Soldiers and Civilization

I recently submitted another article to The Strategy Bridge. I plan to post the article in 3 parts over the next few days. Below is the introduction and a section titled, “The Nature of Strategic Thought.” Next will be “The Officer as Strategic Thinker.”

                                     Strategic Thought and the Military Officer

For officers, strategic thought is a subset, along with tactical and operational thinking, to their roles as organizer, planner, and warfighter. But strategic thought is distinct from the other forms of thinking in which officers must engage in its much greater complexity. It is also the way of thinking which most requires the officer to be self-conscious, or “metacognitive,” and in effect to distance herself from the kinds of thinking required for the tactical and operational levels of war at which she…