The process applied to 52 Weeks of Ideas Parts 1-4, is equally applied to 52 Weeks of Ideas Part 5. Each week a new idea is written, as a casual note, in the top right-hand corner of my diary. By Thursday of the week, the idea is moved forward in the diary until it is full of random snippets of wisdom. This method means ideas are written, read, reflected upon, and rewritten to consolidate thinking, assist memory, and encourage an aspiration of idea achievement.

Eventually, sufficient ideas are gathered to share as 52 Weeks of Ideas.

Recognising the logic of strategy, this article provides 52 Weeks of Ideas to a wider audience. The ideas are a combination of well-known quotes, critical thinking, and key insights. Hyperlinks to biographies of quote originators are included in the article.

Finally, readers are aware that many popular quotes are apocryphal, inaccurate, or dubiously sourced. Therefore, as far as reasonably practicable, this article includes accurate sources for each quote, available in the End Notes.

On Strategy:

  1. Pascal Gerardus Angriawan, ‘the average employee tenure at a Fortune 500 company is now 4.2 years. The average strategic plan timeline is 5 years. Do the math – your strategy will outlive most of the people executing it.’[1]

     

  2. Colonel Kevin Benson, U.S. Army (Retd), explains:

    Policy must inform strategy, and strategy must be the basis for the campaign plans and planning that guide the execution of tactical actions. All this effort must relate to the realisation of [national] policy objectives. We must define and continually refine the linkage between tactical success and the purpose of our actions.

    We must figure out what problem we are (or this plan is) trying to solve. We must determine whether it is the correct problem. We must determine what we are choosing not to do if we do this. We must consider the outcomes of success, to wit, if we succeed, what we will look like, what our adversaries (or allies) will look like, and what the operating environment will look like.[2]

     

  3. Hal Brands, argues:

    ‘The church of strategy must be a broad one. The apotheosis of strategy is synergy: combining multiple tools, whether arms, money, diplomacy, or even ideas, to achieve one’s highest objectives. Its essence lies in fusing power with creativity to prevail in competitive situations, whatever the precise form of that power may be.’[3]

    ‘Strategy is both very complex and very simple.… The essence of strategy is straightforward: it is the craft of summoning and using power to achieve our central purposes amid the friction of global affairs and the resistance of rivals and enemies. Strategy is the indispensable art of getting what we want, with what we have, in a world that seems set on denying us.’[4]

     

  4. Australian authors Dr Michael Brennan and Brigadier Justin Kelly argue that, ‘without historical or doctrinal reference’, the ‘operational level of war…was copied into US doctrine [from the Soviets] …which severed campaign planning from the concept of strategy’. In turn, the ‘American conception of war…magnified the importance of campaigns and tactics while minimising the importance of strategy.’[5]

     

  5. Bernard Brodie, observes:

    Strategic thinking, or ‘theory,’ if one prefers, is nothing if not pragmatic. Strategy is a ‘how to do it’ study, a guide to accomplishing something and doing it efficiently. As in many other branches of politics, the question that matters in strategy is: Will the idea work? More importantly, will it likely work under the special circumstances in which it will next be tested?[6]

     

  6. Carl von Clausewitz states that:

    ‘The political object – the original motive for the war – will thus determine both the military objective to be reached and the amount of effort it requires.’

    ‘Sometimes the political and military objectives are the same – for example, the conquest of a province. In other cases, the political objective will not provide a suitable military objective. In that event, another military objective must be adopted that will serve the political purpose…’[7]

     

  7. Carl von Clausewitz argues that ‘the original means of strategy is victory [in engagements] – that is, tactical success; its ends, in the final analysis, are those objects which will lead directly to peace.’[8]

     

  8. Carl von Clausewitz observes that ‘strategy…links together the series of acts which are to lead to the final decision, that is to say it makes the plans for the separate campaigns and regulates the combats to be fought in each.’[9]

     

  9. Carl von Clausewitz wrote: 

    ‘The primary purpose of any theory is to clarify concepts and ideas that have become, as it were, confused and entangled. Not until terms and concepts have been defined can one hope to make any progress in examining the question clearly and simply and expect the reader to share one’s views.’

