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Strategy, put very simply, is how we solve a problem in its entirety - say, from A to Z. Tactics on the other hand, again put very simply, is how we solve aspects or parts of a problem - say again, from D to E. Strategy will usually deal with the medium to the long term, while tactics deals with the short term.
It is also vital that we appreciate that within a tactical situation in itself, we are still able to talk of strategy. This means, conversely, that every strategic situation can be a tactical aspect of a much bigger strategic space. In dealing with problems of overcoming backwardness or underdevelopment therefore, it is absolutely critical to be clear about the difference between the strategic and the tactical. Any confusion in this respect leads very easily to fundamental flaws in the conceptualisation of policy. Commentary, similarly, that is not steeped in a clear appreciation of what is strategic, tactical, etc. - will obviously not be very useful to the African people. This confusion was evident in a short news (opinion?) article carried by Daily Monitor last Monday, titled ‘Economy is in paralysis’. The writer of the piece was pointing to what he clearly thought was a contradiction. To make his point, the writer presented to the reader, apparent opposites. On the one hand, he had President Yoweri Museveni telling students from Kimaka Senior Staff College over the weekend, that Ugandan and African society in general are paralysed. On the other, our writer had the President telling Ugandans during the 47th Independence Anniversary Celebrations at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds that the economy is growing at a healthy 7%. From these two apparent opposites, our writer draws an extraordinary conclusion, which then becomes the “intro” to his story: “President Museveni has said Uganda’s economy officially reported to be growing phenomenally is in paralysis, scuttling efforts for rapid improvement in welfare of the masses”! Our writer, obviously, does not appreciate the fact that while high economic growth rates are extremely important, they are still only part of a long, tortuous and circuitous road, to complete liberation. He does not appreciate consequently, that for at least a generation to come there shall be a dialectical unity and co-existence of prosperity and some level of poverty. What President Museveni was doing that Saturday, was to underline a strategic imperative. Backward subsistence peasant agriculture, sporadic business activity and speculation, are not a substitute over the longer term, to the emergence and consolidation in the economy, of classes of full time and professional national entrepreneurs. The appearance of these new classes of entrepreneurs in agriculture, industry and services, therefore, shall be the final catalyst or primer for a historical and qualitative leap, into modernity. Let us put this differently. If the President was populist and opportunist like many of his adversaries and pretenders to the leadership of the people, he would simply rest on the laurels of the successes scored over the last two decades in building recovery in the Ugandan economy. He would not be bothered about the need for further qualitative transformation of the economy, nor with the strategic bottlenecks that have to be removed along the road to transformation. He would in fact have become obscurantist - i.e. distorting and hiding the truth from wananchi. In speaking to senior military officers from several countries in the region attending Senior Staff College, Mr. Museveni would have failed in his duties if he did not discuss the strategic challenges that the African people still have to contend with, along the road to complete liberation. If our commentators are genuinely bothered about the development of this country, therefore, they should bother themselves about the difference between what is of tactical import, as contrasted with what is of strategic import - and of how one leads into the other. Now, it may not even be immediately obvious how the one leads into the other! The provisions of the Land bill are a good example. Some commentators have argued in this connection, that the promotion of security of tenure in small holdings works diametrically against the development of commercial agriculture. They are unmindful of a fundamental strategic imperative, that of ensuring justice and equity, as a pre-requisite to the construction of a new and modern society. Moreover, an appropriate combination of market and administrative levers would certainly still deliver commercial agriculture. We must never lose sight of the strategic.
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