Robb Stark, strategy

Hes a boy, and hes never lost a battle! rages his enemy, Tywin
Lannister. But the Young Wolf is a case study in the difference between winning
battles and winning wars. Robb is an excellent company commander, leading from
the front and inspiring his men with both his bravery and his battle prowess. Hes
also a terrible general. However, the TV show never presented a detailed map of the
Westerlands, the main Lannister stronghold and Robbs battlefield, thus making the
viewers not easily realise The Young Wolfs strategic mistakes.
Robb launches his western expedition at the beginning of season two. He has
fewer soldiers than the Lannisters, and no seapower. Instead of marching on Kings
Landing, Robbs plan is to attack the Lannisters home turf until they sue for peace
and acknowledge northern independence and his means is to litter the south
with Lannister dead. Robb defeats Stafford Lannisters army at Oxcross, and then
he pushes to the western coast, at the Crag, to accept the surrender of its lord and
Tywins bannerman. So far, so good.
But at the beginning of season three, Robb marches his army way eastward
to Harrenhal, where Tywin ordered his brutal lieutenant Gregor The Mountain
Clegane to command a garrison force. Its an inexplicable decision: Robb has given
up raiding the heart of Lannister country to cross over into the Riverlands, all to
defeat one admittedly mountainous henchman. The Lannisters have been running
from us since Oxcross, Robb notes, even though the northern army is
outnumbered. Robb might have thought harder about why that is. By ceding the
west, Robb does Lord Tywin a massive favor. Tywin faced a difficult decision at the
end of season two: march west to fight Robb and risk Stannis Baratheon seizing the
capitol at the Battle of Blackwater Bay, or march to Kings Landing and risk Robb
laying waste to the Lannister stronghold. Once Robb leaves the west, the Lannisters
face no pressure at all. Suddenly, Robb is caught between the remnants of the
Lannister field army to his west and the Lannister/Tyrell alliance at Kings Landing.
Whatever battlefield successes he gained on the Lannisters ancestral doorsteps
grow more ephemeral every day.
And for what? First Robb arrives late to Harrenhal, unable to do anything but
mourn 200 dead northern soldiers, presumably slaughtered by Clegane, whos long
gone. Then, when given word of his grandfathers death, he takes his army and
marches it back somewhat westward, to Riverrun, to attend the funeral. This
march is a distraction, the aggrieved Lord Rickard Karstark tells Robb. Robb
unjustly accuses Karstark of losing faith in the northern cause, but Karstark is
merely pointing out the obvious (a position that would get him executed later on).
All of his bad decisions culminate with him attending the Red Wedding...