| |
Strategy (from Greek "art of
troop leader; office of general, command, generalship" is a general plan
to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of
uncertainty. In the sense of the "art of the general", which included
several subsets of skills including military tactics, siegecraft, logistics
etc., the term came into use in the 6th century C.E. in Eastern Roman
terminology, and was translated into Western vernacular languages only in the
18th century. From then until the 20th century, the word "strategy"
came to denote "a comprehensive way to try to pursue political ends,
including the threat or actual use of force, in a dialectic of wills" in a
military conflict, in which both adversaries interact. Strategy is important
because the resources available to achieve goals are usually limited. Strategy
generally involves setting goals and priorities, determining actions to achieve
the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy
describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources).
Strategy can be intended or can emerge as a pattern of activity as the
organization adapts to its environment or competes. It involves activities such
as strategic planning and strategic thinking.[4] Henry Mintzberg from McGill
University defined strategy as a pattern in a stream of decisions to contrast
with a view of strategy as planning, while Henrik von Scheel defines the
essence of strategy as the activities to deliver a unique mix of value –
choosing to perform activities differently or to perform different activities
than rivals. While Max McKeown (2011) argues that "strategy is about
shaping the future" and is the human attempt to get to "desirable
ends with available means". Dr. Vladimir Kvint defines strategy as "a
system of finding, formulating, and developing a doctrine that will ensure
long-term success if followed faithfully."
Complexity theorists define strategy as the unfolding of the internal and
external aspects of the organization that results in actions in a
socio-economic context.
Components:
Professor Richard P. Rumelt described strategy as a type of problem solving in
2011. He wrote that good strategy has an underlying structure he called a
kernel. The kernel has three parts:
1) A diagnosis that defines or explains the nature of the challenge;
2) A guiding policy for dealing with the challenge; and
3) Coherent actions designed to carry out the guiding policy. President Kennedy
illustrated these three elements of strategy in his Cuban Missile Crisis
Address to the Nation of 22 October 1962:
Diagnosis: "This Government, as promised, has maintained the closest
surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the
past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of
offensive missile sites are now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The
purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike
capability against the Western Hemisphere." Guiding Policy: "Our
unswerving objective, therefore, must be to prevent the use of these missiles
against this or any other country, and to secure their withdrawal or
elimination from the Western Hemisphere."
Action Plans: First among seven numbered steps was the following: "To halt
this offensive buildup a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment
under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba
from whatever nation or port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive
weapons, be turned back." Rumelt wrote in 2011 that three important
aspects of strategy include "premeditation, the anticipation of others'
behavior, and the purposeful design of coordinated actions." He described
strategy as solving a design problem, with trade-offs among various elements
that must be arranged, adjusted and coordinated, rather than a plan or choice.
Formulation and implementation:
Strategy typically involves two major processes: formulation and
implementation. Formulation involves analyzing the environment or situation,
making a diagnosis, and developing guiding policies. It includes such
activities as strategic planning and strategic thinking. Implementation refers
to the action plans taken to achieve the goals established by the guiding
policy. Bruce Henderson wrote in 1981 that: "Strategy depends upon the
ability to foresee future consequences of present initiatives." He wrote
that the basic requirements for strategy development include, among other
factors: 1) extensive knowledge about the environment, market and competitors;
2) ability to examine this knowledge as an interactive dynamic system; and 3)
the imagination and logic to choose between specific alternatives. Henderson
wrote that strategy was valuable because of: "finite resources,
uncertainty about an adversary's capability and intentions; the irreversible
commitment of resources; necessity of coordinating action over time and
distance; uncertainty about control of the initiative; and the nature of
adversaries' mutual perceptions of each other."
