What Is Strategy in War?

In both popular discourse and professional military circles, few terms are more misused than “strategy.” It is invoked to describe everything from battlefield maneuvers to national policy, often without clarity or consistency. As military historian Hew Strachan warned in The Lost Meaning of Strategy, the word has become so elastic that it risks losing all analytical value. Too often, strategy is confused with a plan, a clever idea, or even just decisive action. But in war, strategy is something far more foundational—and far more consequential. It is not about how militaries fight, but why they fight, what they aim to achieve, and how armed force serves political purpose.

In the civilian world, “strategy” is often used interchangeably with planning—marketing strategies, business strategies, campaign strategies. But in the realm of statecraft and war, this understanding is far too narrow. Despite Strachan’s call for conceptual precision, even within the field of strategic studies, no universally accepted definition exists. Consider some of the leading definitions cited in Strategy in the Contemporary World:

• “(is) the use of engagements for the object of war.” — Carl von Clausewitz
• “the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy.” — Basil Liddell Hart
• “a process, a constant adaptation to shifting conditions and circumstances in a world where chance, uncertainty, and ambiguity dominate.” — Williamson Murray and Mark Grimsley

Harry Yarger, in his influential paper Toward a Theory of Strategy: Art Lykke and the Army War College Strategy Model, cautioned against reducing “strategy” to a mere catchall for plans. He argued that strategy belongs to the realm of senior leadership and is defined by the comprehensive direction and coordination of power to achieve political ends. Strategy, in his formulation, is about aligning national instruments of power to shape a preferred future—not just reacting to crisis but anticipating and influencing it.

Lawrence Freedman, in his seminal Strategy: A History, offers perhaps the most expansive and modern interpretation. He rejects the notion of strategy as a flawless blueprint. Instead, he sees it as a continuous process of adaptation, storytelling, and negotiation. Strategy, he writes, “is one of bargaining and persuasion as well as threats and pressure, psychological as well as physical effects, and words as well as deeds.” For Freedman, strategy is fundamentally political: “the art of creating power,” of getting more from a situation than the original balance would suggest.

Strategy is not the execution of a fixed design, but a sustained effort to align military action with political objectives as both evolve.

He emphasizes that in war, strategy rarely unfolds as a linear execution of a master plan. It emerges instead from a series of responses to unfolding events and enemy decisions. Strategy, in this view, is less a product and more a behavior—a pattern of choices shaped by uncertainty, resistance, and risk. Freedman famously called it “a story told in retrospect,” a reminder that strategy often only becomes legible after the fact, once improvisation has hardened into a path.

This framing is essential for understanding modern war. In a dynamic environment filled with friction, chance, and an intelligent adversary, strategy must remain interactive and resilient. As Beatrice Heuser argues in The Evolution of Strategy, strategic thinking has never been static; it evolves in response to shifting political contexts, technologies, and societal values. The point, then, is not to find the “right” plan and stick to it, but to maintain coherence of purpose while adapting to unanticipated obstacles. Bernard Brodie famously emphasized that strategy is not a science of prediction, but an art of continual adjustment under pressure—one that demands judgment, not formulas. Strategy, properly understood, is not the execution of a fixed design, but a sustained effort to align military action with political objectives as both evolve.

Strategy is the Bridge Between Policy and War

Strategy is not the execution of a fixed design, but a sustained effort to align military action with political objectives as both evolve.

One of the most enduring definitions of strategy comes from Clausewitz, who famously stated, “War is merely the continuation of policy by other means.” In this formulation, strategy functions as the vital bridge between political aims and the application of military force. As Harry Yarger puts it, “Political purpose must dominate all strategy.” Strategy, in other words, does not begin on the battlefield—it begins with political intent.

Yarger describes strategy as the proactive orchestration of national power—diplomatic, military, economic, and informational—to shape a preferred future. It is not simply crisis response or battlefield management; strategy anticipates change, sets conditions, and aligns state actions with long-term political goals.

Freedman reinforces this understanding by arguing that strategy must ultimately serve political outcomes—not just military success. Tactical brilliance or operational victories may win battles, but if those actions fail to advance the political objective, the strategy has failed. In this way, Freedman and Clausewitz converge: strategy must remain politically rational, even when the battlefield appears chaotic. Heuser makes a similar point in The Evolution of Strategy, emphasizing that throughout history, strategy has always been about the purposeful alignment of military means to achieve political ends—no matter how that relationship has evolved across eras.