    ‘Tactics and strategy are two activities that permeate one another in time and space but are nevertheless essentially different. Their inherent laws and mutual relationship cannot be understood without a total comprehension of both.’[10]

     

  10. Carl von Clausewitz states that ‘no one starts a war – or rather, no one in their senses ought to do so – without first being clear in their mind what they intend to achieve by that war and how they intend to conduct it.’[11]

     

  11. Carl von Clausewitz articulates:

    ‘...but in war, as in life generally, all parts of the whole are interconnected and thus the effects produced, however small their cause, must influence all subsequent military operations and modify their final outcome to some degree, however slight. In the same way, every means must influence even the ultimate purpose.’[12]

     

  12. Carl von Clausewitz and Colin S. Gray, explain:

    War has a ‘grammar, but not a policy logic, of its own.’[13] There remains an enduring requirement for policy and strategy to understand both the ‘grammar’ of war, ‘how war works as war… [as] physical conditions and tactical challenges…[and] action wherein people live and die in combat’, and the policy ‘logic’ of war.’[14]

     

  13. Emily Dickinson, on hard work and strategy:

    ‘Luck is not chance – 
    It's Toil – 
    Fortune's expensive smile 
    Is earned’[15]

     

  14. Everett Dolman restates the Clausewitzian notion that while war has ‘an essential nature amenable to broad and enduring principles, such as unity of command, the character of war is in continual flux.’[16] (italics in original).

    Dolman further explains that because ‘times always change … it is reasonable to assert that seeking strategy is vastly more important than finding it.’[17] He emphasises that in strategy ‘there is no so-called end state, no static objective to be reached in politics … strategy, like politics, never ends.’ Instead, ‘strategy is best defined by its purpose’.[18]

     

  15. Andrew Ehrhardt and Maeve Ryan, explain that strategy:

    ‘…is best understood not as a process (leading to the production of plans) but as a habit of mind: a conscious attempt to look beyond the confines of short-term requirements of national defence or day-to-day, immediate foreign policy, and to the pursuit of national interests in a more systematic and synchronised way.’

    ‘[Strategy] remains conscious of first-order assumptions and first-order principles within a nation’s policymaking culture, and importantly, the ways in which these should be altered in the context of a changing international order.’[19]

     

  16. Tufan Erginbilgiç, Rolls-Royce CEO:

    ‘You’ll only transform a company if you can mobilise your people with purpose, focus, and alignment.’

    ‘I have four pillars. First, you need to create a top-notch leadership team to tell people what the vision is and how we’re going to get there. Second, you need a very granular strategy; it becomes a tool for alignment and engagement. Third is to have a performance culture, where performance improvement becomes part of your strategy implementation. Fourth pillar is to move with intensity, pace, and rigor.’[20]

     

  17. Professor Peter Feaver, on civilian leadership, managing a ‘myriad trade-offs…civilian supremacy is premised on the notion that civilians have the right to be wrong – that civilian preferences should trump military preferences even if they are wrong on the policy.’[21]

     

  18. Professor John Lewis Gaddis defines grand strategy as ‘the alignment of potentially unlimited aspirations with necessarily limited capabilities.’ For Gaddis, grand strategy is an interdependent link between ‘what’s real and what’s imagined.’ He explains:

    ‘If you seek ends beyond your means, then sooner or later you’ll have to scale back your ends to fit your means.’ Whatever balance a strategic leader seeks to arrange between ends and means, they ‘won’t have a strategy until they connect these dots [ends and means] – dissimilar through they are – within the situation they are operating.’[22]

     

  19. Jay Galbraith in the Star Model™, design policies fall into five categories:

    • First is strategy, which determines direction.
    • Second is structure, which determines the location of decision-making power.
    • Third is processes, which have to do with the flow of information; they are the means of responding to information technologies.
    • Fourth is rewards and reward systems, which influence the motivation of people to perform and address organisational goals.
    • Fifth category of the model is made up of policies relating to people (human resource policies), which influence and frequently define the employees’ mind-sets and skills.[23]

     

  20. Vincent van Gogh, ‘for the great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, [it] is a succession of little things that are brought together.’[24]

