[BLANK_AUDIO]. I hope you enjoyed watching the video, Where is the Outrage. I want to begin this video with a brief story about passion and strategy. Do you recognize these two men? If you're not from the United States, you probably won't. These are two famous Americans, both of whom played a pivotal role in US history in the 19th century. The man on the left is Robert E Lee. He was from an aristocratic family from the state of Virginia. He was from a family of military men. His father fought with George Washington in our Revolutionary War of independence from Britain. Lee attended West Point, our premier military academy, where he graduated the top of his class in 1829. Lee fought in the Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848. And on the eve of our Civil War, in 1861, he was universally acknowledged as the best military strategist and general in the United States Army. The man on the right is Abraham Lincoln. He had no military experience and came from a poor family, just the opposite of Lee. Lincoln was self-educated, but he read the Bible and Shakespeare carefully and became a lawyer. In 1860, he was elected the president of the United States, just as the northern and southern states were careening towards civil war. So, in 1861, Lee, Lincoln called Robert E Lee to the White House and offered him the command of the United States army. Which would be the army of the northern states in our Civil War. But Lee was from the Southern state of Virginia. His family's estate was in Arlington, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from the White House, only a kilometer or two away. At that conversation at the White House, Lee told Lincoln he needed some time to think and he went home to Arlington. Lee thought about Lincoln's offer for a couple days and then returned to tell him he could not accept the command of the Northern army. This would have meant he would have to fight and conquer his own state of Virginia, his family homeland. Soon afterwards, Lee accepted the command of the army of Virginia, the main force of the Southern states to fight against Lincoln in the North. To his great frustration, Lincoln had a terrible time finding a competent replacement for Lee to command the Northern army. For the first two years of the war, Lee lived up to his reputation as a brilliant strategist. The Army of Virginia won battle after battle. And in the spring of 1863, Lee wanted one more big victory to end the war. So, he decided to move his army through the western side of Virginia, moving north, flanking the capitol, Washington DC. It seems incredible today, but Lee's army was on the move and Lincoln didn't know where it was or where Lee was going. Maybe Washington DC, maybe Philadelphia or New York. If any of these big cities fell to Lee's army, the conventional wisdom was that the war would be over. The North would have to sue for peace. Lee bypassed Washington DC, heading north toward Philadelphia and New York. The Northern army was positioned around Washington DC and moved north to meet Lee. The Southern and Northern armies stumbled upon each other near the small town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, about 150 km from Washington DC. The northern army actually reached Gettysburg first, and held the high ground at a place called Cemetery Ridge. On this map, the red lines show the position of the Southern forces. The blue lines show the position of the Northern army. The battle started on July 1, 1863, and continued all day on July 1 and July 2. These were the two of the bloodiest days in US military history. The Southern army attacked the flanks of the Northern army, but after two days of fighting, the Northern flanks had held. Both sides had suffered terrible casualties, but the two armies were in the same places they were when the fighting began. On the night of July 2, Lee met with his generals to discuss strategy. Lee felt that the Northern forces were now concentrated on the flanks, leaving the middle of their line weak and exposed. Lee decided to attack the middle of the Northern line at Cemetery Ridge. He felt if he could break the Northern line at Cemetery Ridge, the Northern army would be divided and destroyed and the Civil War would be essentially over. Here's a photograph of Cemetery Ridge today. The Northern army held the high ground behind the small, stone wall. But you can see it's really [LAUGH] not that high. It's just a low ridge. Lee's army was in the trees about a kilometer and half away across that open field. Lee's generals didn't like his plan. It was true if they could break the Northern lines at Cemetery Ridge, they might destroy the Northern army, but how were they going to get across that open field in the face of Northern gunfire? People at the meeting that night with Lee and his generals said that Lee had a fire in his eyes of passion to win and end the war. And on the morning of July 3rd, 1863, he ordered the Southern attack on Cemetery Ridge. In a terrible battle, Lee's Southern army failed to take Cemetery Ridge. The Southern army never recovered. The Civil War would go on for two more years, but Lee was always in retreat after the battle at Gettysburg. Strategy in the water and sanitation field is often a lot like Lee's frontal attack on Gettysburg, full of passion but short on strategy. Lee should have known his strategy was flawed, because during 1861 and 1862, he repeatedly used the advantages of high ground and strong defensive positions to defeat the Northern Army. But in this instance, passion blinded him to the risk of a frontal assault. Passion is important in the battle for improved water and sanitation conditions, but it's not sufficient. We also need good strategy. What many policy advocates forget or ignore is that the water sector has many stakeholders, and some of these stakeholders may be strongly opposed to policy interventions. In an article in your readings, Akhter Hameed Khan talks about the political naïveté of early community development efforts in Pakistan. He said that there's no shortage of magical planners. This stampede for a quick solution overthrows patient planning. We don't want to make this mistake in the water and sanitation sector. This is why we have to understand status quo conditions, in particular the opposition to change and how strong it is. We need a carefully thought-out strategy because some stakeholders may react or counterattack. Our strategy needs to plan several moves ahead. As an aside, this is one of the problems with generalizing results from randomized control trials in the water sector. Randomized control trials do not help us much to understand the countermoves of different stakeholders. [BLANK_AUDIO]. Lincoln never forgave Lee for his decision to turn down the command of the Northern army. Lincoln's bitterness was personal. He established the Arlington National Cemetery on Lee's wife's family estate and buried the Northern casualties from Gettysburg there so that Lee and his family could never return after the war. Arlington National Cemetery is where President John F Kennedy is buried. [BLANK_AUDIO]
