Who are "The Strategists"?

[William F. Owen]

If you never had the talent to begin with, you will never be much of a strategist regardless of your Ph.D., or the fact that you are a War College grad assigned to a Strategy shop on the Joint Staff.

I am in absolute and un-restrained agreement!!

I think we also over codify the term "Strategy." Certainly it is a word that means many things to many people. We need professional terms of art, but I'm not sure we have this quite right yet. As John points out, there are those few who emerge from the pact that had a combination of vision, position and skill to move a concept forward.

I disagree. We actually have an extremely precise and useful language for this. The problem is folks are ignorant of it. People still say "Strategic Weapon" or "Air power is Strategic." - which just show that a great many senior officers do not know what strategy is.

Not sure if CvC falls into that pack, as most of his impact was through how others took his ideas and applied them to their work after he was dead.

Well Moa Ze-Dong was a student of Clausewitz as was Giap. The real problem is that 99% of folks quoting and contesting Clausewitz have never read or studied his work. (this sentence added solely for the entertainment value of poking the CvC detractors)
We're still left with the fact that when it comes to the instrumental use, of violence as a means to set forth policy, no one has been able to improve on his work.
CvC was not even that original. All he did was to write down what he saw as the enduring truth as gained by a classical understanding of human history. - which is why his work is so timeless.

(this final sentence added solely for the entertainment value of poking the CvC disciples!) :-)

Wallah? Wow... never saw that coming. - but if anyone can show me better work, I'm interested.

[Backwards Observer]

Asymmetrical Warfare