Colin Gray, one of the most influential strategic theorists of the modern era and author of Modern Strategy, further strengthens this conception. He argued that strategy is not only political but also inherently hierarchical—a continuous interaction between national purpose and military action that must remain coherent across all levels of war. As Gray emphasized, “Strategy is the bridge that connects the military instrument with political purpose,” and it must be judged not merely by its internal logic, but by its ability to achieve national objectives across time, domains, and adversarial responses. For Gray, losing sight of this linkage is one of the surest paths to strategic failure.

Confusing Strategy with the Levels of War

In the fog of modern conflict, it is easy to confuse strategy with other levels of war—particularly when tactical brilliance or operational momentum dominates headlines. Yet this confusion can have serious consequences: history offers many examples where tactical success masked strategic incoherence. To avoid such missteps, militaries across time and traditions have recognized the importance of distinguishing between the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war—each serving a distinct function in the design and execution of campaigns. While these levels have been formalized in modern doctrine, including Soviet and Western traditions alike, the underlying logic transcends any single military or era.

For example, the current Joint Publication (JP) 1-0: Joint Warfighting in U.S. doctrine articulates these three levels—strategic, operational, and tactical—as a way to help commanders “visualize a logical arrangement of missions, allocate resources, and assign tasks to the appropriate command.”

• The strategic level is the realm of national or multinational leadership—such as the President, Secretary of Defense, or Joint Chiefs—who define the overarching political objectives of war. It includes decisions about going to war, forming alliances, establishing deterrence postures, and setting theater-wide outcomes.
• The operational level links those strategic objectives to battlefield action. This is the domain of campaign planning and major operations, typically directed by theater-level commands (such as a Geographic Combatant Command or Joint Task Force Headquarters). For example, the planning and execution of Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria was an operational-level effort designed to achieve strategic goals.
• The tactical level is the domain of units on the ground. It involves the conduct of specific battles and engagements—whether a brigade seizing terrain or a platoon clearing a building. Tactical excellence matters—but only gains meaning when it supports higher-level objectives.

Understanding these distinctions is more than academic. Wars have been lost not because of tactical failure, but because tactical and operational actions lacked alignment with strategic ends. The Vietnam War offers a stark example: despite frequent battlefield success, U.S. operations failed to align with a sustainable political strategy for victory. The same pattern emerged in Iraq after 2003, where the toppling of Saddam Hussein was not matched by a coherent postwar strategy—leading to prolonged instability and strategic setbacks. Warfare unfolds in real time—shaped by domestic politics, media cycles, and global opinion. As Clausewitz cautioned, tactical victories, no matter how impressive, are meaningless if they do not contribute to coherent strategic outcomes.

Strategic success lies not in the accumulation of wins at lower levels, but in the consistent translation of military action into political results.

Ends, Ways, and Means – A Useful Model for Strategy

One of the most widely used tools in modern strategic thinking is the “ends, ways, and means” model developed by Colonel Arthur Lykke at the U.S. Army War College. It offers a simple but powerful framework: strategy is the alignment of three essential components:

• Ends – What do you want to achieve? These are the political or military objectives.
• Ways – How will you achieve them? These are the methods, plans, or concepts of operation.
• Means – What resources are available? This includes personnel, technology, funding, time, and political will.

Yarger emphasizes that effective strategy depends on maintaining a proper balance between these three elements. He compares them to the legs of a three-legged stool: if one is too long or too short, the entire structure becomes unstable. A mismatch—overly ambitious ends, inadequate means, or unclear ways—can render a strategy unworkable before it ever reaches the battlefield.

This model is especially useful because it translates abstract strategic logic into something that can be tested. It allows planners to ask: Are the objectives realistic given the available resources? Are the methods appropriate for the context? It also underscores that strategic failure often arises not from battlefield setbacks, but from poor alignment among ends, ways, and means.

But as Freedman reminds us, no model survives first contact with reality intact. In war, ends may shift. Means are depleted. Ways are often disrupted by enemy action. The strategist’s challenge is to remain adaptive—adjusting any of the three components of strategy while maintaining adherence to the strategy’s purpose. This is why strategy is more than planning—it becomes judgment under pressure. Thus, strategy must have explicit mechanisms for measuring progress, to learn and understand when, where, and how adaptation is necessary.

