https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/03/a_businessman_and_a_brilliant_strategist.html
Business schools and military schools borrow extensively from each other’s academic literature. Although the workings of the boardroom and the battlefield might seem mismatched, there is considerable overlap. Both require leaders capable of assessing assets and liabilities dispassionately, developing short-term strategies that complement long-term objectives, and comprehending an adversary’s point of view. Both demand critical thinking.
Organizational theory, as a scholarly discipline, reflects the shared language of business people and military planners. Business executives “go to war” against rivals and cordon off associates in “war rooms” when their firms’ interests are “under attack.” Military commanders seek to maximize “opportunity” and “leverage” while minimizing “loss.” Allocating resources efficiently and avoiding waste are crucial for both vocations. Just as an accountant is essential for a healthy business, a quartermaster is essential for a healthy army. In business and war, technical knowhow, tactical skill, and logistical expertise separate winners from losers, victors from the vanquished.
What is striking about President Trump’s return to the White House is how completely he embodies this business-military mindset. If a plan of action (a government program) is ineffective in achieving its goals, then the Trump administration terminates it immediately. If government bureaucrats within the Executive Branch’s ranks serve no purpose or fail in their day-to-day missions, then they are relieved of their duties. Just as fat, incompetent armies devour supplies and lose battles, bloated, incompetent bureaucracies devour resources and sabotage nations. Military commanders have no time to worry about an individual soldier’s feelings when operational success and lives are on the line. The chief executive of the United States has no time to worry about an individual bureaucrat’s feelings when the nation’s success and all Americans’ lives are at stake.