Strategy is one of those words that gets used so frequently — in business, government, sports, and everyday conversation — that it has nearly lost its meaning. We have marketing strategies, exit strategies, pricing strategies, and fantasy football strategies. But very few of the people who use the word have spent serious time studying what strategy actually is, where it comes from, and what makes it succeed or fail under real-world pressure.
Military strategists have been studying those questions for centuries. From Sun Tzu to Clausewitz, from Thucydides to Mao, the greatest strategic thinkers in history developed their ideas not in boardrooms or business schools but in the crucible of armed conflict — where the consequences of poor strategy were measured not in quarterly earnings but in lives, territory, and the survival of nations.
My book, The New Art of War: The Origins, Theory, and Future of Conflict, draws on that body of knowledge to develop what I call the Unified War Theory — a framework for understanding why wars start, how they are fought, and where they are headed. But as many who have read and understood Sun Tzu have learned, military strategy is profoundly applicable to business strategy. Because the principles that determine success and failure in war — minus the imposition of violent force — apply with remarkable precision to the challenges facing any organization trying to win in a competitive environment.
Here are three lessons that military strategy has been teaching for millennia, that most business strategies still get wrong.
Lesson OneWill Matters More Than Capacity
One of the central concepts in the Unified War Theory is what I call the Engine of War: the idea that conflicts occur and are sustained by three factors that also figure mightily in the eventual outcome: Will, Capacity, and Cause.
Capacity is what you have — your forces, your budget, your technology, your talent. Will is the mental fortitude energized by how badly you want to win and how much you are willing to endure to get there. Cause is the “why,” the motive, the legitimacy of your purpose — the “it” factor that corresponds to the degree to which your people, and those you depend upon, believe that what you are fighting for is worth fighting for.
History is full of examples in which the side with superior Capacity was defeated by an adversary with superior Will. The United States brought overwhelming material Capacity to Vietnam — and lost, because our adversary’s Will was stronger and our Cause, at least as perceived by the Vietnamese people and disgruntled Americans back home, was not. The Afghan government in 2021 had years of U.S. training, billions of dollars of equipment, and numerical superiority. It collapsed in days — not because the Taliban outgunned it, but because it had no Will and no Cause that its own people were willing to die for.
The business parallel is direct and uncomfortable. How many well-funded companies have lost market position to scrappier, more determined competitors? How many incumbents with superior resources have been disrupted by startups that simply wanted it more? Blockbuster had more stores, more capital, and more brand recognition than Netflix. What Netflix had was Will — and a Cause its team believed in completely — and it revolutionized the industry.
The question for every leader is not only “what resources do we have?” It is “how badly do we want to win — and do our people believe in what we are doing enough to push through the inevitable hardship of getting there?”
Without Will and Cause, Capacity is just inventory.
Lesson TwoFriction Is a Condition to Be Managed, Not a Problem to Be Solved
Clausewitz introduced the concept of friction to describe everything that makes war harder than it looks on paper: uncertainty, fatigue, bad luck, garbled communications, an uncooperative enemy, foul weather, impassable terrain. In war, no plan survives first contact with reality, so even the best-laid plans encounter friction — and how a commander manages that friction is often what separates victory from defeat.
The crucial insight is this: friction is not a deviation from normal conditions. It is the normal condition. It cannot be wished away or ignored. It is the environment in which strategy must actually operate.
Business leaders understand this intuitively, yet most strategic plans are built as if friction is a myth. After all, when pitching an idea, we want it to look as good as it can, and that often means glossing over reality. As a result, strategies are written for a magical world of near-ideal conditions: perfect information, reliable execution, cooperative markets, and predictable competitors. Then reality arrives, a black swan appears — a supply chain disruption, a key employee departure, an unforeseen competitor, a regulatory change, a war in the Middle East — and the plan dissolves.
The organizations that perform best under real-world conditions are not the ones with the most elegant plans. They are the ones that have built adaptable strategies — not to predict friction, but to anticipate potential disruptions and permit adjustments that absorb friction, maintain direction, and keep executing despite these inevitable perturbations.
In military terms, this is called mission command: the idea that leaders at every level understand the commander’s intent well enough that they can make good decisions independently when communication breaks down and circumstances change. Subordinate leaders use their license to keep the strategy intact by adjusting the plan around the changes.
The business equivalent is an organization where every team member understands not just what they are supposed to do, but why — so that when things go sideways, and they will, they can adapt without waiting for direction from the top.
The practical implication for strategic planning is this: build your strategy around intent, not just tasks. Conduct “what if” drills to identify likely friction points and responses. Specify what success looks like and why it matters. Then train your people to pursue that intent adaptively. Sometimes there may not be a viable way to accomplish all your goals — in these cases, have the courage to rework your strategy rather than blundering ahead. Table some objectives for now, with the option to revisit them when conditions change.
Lesson ThreeThe Adversary Always Has a Vote
Of all the lessons military strategy has to teach, this may be the most consistently ignored in business: your competitors are not passive. They are watching what you do, reacting to your moves, and developing strategies of their own designed to defeat yours.
In military planning, ignoring this reality is called “mirror-imaging” — assuming the enemy will behave as we would rather than doing the hard work of thinking like the opponent instead of ourselves. It is one of the most dangerous cognitive errors a commander can make, and it applies equally to corporate strategy.
Most strategic plans treat the competitive environment as a backdrop — a set of conditions to be described in the situation analysis and then largely ignored in the execution plan. Competitors are noted. Their current positions are assessed. And then the strategy proceeds as if those competitors will simply stand still while you execute your plan.
They will not.
Every meaningful strategic move you make will be observed, analyzed, and responded to. A price cut invites a price war. A new product launch invites imitation or preemptive countering. An acquisition signals your strategic intent and may trigger a response from competitors who suddenly understand where you are headed. Like chess, you must think several moves ahead if you want to stay ahead and win.
The military principle of wargaming exists precisely to stress-test plans against an active, thinking adversary. Red teams are established specifically to challenge assumptions, find vulnerabilities, and ask the question that most planning processes never ask: What will the enemy do about this?
The business equivalent is competitive wargaming — a structured process in which teams role-play as competitors and develop the responses those competitors would most likely mount against your strategy. Though not a common practice, wargaming your strategy is one of the most valuable exercises a leadership team can perform before committing resources to a major undertaking.
Before you finalize your next strategy, ask your team this: if our top three competitors could see exactly what we are planning, what would they do about it — and does our strategy still win?If you cannot answer that question, you do not yet have a strategy. You have only an untested concept.
A Note on Theory and Practice
I want to be clear about something: the value of military strategic theory is not that it provides a template for certain success. War is not business, and the differences matter. But good theory does something invaluable. It gives you a framework for thinking clearly about complex, competitive, high-stakes situations. It invites you to ask questions you might not otherwise ask. And it expands the range, in space and time, of what you can see and, therefore, increases the probability that your forecasts will adhere to reality.
The Unified War Theory was built on the insight that despite the enormous diversity of human conflict across history, certain patterns recur: the role of Will, the inevitability of friction, the active intelligence of the adversary, and the importance of candid self-assessment. Those patterns recur in all high-stakes competitive activities, including business.
The organizations that study those patterns — that bring the discipline of strategic theory to the practice of organizational leadership — are the ones that will perform best when the pressure is highest.
And optimizing performance and outcomes is what good strategy is for.