     

  21. Colin S. Gray, all nations must attempt ‘to get the biggest issues right enough’ and to ‘seek good enough answers to the right questions.’[25]

     

  22. Colin S. Gray, metaphorically describes strategy as ‘the bridge that relates [or links] military power to political purpose. Strategy, in itself, is neither military power nor political purpose… [and it] is an extraordinarily difficult enterprise primarily because it is a bridging function between [two] unlike elements.’[26]

     

  23. Colin S. Gray, notes that ‘strategic theory may appear to be strategic philosophy, but …its sole purpose – is to fuel understanding for practical benefit’.[27]

     

  24. Colin S. Gray, ‘strategies are theories, which is to say they are purported explanations of how desired effects can be achieved by selected causes of threat and action applied in a particular sequence.’[28]

     

  25. Colin S. Gray, The currency conversion problem:

    The basic challenge in (military) strategy is the need to convert military power into political effect (by the agency of strategic effect). The exchange rate is neither stable nor, as a consequence, reliably predictable. Put directly, ‘how hard must we fight to achieve the political ends that justify the harm that is the violence?’ Politics and military power are different currencies.

    ‘The heart of the challenge with strategy is that it calls for skills that are neither military nor political, but must embrace both (at a minimum). To be a good soldier, or politician, is not necessarily to be a good strategist, because strategy is about neither military effect nor politics, rather is it about the political effect of military use and threat.’[29]

     

  26. Colonel Steve Heffington, argues:

    ‘Good strategy is more than a collection of objective instrument packages, or a list of acceptable initiatives loosely bound to the pablum of fluffy objectives.’

    ‘Good strategy must have a clear, well-considered vision of the world combined with a uniting theory that focuses action on viable objectives and creates power and clarity amid uncertainty and complexity.’[30]

     

  27. Loizos Heracleous, ‘strategic thinking… [is] discovering and committing to novel [systems] which can re-write the rules of the competitive arena and necessitate relaxing or suspending at least part of the conventional wisdom.’[31]

     

  28. Rear Admiral J.R. Hill, Royal Navy: ‘given the political nature of credible contingencies, is there not scope for taking the operational initiative by setting thresholds which the adversary crosses at their own risk?’[32]

     

  29. Horace Epistles (I.ii.40): ‘Dimidium facti, qui coepit, habet. Sapere aude: Incipe’ or ‘Well begun is half done. Dare to be wise: make a beginning.’[33]

     

  30. Samuel P. Huntington, on national policy and the transoceanic United States Navy:

    ‘The fundamental element of a military service is its purpose or role in implementing national policy. The statement of this role may be called the strategic concept of the service.’

    ‘Basically, this concept is a description of how, when, and where the military service expects to protect the nation against some threat to its security. If a military service does not possess such a concept, it becomes purposeless, it wallows about amid a variety of conflicting and confusing goals, and ultimately it suffers both physical and moral degeneration.’

    ‘A military service may at times, of course, perform functions unrelated to external security, such as internal policing, disaster relief, and citizenship training. These are, however, subordinate and collateral responsibilities.’

    ‘A military service does not exist to perform these functions; rather it performs these functions because it has already been called into existence to meet some threat to the national security.’

    ‘A service is many things: it is people, weapons, bases, equipment, traditions, organisation. But none of these have meaning or usefulness unless there is a unifying purpose which shapes and directs their relations and activities towards the achievement of some goal of national policy.’[34]

     

  31. Dr Christian Keller, on General Ulysses S. Grant:

    ‘… at the strategic level of command… Grant understands that he is going to need different subordinates for different purposes at different levels of war. And he was very good at talent identification.’

    ‘… for example William Tecumseh Sherman … Grant and Sherman were close from the beginning of the Donaldson campaign in 1862. Both of them selflessly gave of their own thinking, ideas, indeed their own means to the other for the greater goal of Union success in the Western theatre, 1862-1863, particularly in Tennessee.’

