical people.

They were doing tactical operations and they're being promoted about they're the best of the best at tactics.

But what's happening when they're a mid-level officer, when they're about to become a general,

is this is a different game now.

They're not going to be in those cockpits now.

This is not the same thing.

They're going to now have to think about strategy.

Strategy is a different outcome.

And the reason is because with tactics, what you're thinking is how bombs hit a target or how ships block other ships.

With strategy, it's how does that military action affect politics?