Strategy
Military strategy is reducing an adversary’s physical capacity and willingness to fight and continuing to do so until one’s aim is achieved. It takes place in wartime and peacetime and may involve using force, directly or indirectly, as a threat. Military strategy is often divided into four components: ends (objectives), ways (courses of action), means (resources), and risk. The practice of military strategy is described along with military power, augmented by nine “principles of war”: objective, maneuver, surprise, mass, the economy of force, offensive, security, simplicity, and unity of command. A general will likely use combinations of military strategies, linking them into a series of operations or campaigns [Echevarria, p. 1].
Strategy, in warfare, is the science or art of employing all the military, economic, political, and other resources of a country to achieve war objectives [Britannica].
The term strategy derives from the Greek strategos, an elected general in ancient Athens. The strategoi were mainly military leaders with combined political and military authority, which is the essence of strategy. Because strategy is about the relationship between means and ends, the term has applications well beyond war: it has been used concerning business, the theory of games, and political campaigning, among other activities. It remains rooted, however, in war, and it is in the field of armed conflict that strategy assumes its most complex forms [Encyclopedia Britannica].
Echevarria, A. (2017). Military Strategy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from: https://academic.oup.com/book/584
Strategy. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from: https://www.britannica.com/topic/strategy-military