    ‘And it was a remarkable relationship that was built on selflessness, which grew into trust, and then ultimately bloomed into a mutual respect for competence.’[35]

     

  32. Henry Kissinger:

    ‘High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. …Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.’[36]

     

  33. MacGregor Knox:

    ‘…bureaucracies are…happiest with established wisdom and incremental change. They cherish the myth that virtually all strategic [and military] problems are soluble in and through their own element – be it diplomacy, economic power, covert knowledge and action, naval supremacy, or air bombardment – and that problems not thus soluble are not problems.’

    ‘When faced with the incommensurate or unquantifiable alternatives that are the stuff of strategy [and war], bureaucracies usually retreat to incoherent compromise with their fellows or take flight into intuition – unless the structure of decision-making forces them to defend all choices in rational terms. And in the absence of driving political leadership, even structured debate may produce only paralysis.’[37]

     

  34. Alfred Korzybski, Polish-American philosopher wrote ‘a map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.’[38]

     

  35. T.E. Lawrence: ‘considering now the whole house of war: in its structural aspect, which was strategy; in its arrangements, which were tactics; and, in the sentiment of its inhabitants, which was psychology; for my personal duty was command, and the commander, like the master architect, was responsible for all.’[39]

     

  36. T.E. Lawrence, quote from Dr Rob Johnson,

    ‘…one of the things that is so remarkable about T.E. Lawrence is that he does learn. He is an active learner. I think one of the advantages, of course, of being a successful strategist is the ability to adapt to a new situation, a new dispensation, and to incorporate the resources and the advantages that you find around you. Or even to find disadvantages and turn them to your effect.’[40]

     

  37. Colonel Arthur F. Lykke Jr., US Army, Retired, in the Military Review, May 1989 wrote:

    ‘During a visit to the US Army War College in 1981, General Maxwell D. Taylor characterised strategy as consisting of objectives, ways, and means. We can express this concept as an equation:

    • Strategy = Ends (objectives toward which one strives) + Ways (courses of action) + Means (instruments by which some end can be achieved).

    This general concept can be used as a basis for the formulation of any type of strategy – military, political, economic and so forth, depending upon the element of national power employed.’[41]

     

  38. Roger L. Martin and Jennifer Riel, Harvard Business Review:

    ‘There’s a secret about strategy that no one tells you: Every organisation has one, whether or not it is written down and whether or not it is the product of an official strategic-planning process.’

    ‘[Strategy] can be deduced from the actions the organisation takes because, essentially, strategy is the logic that determines what you choose to do and not do in service of a particular goal. The goal may be implicit. It may have evolved over time. The choices may have emerged without discussion and exploration. The actions may be ineffectual in achieving the goal. But the strategy exists, nonetheless.’[42]

     

  39. Williamson Murray:

    ‘If a military force and its leaders have failed to prepare themselves and their forces with honesty, imagination, and a willingness to challenge fundamental concepts, then they will pay a dark price in the blood of their sailors, soldiers, marines, and airmen.’

    ‘This is largely because such military organisations will attempt to force reality to fit the assumptions about war they have developed in peacetime, rather than adapt their preconceived notions to the reality they confront.’[43]

     

  40. Friedrich Nietzsche[on belief in inspiration] ‘all great people were great workers, unwearied not only in invention but also in rejection, reviewing, transforming, and arranging.’[44]

     

  41. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz stated that:

    ‘...the war with Japan had been enacted in the game rooms at the War College by so many people and in so many different ways that nothing that happened during [the war with Japan] was a surprise – absolutely nothing except the kamikaze tactics toward the end of the war. We had not visualised these.’[45]

     

  42. Air Chief Marshal The Lord Peach KG GBE KCB DL [in executing strategy] ‘the unifying purpose of a goal which shapes a future is probably achievable, and that is enough’:

    ‘…strategy is about big ideas which help to shape a or the future… [and] the Ends, Ways and Means construct is translatable, and has stood the test of time.’

    ‘…my concern is normally about the Means. Often the Ends are elusive because they evolve over time and I have never really joined the club of those asking the clever questions at staff college or war college about ‘if only you gave us a clear end state, Prime Minister, it would all be easy’ because I don't think that is ever realistic…[the end state] evolves with the campaign itself.’

