Art Lykkes Three-Legged Stool: A Case Study

Art Lykkes three legged stool is a conceptual model used to identify if there are balance between ends, ways and means. If one leg is longer than the others the stool will be unbalanced and having the risk of tipping over. I will use this model to understand that the strategy President Reagan presented during his Brandenburg Gate speech were unbalanced. The means and ways was not sufficient to reach the ends, the president took a risk.
One of the ends that is used in speech is “Peaceful and Secure Europe”. This is a very ambitious end and you have to allocate a lot of both ways and means to accomplish that. On the other hand you can always argue about what peaceful and secure means. In this case however I have to relate it to the current

situation in Europe at the time, and that involves an imminent nuclear threat. To be able to succeed you will have to either remove all nuclear weapons that can reach Europe or make sure that if one is fired it will not go to detonation in Europe.
The ways mentioned in the speech to reach that end was: Overall arms reduction, Maintain the capacity to deter and, develop space and ground systems to protect the populations against nuclear threat. The ways described here is aiming towards the end but don’t go all the way. The reason for that is that there are too many uncertainties. Overall arms reduction is just part making Europe nuclear free, and a ground and space system to secure Europe is just a future vision. It is not developed, and we don’t know if it ever will be. The president is obviously taking a risk here.
The means to support the ways are: Make deals and treaties, provide visiting teams and delegations, deploy B-1 bomber, hundreds of thousands service members, conduct regular training and exercises,

establish labs and fund extensive research and development. The means are getting further from the ends. To connect back to the ends we are trying to achieve a peaceful and secure Europe. The means supporting the ways will if they succeed reach that, but there are too many uncertainties. The president is relying on that all the treaties and all the development programs will be successful. He is taking a risk.
Lykkes stool now have three legs with different length. The longest one is the ends and the shortest one is the means. Even if the model is conceptual we can get an idea about that there is a risk that the stool will tilt or the object resting upon it will fall off. We need to adjust the length of the legs.
DIME is the instruments of national power and they are described in Joint publication 1. The president’s used most of the instruments in his speech. He could have developed the economic part a little bit further. He used economy in a positive way saying that free trade will be beneficial for the whole region. He could have used it more aggressively to get pressure on Soviet as well. Making it harder for them to trade with other nations as an example.
It was a lot going on in Europe at this time and the cold war had been going on for a long time. President Reagan took a strategic risk with his speech at Brandenburg Gate. He shared a great vision but he did not connect the means with the ends and therefor took a risk. The history shows that he was successful and the wall fell two years later.