Strategy Is Also Hierarchical

As Gray wrote in Modern Strategy, “all strategy is grand strategy,” underscoring that strategy exists as a nested hierarchy—linking political purpose to military action at multiple levels. This structure ensures that decisions made on the battlefield, even at the tactical level, are connected to national objectives. Strategy, in this sense, is not a single activity, but a layered framework that governs how wars are conceived, fought, and concluded. Heuser reinforces this perspective by distinguishing between “Big S” Strategy—grand, national-level political-military direction—and “small s” strategies, which refer to more localized or functional approaches nested within the broader design. Recognizing this structure helps prevent the common mistake of treating every military plan or campaign as a stand-alone strategy, rather than a component of a politically coherent whole.

• Grand Strategy (or National Security Strategy) coordinates all instruments of national power—diplomatic, informational, military, economic, financial, intelligence, and law enforcement—to pursue long-term national objectives. Grand strategy spans peace and war, shaping alliances, deterring adversaries, and defining a state’s desired position in the world. In wartime, it provides the overarching framework that determines why the war is being fought and what the nation ultimately hopes to achieve beyond battlefield success.
• Military Strategy translates national policy into the use of armed force. It sets priorities, defines war aims, and guides the development and employment of military capabilities. Military strategy asks: How should the military be used to support political ends?
• Theater Strategy applies military strategy to a specific region or conflict. It connects national goals to campaigns and operations, typically through the efforts of a geographic combatant command or a joint task force.

Each level is, or should be, nested within the one above it and guide the one below it. Coherence between grand strategy, military strategy, and theater strategy is critical. Misalignment can result in campaigns that achieve operational or tactical success but fail to advance—or even contradict—the political purpose of the war.

Tactical brilliance, disconnected from political purpose, is not strategy—it is just motion without meaning.

This hierarchy is not just a matter of bureaucratic structure. It provides a strategic logic that allows policymakers and leaders to synchronize actions across multiple levels of war, ensuring that what happens on the battlefield meaningfully contributes to the outcome of the war and the peace that follows.

These strategies, however, are not purely hierarchical. While operating at their own level, there is an interaction between these various levels of strategy. Not only is there a need for them to be aligned, but it is also important to understand that each level influences the other levels.

Strategy vs. Operations vs. Tactics in War

Understanding the difference between strategy, operations, and tactics is essential to effective warfighting. Confusing these levels can lead to campaigns that succeed on the battlefield but fail politically.

• Strategy defines the overarching purpose of the war—the alignment of campaigns and operations to political objectives. It concerns the use of power across time and geography to achieve desired ends. Strategy asks not just how to win, but why we fight and what outcome we seek.
• Operations are the orchestration of tactical actions into a campaign. They define the sequencing and coordination of battles to achieve operational objectives—such as seizing territory, degrading enemy forces, or shaping a theater of operations. Operations serve as the connective tissue between tactics and strategy.
• Tactics involve the immediate conduct of combat—how forces maneuver, engage, and fight. Tactical decisions determine how battles are won, often at the level of units, platoons, or battalions.

As Freedman argues, this hierarchy is not academic—it is fundamental to how political intent is translated into military effect. Strategy mediates the tension between intention and reality, providing the coherence that ensures battlefield actions serve the larger political purpose.

Crucially, the enemy has a vote. Strategic clarity must allow for contingency, adaptation, and human agency—both our own and the adversary’s. Tactical brilliance, disconnected from political purpose, is not strategy, it is just motion without meaning.

Strategy Is About Choice and Risk

At its core, strategy is about making hard choices in an environment defined by constraint. It requires navigating a world of limited resources, imperfect information, and competing priorities. Every strategy involves tradeoffs—and every strategic decision entails risk.

Not all strategies are good ones. A good strategy does not guarantee victory. But it improves the odds by coherently aligning ends, ways, and means, while remaining anchored to political purpose. It provides a clear direction without prescribing a rigid path—balancing ambition with realism, and decisiveness with adaptability. A good strategy is one that can be sustained politically, adjusted operationally, and judged by whether it remains suitable, feasible, and acceptable amid changing conditions. No amount of cleverness, firepower, or technological advantage can eliminate the role of friction, chance, or the adversary’s will—but a good strategy helps leaders navigate that uncertainty with purpose and coherence.

Yarger argues that a sound strategy must pass three essential tests:

• Suitability: Does it achieve the desired objective?
• Feasibility: Can it be executed with the available means?
• Acceptability: Are the expected costs justified by the political and strategic benefits?