    ‘The Ways of which to get there are often reasonably well understood. The one I would highlight, and maybe it's my age, is I really do now, more and more when I am talking to the next generation, focus on logistics and the importance of sustainability in a wider sense.’[46]

     

  43. General David Petraeus, US Army: the four tasks of a strategic leader are:

    1. to get the big ideas right;
    2. to communicate them effectively throughout the breadth and depth of the organisation, to all stakeholders;
    3. to oversee their implementation, to drive the conduct of the campaign plan; and then to,
    4. determine how the big ideas need to be refined.[47]

     

  44. Lydia Polgreen, New York Times, writing on the February-March 2026 Operation Epic Fury, channels Carl von Clausewitz, who at Idea 10, above, warns ‘no one starts a war – or rather, no one in their senses ought to do so – without first being clear in their mind what they intend to achieve by that war and how they intend to conduct it.’ Polgreen argues:

    ‘…the Trump administration has given no plausible explanation for the war, offering instead confused and contradictory justifications. Secretary of State Marco Rubio even suggested that America was effectively bounced into it by the prospect of an imminent Israeli attack on Iran. [President] Trump soon weighed in, claiming that he was actually the one who pressured Israel into the venture. His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, perhaps offered the closest thing to the truth. “The president had a feeling,” she told reporters on Wednesday [04 March 2026], “that Iran was going to strike the United States.”[48]

     

  45. Ronald Reagan:

    ‘Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance, it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.’[49]

     

  46. Professor Hew Strachan, argues that ‘during the Cold War, the focus lay on the relationship between operations and tactics, not least because the Cold War itself defined the strategic context. After the end of the Cold War, the framework provided by strategy weakened, and the operational level of war assumed strategic significance, not least in the development of counter-insurgency theory’.[50] Strachan notes, that in 1980s:

    ‘…the operational level of war and its bundle of associated ideas, including manoeuvre and then ‘manoeuvrism’, spread through NATO armies like wildfire, and remain present in their doctrines today.’[51]

    Strachan observes that although the operational level of war was ‘presented as the bridge between strategy and tactics’, the ‘orientation of the operational level in the late 1980s was towards the interface with tactics, not strategy’.[52]

     

  47. Professor Hew Strachan’s view is that in the twenty-first century ‘we have so stretched our understanding of the term [strategy] that it is in danger of losing its usefulness… today strategy is too often employed simply as a synonym for policy.’[53] Strachan emphasises that ‘strategy in practice rests on a dialogue with policy’.[54] He further states:

    ‘Strategy implies that government has a policy and that the strategy flows from the policy: it is an attempt to make concrete a set of objectives through the application of military force.’[55]

     

  48. James Wallace, summarising ends, ways and means through sport:

    ‘The first ball of an Ashes series is an end and a beginning. That first delivery puts a full stop to the increasingly frenzied buildup, conjecture and speculation. The action can begin to replace all the what ifs and whataboutery, at least for a little while. Increasingly the first ball is also seen as both portal and portent, a seven-second snapshot of things to come, a tone setting prophecy and harbinger all rolled into one, a five-Test series in microcosm. The postmortems at the end of the series will almost certainly make some mention of its very first breath.’[56]

     

  49. Colonel John Warden, US Air Force: ‘the purpose of war ought to be to win the peace that follows, and all planning and operations should be directly connected with the final objective.’[57]

     

  50. Admiral James Watkins, on the 1986 United States Maritime Strategy: above all, the goal of the Maritime Strategy was ‘to deny the Soviets their kind of war by exerting global pressure, indicating that the conflict will be neither short nor localised.’[58]

     

  51. James J. Wirtz, attrition is the ‘default strategy in war,’ where each side engages the other in battles of annihilation ‘until material exhaustion, personnel losses or a collapse of political will forces one side to surrender’…[throughout history] ‘the story is the same: empty the prisons, mass the artillery and bomb the cities until the enemy breaks.’[59]

     

  52. Whitney Zimmerman, ‘five types of strategic moves matter most in driving strategy outcomes: three portfolio moves (programmatic mergers & acquisitions [organisational], dynamic resource reallocation, and major capital programs) and two performance moves (productivity improvement and differentiation).’[60]

 

Still interested?

