Plans fail when they assume the enemy will repeat your choices

Planners often assume an enemy will cooperate with their preferred scenario. Cunningham's order to sink, burn, and destroy Axis forces retreating from North Africa illustrates the problem. British expectations drew on their own costly evacuations at Dunkirk, in Norway, and from Crete. German and Italian leaders had seen those losses and avoided repeating the same pattern, leaving the anticipated naval target absent. An opponent learns from your experience as well as its own and may invalidate an otherwise elegant plan by choosing differently.