Strategy (IV): a new definition
My subway companions Krepninevich and Watts offer up a startling new definition of strategy in their essay about how to regain strategic competence. I am all for a new definition, because I think the ways-means-ends stuff they teach at the war colleges is not helpful. That is just not the way I have seen strategic ...
My subway companions Krepninevich and Watts offer up a startling new definition of strategy in their essay about how to regain strategic competence. I am all for a new definition, because I think the ways-means-ends stuff they teach at the war colleges is not helpful. That is just not the way I have seen strategic decision-making occur. Their definition focuses on identifying asymmetrical advantages:
What, then, is strategy? In light of these various observations and insights, a pragmatic characterization is as follows:
Strategy is fundamentally about identifying or creating asymmetric advantages that can be exploited to help achieve one’s ultimate objectives despite resource and other constraints, most importantly the opposing efforts of adversaries or competitors and the inherent unpredictability of strategic outcomes.
This is not, of course, the usual definition of strategy. However, it has the considerable merit of applying as readily to chess or a business firm competing against other firms for profits and market share as it does to military competition during peacetime or war. More importantly, it goes beyond the traditional definitions of military strategy by indicating how one actually goes about doing strategy. At its core, strategy is about finding asymmetries in competitive situations that can be exploited to one’s advantage.
This definition strikes me as better than the ways-means-ends device, but still a bit narrow, and perhaps too focused on the enemy. I think strategy is more about defining who we are, what we are trying to do, and how we are going to try to do it. But these are smart, insightful writers, so I am going think long and hard about it before rejecting their definition.
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