Why not watch this CoveTalk with Chief of Army Lieutenant General Simon Stuart on ‘State of the Army: Strategy, Culture, and Professional Mastery’

Cove+ also offers courses on Strategy through ADELE (O:S).

 

End Notes

[1] Pascal Gerardus Angriawan, Stop Asking for Loyalty You Wouldn’t Give Yourself: The loyalty paradox isn’t about employees leaving – it’s about leaders still pretending they’ll stay, Medium, A Medium Corporation, San Francisco, California, 03 October 2025 Stop Asking for Loyalty You Wouldn’t Give Yourself | by pascal gerardus angriawan | Human Code Engine | Oct, 2025 | Medium [accessed 11 October 2025]

[2] Kevin Benson, Strategy??, Small Wars Journal, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, 02 February 2026

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/02/02/strategy/ [accessed 03 February 2026]

[3] Hal Brands, Introduction in The Makers of Modern Strategy: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age, ed. Hal Brands, Princeton, New Jersey, United States, Princeton University Press, 2023, p. 9 

[4] Hal Brands, Introduction, Ibid., p. 1 

[5] Justin Kelly and Mike Brennan, Alien: How Operational Art Devoured Strategy, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Strategic Studies Institute, 2009, p. 93

[6] Bernard Brodie, War and Politics, Macmillan, New York, 1973, p. 452

[7] Clausewitz, C. Von, On War, trans. M. Howard and P. Paret, Princeton, New Jersey, 1976, p. 81

[8] Clausewitz, C. Von, On War, Ibid., p. 143

[9] Clausewitz, C. Von, On War, Op Cit., p. 133

[10] Clausewitz, C. Von, On War, Op Cit., p. 132

[11] Clausewitz, C. Von, On War, Op Cit., p. 579

[12] Clausewitz, C. Von, On War, Op Cit., p. 158

[13] Clausewitz, C. Von, On War, Op Cit., p. 605

[14] Clausewitz, C. Von, On War, Op Cit., p. 605 and Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy, Oxford University Press, 1999, Oxford, United Kingdom, pp. 93, 272

[15] Emily Dickinson, The complete poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johns (ed.) Little Brown & Company, Boston, United States, 30 January 1960, pp. 583-584 

https://uerjundergradslit.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/the-complete-poems-of-emily-dickinson.pdf [accessed 16 November 2024]

[16] Richard Bailey, James Forsyth, and Mark Yeisley (eds.), Strategy: Context and Adaptation from Archidamus to Airpower, Naval Institute Press: Annapolis Maryland, 2016, p. 6

[17] Richard Bailey, James Forsyth, and Mark Yeisley (eds.), Ibid., p. 6

[18] Richard Bailey, James Forsyth, and Mark Yeisley (eds.), Op Cit., p. 9

[19] Andrew Ehrhardt and Maeve Ryan, Grand Strategy in No Silver Bullett, But it is indispensable, Ryan Evans ed. War on the Rocks, War on the Rocks Media, Washington D.C, 19 May 2020 https://warontherocks.com/2020/05/grand-strategy-is-no-silver-bullet-but-it-is-indispensable/ [accessed 14 April 2024]

[20] Michael Birshan, Reinventing Rolls-Royce: A conversation with CEO Tufan Erginbilgiç, McKinsey & Company, New York, 25 October 2024 https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/reinventing-rolls-royce-a-conversation-with-ceo-tufan-erginbilgic [accessed 26 May 2025]

[21] Peter D. Feaver, The Right to Be Right: Civil-Military Relations and the Iraq Surge Decision, Quarterly Journal: International Security 35, no. 4 (Spring 2011), p. 117

[22] John Lewis Gaddis, On Grand Strategy, Penguin Random House, Vauxhall Bridge Rd, London, 2018, pp. 21, 105

[23] Galbraith, J., Strategy People Structure Processes Reward The Star Model, Designing Organizations, San Francisco; Jossey-Bass, 2002 http://jaygalbraith.com/services/star-model/ [accessed 16 October 20204]

[24] Letter, From: Vincent van Gogh; To: Theo van Gogh, The Hague, Sunday, 22 October 1882 https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let274/letter.html [accessed 24 November 2024]

[25] Colin S. Gray, Strategy and Defence Planning: Meeting the Challenge of Uncertainty, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014, pp 177–78

[26] Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy, Op Cit, pp.17, 253, 357, 361

[27] Colin S. Gray, Airpower for Strategic Effect, Alabama: Air University Press, 2012, p.10.