Military theory:
Main article: Military strategy:
Subordinating the political point of view to the military would be absurd, for
it is policy that has created war...Policy is the guiding intelligence, and war
only the instrument, not vice-versa. On War by Carl von Clausewitz In military
theory, strategy is "the utilization during both peace and war, of all of
the nation's forces, through large scale, long-range planning and development,
to ensure security and victory" (Random House Dictionary). The father of
Western modern strategic study, Carl von Clausewitz, defined military strategy
as "the employment of battles to gain the end of war." B. H. Liddell
Hart's definition put less emphasis on battles, defining strategy as "the
art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of
policy". Hence, both gave the pre-eminence to political aims over military
goals. U.S. Naval War College instructor Andrew Wilson defined strategy as the
"process by which political purpose is translated into military
action." Lawrence Freedman defined strategy as the "art of creating
power." Eastern military philosophy dates back much further, with examples
such as The Art of War by Sun Tzu dated around 500 B.C.[
Management theory:
Main article: Strategic management:
The essence of formulating competitive strategy is relating a company to its
environment. Michael Porter Modern business strategy emerged as a field of
study and practice in the 1960s; prior to that time, the words
"strategy" and "competition" rarely appeared in the most
prominent management literature. Alfred Chandler wrote in 1962 that:
"Strategy is the determination of the basic long-term goals of an
enterprise, and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of
resources necessary for carrying out these goals." Michael Porter defined
strategy in 1980 as the "...broad formula for how a business is going to
compete, what its goals should be, and what policies will be needed to carry
out those goals" and the "...combination of the ends (goals) for
which the firm is striving and the means (policies) by which it is seeking to
get there." Henry Mintzberg described five definitions of strategy in
1998: Strategy as plan – a directed course of action to achieve an
intended set of goals; similar to the strategic planning concept; Strategy as
pattern – a consistent pattern of past behavior, with a strategy realized
over time rather than planned or intended. Where the realized pattern was
different from the intent, he referred to the strategy as emergent; Strategy as
position – locating brands, products, or companies within the market,
based on the conceptual framework of consumers or other stakeholders; a
strategy determined primarily by factors outside the firm; Strategy as ploy
– a specific maneuver intended to outwit a competitor; and Strategy as
perspective – executing strategy based on a "theory of the
business" or natural extension of the mindset or ideological perspective
of the organization.
Strategies in game theory:
Main article: Strategy (game theory):
In game theory, a strategy refers to the rules that a player uses to choose
between the available actionable options. Every player in a non-trivial game
has a set of possible strategies to use when choosing what moves to make. A
strategy may recursively look ahead and consider what actions can happen in
each contingent state of the game—e.g. if the player takes action 1, then
that presents the opponent with a certain situation, which might be good or
bad, whereas if the player takes action 2 then the opponents will be presented
with a different situation, and in each case the choices they make will
determine their own future situation. Strategies in game theory may be random
(mixed) or deterministic (pure). Pure strategies can be thought of as a special
case of mixed strategies, in which only probabilities 0 or 1 are assigned to
actions. Strategy based games generally require a player to think through a
sequence of solutions to determine the best way to defeat the opponent.
Counterterrorism Strategy:
Because counterterrorism involves the synchronized efforts of numerous
competing bureaucratic entities, national governments frequently create
overarching counterterrorism strategies at the national level. A national
counterterrorism strategy is a government's plan to use the instruments of
national power to neutralize terrorists, their organizations, and their
networks in order to render them incapable of using violence to instill fear
and to coerce the government or its citizens to react in accordance with the
terrorists' goals. The United States has had several such strategies in the
past, including the United States National Strategy for Counterterrorism
(2018); the Obama-era National Strategy for Counterterrorism (2011); and the
National Strategy for Combatting Terrorism (2003). There have also been a
number of ancillary or supporting plans, such as the 2014 Strategy to Counter
the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and the 2016 Strategic Implementation
Plan for Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United
States. Similarly, the United Kingdom's counterterrorism strategy, CONTEST,
seeks "to reduce the risk to the UK and its citizens and interests
overseas from terrorism, so that people can go about their lives freely and
with confidence."
|
|
