Strategy Fingerprints

Here are two warfare strategies:

In June 1941, Germany invaded Ukraine with 3,000,000 troops. Joseph Stalin ordered retreating Ukrainians to destroy everything that could be of value to the advancing German army, including grains and fuel.

After Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of 1990, Saddam Hussein ordered the destruction of Kuwaiti oil wells and the dumping of millions of gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf after the United States launched an attack against Iraq.

Let’s dissect these two strategies. There is a common situation.

The Ukrainians were going to lose valuable resources to the Germans and Hussein was going to lose valuable resources to the Americans. The rationale behind the actions of both men was to make sure the enemy could not profit from resources, which they knew they were going to lose control of.

Actor: Stalin/ Hussein
Opponent: Germans / Americans
Situation: inevitable loss of valuable resource to opponent

There also appears to be a common goal: Prevent the enemy from making use of the valuable resources left behind.

The strategy: Destroy the resources.

The rationale is to make sure the enemy cannot profit from the resources, which you know you are going to lose.

While the details of these two situations are obviously different, the deep structure is identical and so is the strategy. In fact, this strategy is so common, it is called a scorched earth strategy.

The “how to”, however, makes little sense unless you know the goal and the situation that triggered the goal. After collecting and reviewing over 5,000 different strategies in business, politics and several other fields we have found that these three elements are present without exception in every single strategy. We assert that it is these three things that make a strategy a strategy. The deep structure or blueprint serves as a fingerprint for identifying any particular strategy.