[28] Frank Hoffman, Distilling the Essence of Strategy, War on the Rocks, War on the Rocks Media, Washington D.C, 04 August 2020 https://warontherocks.com/2020/08/distilling-the-essence-of-strategy/ [accessed 21 April 2025]

[29] Colin S. Gray, Strategy: Some Notes for a User’s Guide, Infinity Journal, IJ Infinity Group, Ltd, Volume 2, Issue No. 2, Spring 2012, pages 4-9 https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/strategy-some-notes-for-a-users-guide/ [accessed 27 December 2025]

[30] Steven Heffington, Channelling the Legacy of Kennan: Theory of Success in Great Power Competition, John Amble ed. Modern War Institute, United States Military Academy, 08 Feb 2022 

https://mwi.westpoint.edu/channeling-the-legacy-of-kennan-theory-of-success-in-great-power-competition/ [accessed 21 April 2025]

[31] Loizos Heracleous, cited in: Michael Ryan, Thinking about Strategic Thinking: Developing a More Effective Strategic Thinking Culture in Defence, ed., Cathy Maloney and Fiona Mackrell, The Vanguard, Canberra, ACT, Australia, Centre for Defence Research, 2021. p. 5

[32] Rear Admiral J.R. Hill, Maritime Strategy for Medium Powers, Croom Helm, London, 1986, p. 128

[33] Horace, The. Epistles Of Horace, Liber I.ii.40 https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/horace/epist1.shtml [accessed 28 December 2025]

[34] Samuel P. Huntington, National Policy and the Transoceanic Navy, United States Naval Institute, Proceedings, Annapolis, Maryland, United States, Vol. 80/5/615, May 1954 https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1954/may/national-policy-and-transoceanic-navy [accessed 25 March 2026]

[35] Dr Christian Keller, Episode 15: Generals Lee and Grant: Great Strategists of the American Civil War, eds. Beatrice Heuser and Paul O’Neill, The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, London, United Kingdom, 16 January 2024 https://www.rusi.org/publication/episode-15-generals-lee-and-grant-great-strategists-american-civil-war [accessed 26 September 2024]

[36] Henry Kissinger, White House Years, eBook ed., 3 vols., vol. 1, New York City, New York, USA, Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 1979

[37] MacGregor Knox, Conclusion: Continuity and Revolution in the Making of Strategy, in The Making of Strategy, Rulers, States, and War, Cambridge University Press, 31 May 1996, pp. 615–616

[38] Korzybski, Alfred Habdank. Science and Sanity. An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. International Non-Aristotelian Library Publishing Co, 1933, p. 58

[39] Thomas E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph, Penguin Books, London, 1983, p. 181

[40] Dr Rob Johnson, Episode 7: T E Lawrence: Understanding Irregular Warfare’s Cultural and Human Terrain, eds. Beatrice Heuser and Paul O’Neill, The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, London, United Kingdom, 21 March 2023

https://www.rusi.org/podcasts/talking-strategy/episode-7-t-e-lawrence-understanding-irregular-warfares-cultural-and-human-terrain [accessed 29 July 2024]

[41] Colonel Arthur F. Lykke, Jr., Towards an Understanding of Military Strategy, Military Strategy: Theory and Application – A Reference Text for the Department of Military Strategy, Planning and Operations 1983-1984, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania: U.S. Army War College, pp. 1-2 to 1-6 and

Colonel Arthur F. Lykke Jr., US Army, Retired, Defining Military Strategy, Military Review, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, United States, May 1989 https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/MR-75th-Anniversary/75th-Lykke/ [accessed 08 March 2026]

