Richard Rumelt

Good strategy requires leaders who are willing and able to say no to a wide variety of actions and interests. Strategy is at least as much about what an organization does not do as it is about what it does

“This process of justifying expenditures as counters to Soviet expenditures conditioned U.S. actions on Soviet strengths, expressed as threats, not on Soviet weaknesses and constraints. We had a war strategy—a catastrophic spasm—but no plan about how to compete with the Soviet Union over the long term.”
Soft-spoken, Marshall watched my eyes, checking that I understood the implications of his statements. He took out a document, a thin sheaf of paper, and began to explain its meaning: “This document reflects thoughts about how to actually use U.S. strengths to exploit Soviet weaknesses, a very different approach.”

And, most important, it argued that having a true competitive strategy meant engaging in actions that imposed exorbitant costs on the other side. In particular, it recommended investing in technologies that were expensive to counter and where the counters did not add to Soviet offensive capabilities. For instance, increasing the accuracy of missiles or the quietness of submarines forced the Soviet Union to spend scarce resources on counters without increasing the threat to the United States. Investments in systems that made Soviet systems obsolete would also force them to spend, as would selectively advertising dramatic new technologies.