The Importance of Preparing for Alternatives

We wanted to see a cost that the Soviets would pay vis-a-vis the Muslim world, the Arab world in terms of what they were doing to their brother and Muslim brother and Afghanistan. But that assumption that they would prevail was at the root of it. Imagine if we had assumed that no, the Soviets might withdraw and there could be a post-Soviet Afghanistan,. maybe it would have been more selective. Plans when they meet reality don't work. Others are not bellared by their human beings' institutions. They can adjust, they can change. So the complexity is what I take away from that experience.