ABSTRACT
To make strategy effectively, one must account for the culture and psychology of the people involved in the process. At the level of war planning, one must pay attention to the courage and other mental characteristics of military personnel, both friendly and enemy. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s 1991 plan to bloody his United Nations opponents in ‘the mother of all battles’ evaporated when a significant proportion of his troops surrendered without attempting to fight. At the level of grand strategy, one must pay attention to civilian attitudes as well. The Communist leaders of North Vietnam understood that they could never destroy the US Army on the battlefield, but they successfully waged a campaign to defeat America by exploiting its own political system.
