PETER W. SINGER
Measuring the frequency of words and themes in a document can offer insights, reveal underlying messages, and even illuminate what’s on the minds of its writers. The 2026 National Defense Strategy is meant to help align ends, ways, and means, and to signal goals and values. But to find the truth, sometimes you just have to count.
This kind of content analysis can act like an X-ray for a document, unveiling structural DNA that the authors themselves might not realize they’ve left behind. The cold, hard math of the text itself can reveal overall priorities or even a “Say-Do” gap. For instance, if a corporate strategy has five mentions of “customers” but 50 of “shareholders,” you know who the company cares most about.
It also tracks rhetorical inflation—i.e., whether the strategy is largely actionable or mostly fluff. A high frequency of “aspiration” words with a low frequency of “resource” words usually signals a strategy that lacks a real execution plan. Tone and context can also be indicative. As an illustration, a strategy paper heavy on defensive terminology suggests an organization playing not to lose vs one with more aggressive terms is seeking change.
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