[42] Roger L. Martin and Jennifer Riel, The One Thing You Need to Know About Managing Functions - they require their own strategies, Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business Publishing, Brighton, Massachusetts, USA, July–August 2019 https://hbr.org/2019/07/the-one-thing-you-need-to-know-about-managing-functions [accessed 19 October 2025]

[43] Williamson Murray, US Naval Strategy and Japan, in Successful Strategies: Triumphing in War and Peace from Antiquity to the Present, ed. Williamson Murray and Richard Hart Sinnreich, Cambridge, England, UK, Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 10.39

[44] Friedrich Nietzsche, Human All-Too-Human, A Book for Free Spirits, Part I, Helen Zimmern (trans.), T. N. Foulis, Edinburgh & London, 1910, p. 160 https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/main/b20790001_v_1_B000773557.pdf [accessed 24 October 2024]

[45] FADM Chester W. Nimitz, USN, speech to Naval War College, 10 October 1960, folder 26, box 31, RG 15 Guest Lectures, 1894–1992, Naval Historical Collection, Naval War College, Newport, RI

[46] Air Chief Marshal Lord Peach KG GBE KCB DL, Episode 14: Lord Peach: Evolving, Adopting and Adapting Alliance Strategy, ed. Paul O’Neill, The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, London, United Kingdom, 02 January 2024 https://rusi.org/podcasts/talking-strategy/episode-14-lord-peach-evolving-adopting-and-adapting-alliance-strategy [accessed 24 September 2024]

[47] David H Petraeus, Episode 12: Petraeus’s ‘Big Four’: Brainstorm, Communicate, Implement, Assess, eds. Beatrice Heuser and Paul O’Neill, The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, London, United Kingdom, 25 April 2023 https://www.rusi.org/podcasts/talking-strategy/episode-12-petraeuss-big-four-brainstorm-communicate-implement-assess [accessed 06 August 2024]  

[48] Lydia Polgreen, Trump’s Fantasy Is Crashing Down, The New York Times, New York, United States, 06 March 2026 Opinion | Trump’s Fantasy Is Crashing Down - The New York Times [accessed 07 March 2026]

[49] Ronald Reagan, 33rd Governor, California, First Inaugural Address (Public Ceremony), Sacramento, California, 05 January 1967 https://governors.library.ca.gov/addresses/33-Reagan01.html [accessed 15 May 2025]

[50] Hew Strachan, Strategy or Alibi? Obama, McChrystal and the Operational Level of War, Survival, Global Politics and Strategy, Volume 52, Issue 5, 2010, pp. 157-182 

[51] Hew Strachan, Strategy or Alibi? Obama, McChrystal and the Operational Level of War, Ibid., pp. 157-182

[52] Hew Strachan, Strategy or Alibi? Obama, McChrystal and the Operational Level of War, Op Cit, pp. 157-182

[53] Hew Strachan, The Direction of War: contemporary strategy in historical perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2013. pp. 5 & 11

[54] Hew Strachan, The Direction of War, Ibid., p. 19

[55] Hew Strachan, The Direction of War, Op Cit, p. 64

[56] James Wallace, Why the first ball of the Ashes is both an end and a beginning: From Zak Crawley hitting Pat Cummins for four to Rory Burns’ duck, it is seen as a tone-setting prophecy, The Guardian, Guardian Media Group, Sydney, Australia, 12 November 2025 https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/nov/12/the-ashes-first-ball-series-spin-newsletter [accessed 26 November 2025]

[57] Col John A. Warden, The Air Campaign, toExcel, New York, NY, 1998, p. 144

[58] ADM James D. Watkins, USN, “The Maritime Strategy,” supplement, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 112, no. 1, January 1986 The Maritime Strategy | Proceedings - January 1986 Vol. 112/1/995 Supplement | The Maritime Strategy [accessed 17 October 2025]

[59] James J. Wirtz, Review of Precision: A History of American Warfare, International Affairs, Vol. 100, No. 4, 2024, pp. 2290-2291

[60] Whitney Zimmerman, Strategy is About Choices, Medium, A Medium Corporation, San Francisco, California, 04 January 2025 https://whitneyzim.medium.com/strategy-is-about-choices-aadfe55a32d1 [accessed 26 January 2025]