U.S. political and military leaders, as well as the American citizenry, are stuck in at least six intellectual ruts when it comes to understanding how to use force. Metaphorically spinning our wheels in these ruts has produced suboptimal choices and decisions in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Strategists and veterans are left asking themselves whether sacrifices made by service members, their families and the nation for 20 years were “worth it.” If we can’t break free of these mindsets, we lower the probability of future success.

What are these ruts? They represent a set of six false beliefs:

1. War is binary. “War” and “not war” is the wrong perspective. Using force is more unitary than binary, and all uses of force share four common characteristics. First is teleological: All uses of force have (or should have) a purpose to accomplish. Second, all uses of force occur on four levels—the tactical, operational, strategic and grand strategic levels. Third, all require that senior political and military leaders exercise skill in three core areas:

• Achieve and sustain coherency: Set aims and make strategy, policy and campaign decisions that align with those aims and increase the probability of achieving them.

• Generate and sustain organizational capacity: Translate initial decisions into actions, adapt as the use of force unfolds and bring the use of force to a successful close.

• Maintain legitimacy: Use force for the right reasons, observe international law and sustain public support.

Finally, all uses of force share ontological characteristics. Any use of force enters the realm of uncertainty, friction and fog. All uses of force operate in the realm of probability and chance—not arithmetic certainty—and in the realm of emotion: fear, grit, courage and determination. And all require solid, competent leadership at each level.

Adopting a more unitary understanding of using force is more consistent with reality, makes much more strategic sense and would lead to better strategic decisions and actions.

2. Equating war with fighting. Fighting is only one aspect of using force. The common view of “war equals fighting” is both myopic and ahistorical. Wars have to be fought and waged. Fighting is what takes place on battlefields; waging is what takes place in capitals. Fighting wars or using force requires tactical and operational skills. Waging war or using force requires strategic skill. Both sets of skills are essential to using force successfully in any situation.

America’s performance in the past 20-plus years suggests that America is strong in warfighting and weak in war-waging. The United States’ strategic skills have been unable to translate success on the battlefield into attaining the nation’s strategic aims. Certainly, America has not had another 9/11-type attack, though many have been attempted. Equally certain, however, is that the strategic aims the U.S. set forth in Afghanistan and Iraq were not achieved even after expending billions of dollars and risking and losing thousands of lives.

This is in large part because of America’s poor war-waging skills, starting with ambiguous and sometimes conflicting war aims. In each case, America’s warfighting skills often were unmatched. It’s America’s war-waging skills that need improvement.

3. A preference for incremental use of force. On the surface, using force incrementally seems to make sense. Incremental use purports to allow the U.S. to get the most effect at the lowest costs and to allow strategists to add force if necessary. But a deeper look finds that using force this way often drags out the conflict unnecessarily. Further, this tactic yields initiative to the opponent, risks constantly reactive U.S. decisions and actions, exposes the U.S. to ever-increasing costs in blood and money, and leads some to speculate as to America’s commitment to the effort. The purported benefits of using force incrementally are false and temporary, at best. At worst, incremental use becomes an obstacle to success.

One can look at Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine for examples. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. employed overwhelming force in the opening stage of each war. The result: success in both routing the Taliban and defeating Saddam Hussein’s military, respectively. Following initial success, however, America employed underwhelming force. The result: dragging each war out longer than necessary and leaving both wars without strategic success. The U.S. uses the same incremental approach to support Ukraine. The result is a Ukrainian military that has not lost—but has not won, either.

4. The false belief that the civil-military dialogue is about civil control of the military. The dialogue among senior political and military leaders is not about who is in control of whom. In the U.S., civil control of the military is well established in law and tradition. The real point of the dialogue is to increase the probability of using force responsibly and successfully.

America’s senior politicians and military officers, therefore, need a functional understanding of their relationship—one that recognizes the co-responsibilities among senior political and military leaders and how those responsibilities are best exercised.

The Constitution identifies the president as the commander in chief and law establishes the secretary of defense as second behind the president. The Constitution and the law establish who is in control of whom and who has final decision authority. But having final decision authority and using it effectively are two different things. The primary purpose of the civil-military dialogue among senior American political and military leaders is to help the president make the best decisions possible given the exigencies of a situation.

