If strategy is about the allocation of resources, it follows that concepts of strategy will be important anywhere decisions about how to allocate resources are important. The greater or more difficult the constraints, or the higher the stakes, the more revealing the choices and responses.
In war, the stakes are ultimate. Survival. And when resources are finite, the outcomes of decisions are literally life-threatening. There is great motivation to make the best choices. When the risks are highest, the choices made are the most important, and are the most revealing of insights into strategy.
The point is that, while not always life-or-death, the concepts of strategy and their application exist all around us. Anywhere we find a difficult challenge and a constrained resource, we may find insight into the process of making choices. This is part of the fascination with sports — often a kind of mock warfare — pushing players, teams, and their resources of skill and stamina to the limit.
The challenge of allocating resources also shows up in the things all around us — sometimes by design, sometimes the result of trial and error.
And the greater and more defined the challenge, the more lucid the examples of strategy.
Think about boats.
Think about how they have “evolved” from rafts and dugout canoes to rowboats, early sailboats, to canoes, kayaks, and even Olympic racing sculls — weighing little, and moving fast across the water with a minimum of energy. They demonstrate an evolving strategy of “economy of means.”
Think about bridges, developing from a log across a stream to stone arches, to steel spans, all the way to kilometres-long suspension bridges — their structure optimized and pared down so their own mass doesn’t destroy them.
The lessons learned in these arenas — the maximization of strength and the minimization of mass allowed the possibility of human flight. Using the lightest of materials in the strongest of ways to overcome the adversary of gravity and weight. Applying the least resources in the cleverest of ways to counter this implacable enemy who would not make any concession.
The greater the demands — for more capacity, for more speed or range — the greater the challenges and the more profound the demands for strategies to overcome them.
Fundamental concepts of strategy like, “necessary but not sufficient,” or “economy of means,” have been essential to the development of aircraft and flight.
While both competition and even conflict are present in the history of flight, many of the challenges have been simply trying to do something hard with only what we have at hand. That makes the history of aviation more relevant to most of us than the history of warfare.
In fact, that sounds like a pretty normal day for many of us.
As a bonus, the history of flight is both recent and well-documented. The result is a deep well of examples of applied strategies — one I will return to often.