How you see the problem limits you. That is the point of the “out of the box” puzzle. You set your own limits. You use the limits set on you when you were younger, is what is at play in that example. The way you attack an enemy is a blended, or rendered vision of what you know of him, what you think of yourself, what you think he knows of you.

Appropriate barracks games seem at first to be, chess, rock-sissors-paper, arm wrestling, perhaps poker. None of these games teaches how to understand beyond the strength of the key military weapon. Things that go boom. Our form of attack is limited to boom and zoom scenarios. More limiting to our options than a date on a calendar.

let us take on the “date certain” uncertainty. See how certain it is at producing our assumed goal, say in Iraz, a fictional state of your mind.

Suppose we begin with two general choices that expand on the broad principle that “we will leave Iraz.” This principle applies to our military forces, and everyone knows this. Those who want us to remain, those who want us to leave, those who don’t know or care. All groups know that we will leave. The only hedge being that we say “militarily” and that the terms are unspecified.

There are those, the ones that hold power over us, hence prevailing opinion is that if we tell the enemy a date of our “military” withdrawal, our enemy, “they,” wins. These elite militarists must hold this opinion based upon some prior knowledge, education or experience, since they don’t expand on their reasoning. They don’t even try to explain to us, since we are supposed to see this through their eyes. Such is the case of most players of “the game.” They play their side, their part, their role. It is difficult for these players to win against a player of new games requiring new roles and rules. Who would think of attacking a destroyer in a dinghy? Thinking goes boom instead of zoom.

Grant that our enemy knows this predicament. I suggest that they even count on it. Maybe they didn’t at the first round of the game, but they seem smart enough to understand the basic principles of this round of this game. Asymmetry rules in a disorderly world. War is high disorder, dare I say “elite.” Advantage goes to the patient gamer in a multiple play world. That’s the “elite” way of saying “we can’t give up.” By staying you continue playing this game. Change the game is a better choice. Use another means to gain advantage. Zoom instead of boom.

Play the other side of the board. You have the advantage of knowing this side for a very long time, so playing your opponent should be easy. A no brainer. With a condition certain what do you do? With a date certain what do you do? they are probably the same thing. Conserve your forces. build upon your strengths. Shore up your weakness. These are of course relative terms. they are understood as terms of comparison to the US /us/ forces.

Date certain or condition certain provide the enemy the same result.

You assume that our enemy is small and shrinking, if you believe that an insurgent force is our enemy. The insurgency is supplied by the population. The population is supposed to provide our reason for being there, for staying there. They are the measure of success. They are also the means to success.

Perhaps you can’t set the circumstance, the condition. Then the enemy does. Suppose you can’t set the date. Then the enemy does. If the likely results are the same, the winner is the one who chooses first. Perhaps you can’t set the condition, since you are uncertain. You hesitate to tell anyone, even yourself. Uncertainty in war is a necessary condition, but it is also the losing stance. Set the condition of your choice. Define how you leave so that you can define how you return. Take over the game. The enemy wins by draining our key assets, by pinning us down. Our key asset is not our military, it is our national drive. Our enemy has diverted our attention.

Delay Us. Play Us. these are better for the weaker force, not the stronger.

Set date or conditions, if you set neither, you never leave. You remain, stranded, stuck in an endless losing game. Tic-Tac-Toe or Tick Tock Go.