Counterinsurgency is a creative act and McChrystal is the Frank Gehry of modern warfare. In removing him, Obama is undermining both the strategy and execution of his own policy for defeating the Taliban and building a stable, democratic Afghanistan.

McChrystal spent his entire career in the most creative sphere of the military, its Special Operations. First as a Ranger, then as head of the Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq, McChrystal moved in the edges of military circles where an approach and package of methods and tools was developed that corporations and consultants recognize as Design Thinking.

Special Forces soldiers and Special Ops soldiers in general, are taught how to go into unknown, complicated, changing environments, do fast ethnography, brainstorm, generate new ideas, iterate, collaborate, choose the most valid solution for the situation, and execute quickly. They operate in a paradigm of possibility, not reliability, learning by observing and doing, not memorizing standard procedures. They are great Design Thinkers.

President Obama Fires McChrystal, Kills Innovation – The Harvard Business Review