In war, political feasibility is often the most critical—especially for democracies, which must sustain public support, adhere to legal norms, and maintain international legitimacy. Democratic states frequently fight as part of coalitions, where success depends not only on aligning military efforts but also on coordinating political will across diverse partners. What is strategically sound on paper may still fail if it cannot be sustained politically in practice. In contrast, authoritarian regimes—such as Putin’s Russia—often face fewer domestic constraints and show open disregard for international norms. This asymmetry complicates democratic strategy: Western leaders must account for adversaries whose ends may violate basic principles of law and morality, and whose means include tactics that democracies would reject. Non-state actors like Hamas or the Islamic State further stretch this imbalance by pursuing maximalist or nihilistic objectives without regard for civilian protection or long-term governance. For democratic states and their coalitions, strategic planning must therefore grapple not only with internal political constraints but with adversaries whose objectives, risk tolerance, and methods fall far outside the bounds of acceptable behavior.

Strategy is the art of purposeful adaptation—the thread linking means to ends, and the compass that orients action through uncertainty.

Strategy does not exist in isolation. It exists in an ecosystem of other strategies from other nations. The interaction of the desired or developing strategy with other nations’ strategies must be considered.

Freedman reminds us that even the best strategies may fail. But failure is more likely when leaders mistake control for certainty or confuse planning with prediction. The essence of strategy is not perfection—it is the ability to make decisions under pressure, adapt to changing conditions, and maintain clarity of purpose amid the chaos of war.

Conclusion

In war, strategy is not a slogan, a checklist, or a plan dressed in impressive language. It is the essential function that links political purpose to the use of organized violence. Strategy is how militaries translate their national intent into military outcomes—and how those outcomes are turned into lasting political results. As Clausewitz cautions, misunderstanding strategy as mere planning or tactical brilliance reduces war to senseless destruction.

Properly understood, strategy is the purposeful alignment of ends, ways, and means to achieve political objectives in conditions of opposition and uncertainty. It is a behavior, not a blueprint—a pattern of decision-making that adapts to the actions of an intelligent adversary and the ever-changing realities of conflict. It unfolds across time and scale, structured by a hierarchy of grand, military, and theater strategies, and informed by a clear distinction between strategy, operations, and tactics.

A usable framework for thinking about strategy begins with asking:

• What are the political ends we seek?
• What are the ways we will pursue them?
• What means are available
• What risks do they carry?

The first, and probably most important, question to ask in modern war is: Is it politically feasible? Will the strategy withstand the pressures of public scrutiny, coalition demands, legal constraints, and moral legitimacy?

As Yarger reminds us, strategy must be suitable, feasible, and acceptable. As Freedman teaches us, it must also be flexible and responsive. A good strategy—one that improves the odds of success—is defined by its coherence across ends, ways, and means, its anchoring in political purpose, and its capacity to adapt under pressure. But effectiveness must be evaluated continuously. A strategy should be measurable not in terms of tactical wins alone, but against its progress toward political objectives, the adequacy of its means over time, and its ability to adjust when assumptions fail. Strategy is not about prediction—it is about persistence. It is the art of maintaining coherence in a world of friction, uncertainty, and adversarial resistance.

Words have meaning. And in war, few words matter more than strategy. If militaries are to fight purposefully, lead effectively, and win responsibly, they must be precise in how they define strategy and how they apply it. While many doctrines—such as those of NATO, the U.S. military, and others—offer formal definitions, the challenge lies in shared understanding across institutions, cultures, and levels of war. Without that clarity, strategic thinking risks becoming fragmented or confused. Only with a common conceptual foundation can militaries begin to understand what strategy requires—and how to evaluate its coherence, feasibility, and political alignment.

Understanding strategy—as defined by scholars like Clausewitz, Yarger, Freedman, and Gray—is more than understanding military power or its components like technology, force structure, or tactics. To grasp grand or military strategy in war requires confronting the broader strategic environment: politics, international relations, geography, culture, economics, sociology, and psychology. Only through this multidisciplinary lens can strategy be seen not merely as a military function, but as a political, social, and cognitive enterprise that shapes both the outcomes of war and the peace that follows.

Strategy does not operate in a vacuum. It is forged in the crucible of context, competition, and self-interest. Its success depends not just on battlefield prowess, but on a clear-eyed understanding of the conditions in which it must adapt, evolve, and endure.

Strategy is a dynamic function of leadership—how political purpose is translated into military power, and how military outcomes become lasting political results. As Clausewitz warned, to mistake strategy for mere planning is to reduce war to senseless destruction.

Strategy is the art of purposeful adaptation—the thread linking means to ends, and the compass that orients action through uncertainty. Like a conductor guiding an orchestra through turbulence, the strategist must maintain intent without controlling every note. Strategy is not perfection. It is persistence. And as Freedman reminds us, it is always a story still being written.