Strategy vs. Tactics

Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post with a write-up of decision making in Iraq, quotes Robert Killebrew, a veteran of Special Forces in the Vietnam War:

"When you're facing a counterinsurgency war, if you get the strategy right, you can get the tactics wrong, and eventually you'll get the tactics right. If you get the strategy wrong and the tactics right at the start, you can refine the tactics forever, but you still lose the war. That's basically what we did in Vietnam."

That would be "strategery" vs. tactics for the ditto-heads.

*Update: "This is the first of two articles adapted from the book "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq" by Thomas E. Ricks. Penguin Press, New York, © 2006."