It's a great mistake to underestimate the layered nature of social reality.
Imagine a wheel, with spokes, many bisectors, with Obama's perceptual position in the center. Call this the web of political relations between the office of president and the key players.
Now imagine the wheel rotated a bit about the axis of any one bisector. Call this new figure the web of military-industrial relations with the office of the president.
And so on. and on.
It's far more complex than that, because the axes are multiple and overlapping, rotated along other axes, but it's possible to tease out patterns, threads that run through the gordian knot. That's what a good manager does, in a way, and certainly a really skilled national leader. Shame Obama has not the guts to act on what(I suspect) he sees.
Indeed the military guys OUGHT to have the ability to plan, but outside a very narrow slice of reality they are really bad at it- they are blinded by the perceptual limits of a world-view in which there is only the tool of violent force, and the "other"- those who resist, and are therefore the enemy. Eisenhower emerged from that stew somehow, with some with some wits intact, in spite of his stroke.
Nope. I see your point about the kids with an ounce of blow, but I think there are smarter guys in the background.
Soros, for one.
And they talk.

   

Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.