Tactics – Episode 4: Controlled Scorched-Earth Policy (Bureaucracy Edition)

Reform? That’s what amateurs promise.
In Episode 4 of Tactics, we take the battlefield concept of scorched-earth and apply it to a far more insidious warfront: the bureaucracy. Because in modern politics, the real fortresses aren’t made of stone—they're made of policy memos, funding lines, and legal immunities.
From Napoleon’s total system reset to Deng Xiaoping’s elegant sidestep of Maoist bureaucracy, history teaches one hard truth: you don’t reform a beast that’s designed to resist reform. You starve it, disarm it, and salt the earth beneath it.
This isn’t just theory. We’ll examine Trump’s partial attempt, why it faltered, and what real scorched-earth policy looks like in a system where the enemy wears a badge and carries a procedural handbook.
To reset the system, you don’t just defund it. You erase its reason to exist.