The president exercises final decision authority within a context, a three-step decision-execution cycle. The first step, before a decision, involves collecting, analyzing and presenting information as well as options to the secretary and the president. The viewpoints and analysis of key senior leaders—military and civilian—must be voiced in the lead-up to a decision. Silence of any participant lowers the probability of a sound presidential decision. The second step is the decision itself. The third includes execution and adaptation. Using force is a dynamic phenomenon, an ever-changing environment. Therefore, senior political and military leaders must adapt initial decisions to constantly changing realities. Here again, silence from any key senior leader lowers the likelihood of proper adaptation.

With respect to the decision itself, the relationship between senior political and military leaders certainly is unequaled. But in the lead-up, execution and adaptation phases, the perspectives and experiences of those involved—military and civilian—are vitally necessary, making participants more equal than not. A functional understanding of the civil-military dialogue recognizes the necessity of both inequality and equality.

5. The moral considerations of using force are separate from the strategic. In a democracy, the moral dimension permeates all aspects of using force—from the tactical to the grand strategic. Using force involves using and risking lives—of the citizens in uniform who are employed, of the families and communities left behind, of the innocent who always get caught up in fighting and of the political community on whose behalf the fighting is done.

The ubiquity of the moral dimension of using force is reflected in four morally relevant relationships and penetrates every decision and action from start to finish, top to bottom. The first morally relevant relationship is between service members (citizens in uniform) and the innocent. Second, among service members themselves. Third, between service members and their military leaders at each level. And last, between service members and the government leaders at whose orders their lives are risked and used.

The moral importance of the first three relationships is easily recognized. Because of its distance from the battlefield, the moral importance and consequences of the last is less understood and less recognized.

The moral dimension of using force is not icing on the cake; it’s one of the key ingredients of the cake.

6. Fighting power is a function of technology. Most aspects of fighting power—operational and institutional—are opaque to the American people and its leaders. Technology does matter, a lot, but it is only one component of fighting power. Fighting power results from levels of interconnected confidence—confidence in service members themselves and their comrades, in the equipment they are to use, in their training, in their leaders and in systems designed to support them while employed. These dimensions of confidence form tactical and operational confidence. But there are two other important dimensions of confidence.

The systems designed to support service members when employed—the intelligence, logistics, personnel and command and control systems, for example—are delivered through military and civilian institutions. Those employed on the nation’s behalf count on these institutions to produce what they need and to deliver it when it’s needed. Read Robert Gates’ book, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, to see how hard defense secretaries work to ensure that institutions focus on supporting service members who are in harm’s way.

In addition to institutional confidence, there is social-political confidence. This dimension of confidence entails the trust that senior political and military leaders will use force wisely and in ways Americans support.

Think of America’s military as a spear—a sharp tip formed by tactical and operational confidence and a true shaft formed by institutional and social-political confidence. The superficial understanding of using force focuses only on the tip of the spear. A tip without a shaft is not a spear.

‘Thin Theory’

Together, these six ruts create what I call the “thin theory” of using force. It’s thin because of all that is left out. Such a thin theory results from a superficial understanding of what force is and how to use it, regardless of its form: whether in conventional combat like that of Ukraine, counterinsurgency in Iraq, counterterrorist operations or so-called peace operations like those conducted in Somalia in 1992–93, Haiti in 1994, Bosnia in 1995 or the variety of humanitarian assistance operations in which the U.S. provided military forces.

Making decisions and taking action using the thin theory lowers the probability of success, prolongs the use of force unnecessarily and increases the likelihood of wasting time, resources and sacrifices of those whose lives are risked and used in the process. It’s time for our civilian and military leaders to pull themselves out of the ruts and thicken America’s theory of using force.

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Lt. Gen. James Dubik, U.S. Army retired, a former commander of Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, is a senior fellow of the Association of the U.S. Army. He holds a doctorate in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and is the author of Just War Reconsidered: Strategy, Ethics, and Theory.