In war scenarios, planners tend to anticipate the worst -- ceding infallibility to the enemy's forces and equipment -- or hope for the best, imagining a near perfect performance by their own troops. But these schemes are only guesses. War games cannot calculate what is in the hearts or minds of an enemy force. Will they fight with conviction and tenacity or surrender easily? Will they have enough food, oil and ammunition or leave troops famished and demoralized in the field? Such imponderables, as much as military blueprints, are the true keys to victory.
As the struggle over North Korea's nuclear...