Hi Arthur,

I also once played the game "Stratego" and a friend explained that strategos was the Greek word for general.
I wonder whether strategy is always inherently to do with war?

It's hard to imagine a strategy when winning or losing is not at stake. But I would suggest more than this, war is necessary. Your list of books may have biased my question, however.

Fascinating question Anna. I would have tagged it brilliant only I disagree so I couldn't, but you do make an excellent point.

No, war is not necessary, though it is the simplest place to learn strategy, and to teach it.

In fact, wherever you want to go (and whatever you want to do) you need a strategy how to get there. Metaphorically, when trying to solve a problem you need to devise a strategy of how to test or prove it, and literally when going to work from your home. Your gps decides on a strategy of what's the best and easiest way to take you to your goal, and it makes its decisions by a general strategy developed by its developers.

Now, if you don't care where you'll go and when you'll get there, there isn't much need for strategy. Strategy is based on some sense of competition perhaps, at least in the sense of succeeding, or of getting somewhere. Not competition with anyone in particular but in wanting to get somewhere in life.

One of the reasons I enjoyed winning that game of Scrabble was that I was awaiting a massacre, my friends English being so far superior to mine. More than winning, as I wouldn't at all minded losing that game, it is a sense of a successful implementation of strategy which is nice. People who care to win flatten that sensation and think it's about winning a war, which is an empty sensation if you ask me. Success is a far deeper emotion than simply winning. If you look at the impressive sportspeople you'll see that they put themselves in places where they are not supposed to win, what wins is their spirit, their will.
It's not their ambition to win which helps them win, but their ambition period. An ambition which finds a way to win. (Win without cheating, as otherwise you haven't really won in any meaningful way.)

Sports is a another good place to look at strategy as it is laid bare there, but as I mentioned before, strategy is about succeeding, not winning. About how to get from point A to point B, and there are always obstacles on your way.

Strategy is important perhaps to those who feel the need for it. I would like to talk about the relative unimportance of strategy (possibly as a strategy!) in life (which is the biggest game of all for we never leave it alive) and it's pitfalls. Also about the concept of strategy outside the frame. As I start from a seeming disbelief in strategy there will be no real rhyme or reason to what follows. The background is of a martial artist.

It is not the case that anticipation is the secret of life. Yet people do live in this state. They do things anticipating a future benefit; they go to the gym so they look good at the beach, they save money to buy this or that, they work at their career so security is "guaranteed". They network in the hope of gaining a favour later on, and so on. In fact they live in the future, the present becomes a strange adjunct to a future possibility, a space in which calculations are made to adjust what will happen so the chips are in their favour. They don't live in the moment - which is also a strategy because then the future could also take care of itself. Failing to live in the moment is not living.

[For those who believe this. I'm sorry. As I admire you, I undermine you! As I honour you, I pity you!]

There is a danger in anticipation, those who have studied the martial arts properly know it well. It consists in trying to predict where a punch will land, or in the most general sense, the outcome of a certain action. The danger comes where a commitment, psychological or physical, is made to that outcome. When the action against one suddenly alters, as it can do, one is in too far, too deep, overcommitted and cannot respond accordingly. That is why one only punches at 60% strength and never in over extension (off balance - so one cannot draw back) or hyperextension (joints lock up and can be grabbed). These comments are not merely physical, they are metaphorical also.

Anticipation goes hand in hand with anxiety (so more valium is manufactured). Really, all that is known is the state space of possibilities. That can be contemplated and one may do so with a clear and pure heart.

Strategy as described here is a very Western concept. But we don't live, always, in a western world. [If one did, perhaps prefer to be a playboy or girl of that world]

Sans strategy, face to face, you usually cannot be predicted. Also for that reason, you cannot predict yourself. From time to time we should endeavour to do something that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. To be completely crazy. Just to see what happens. The results may surprise.

There are those who play the game according to the rules. Because they are the rules and they do not try to change them. But there is always the possibility of refusing to play, of sweeping aside the chessboard or suddenly dropping the stick - when it is expected to move - and punching instead. Give someone a stick and as they take, they are exposed, defenceless and therefore vulnerable. I am not talking about just a stick.

Why turn up to box in a ring? Disrupt his transport the night before and there will be no fight. Boxing is not a martial art. I am not talking just about boxing.

There is fun in running away, you live to fight another day. 

Perhaps nature contains everything you need to know. To solve the problems you will face. Using strength where it is needed. Following the subtle seasons and rhythms of heaven. Changing as change is indicated (and always give change!). Bend like that reed in the wind. Do not break. And you will be alright. Not so much the individual action but the consistency of the actions for their moral force. "Blossom in happiness, health and a human understanding." As an old master said.

[Perhaps we network for the joy of connection, go to the gym for the pleasure of the kinesthetic, work for the fun of challenge and the value of progress and do all those other things, just to live life for it's own sake]

Strategy is about surviving.

There is a time to fight, a time to flee and a time to die. May you choose from these wisely.