A wide range of authors on the subject all came to a startlingly simple conclusion: the United States didn’t know precisely what it was trying to achieve, and it was therefore impossible to have an effective strategy. A 1974 survey of Army generals who had commanded in Vietnam found that almost 70% of them were uncertain of United States objectives.

It’s good practice to codify your vision on paper. Writing it down forces you to think rigorously about what exactly you are trying to do. Even more important, it’s a critical step in making it the organization’s vision, rather than the vision of a single leader.

And therein lies the essence of tactical excellence: people caring about their work because they see its importance.

How someone can see what others have not, or what they have ignored, and thereby discover a pivotal objective and create an advantage, lies at the very edge of our understanding, something glimpsed only out of the corner of our minds. Not every good strategy draws on this kind of insight, but those that do generate the extra kick that separates “ordinary excellence” from the extraordinary.

The articulation of a national vision that describes America’s purpose in the post–September 11th world is useful—indeed, it is vital—but describing a destination is no substitute for developing a comprehensive roadmap for how the country will achieve its stated goals.