Once in a while, you get the sense that the edition the Military Strategy Magazine (MSM) team has produced, thanks to the writers, is a really good product that moves the body of knowledge and debate forward. This is just such an edition.
Why? I cannot say. It would be unfair to credit one or some writers over others, but to this editor, it would seem that breadth and depth of the subjects is mostly the winning factor were it to be a competition.
It should be no surprise to our readership to hear, once again, my complaint that the word Strategy still lacks a useful definition and is vastly misused to mean “important” in its most abstract form merely to denote self-importance in authorship or appointment. Have useful definitions existed in the past? Yes. Should “Military Strategy” be a definable term? Yes. Should we talk more about that? Yes. Do all the articles we publish concern “the use of engagements for the object (purpose/Zweck) of the War?” Does all we publish commence from asserting that Strategy is conducted as a campaign within a theatre and is mostly based on bringing the enemy to battle under the most favourable circumstances for ourselves? No.
Okay, so what?
As it exists in this edition — and I suggest most others — “Military Strategy” provides the focus or anchor point for wider discussions that lie below policy and above battle. That might fall outside the more specific and useful definitions of strategy, yet it renders the articles no less useful and worthy of consideration.
From an editorial perspective, getting to that point of realisation was not an easy journey, and the 75% attrition rate for submissions, which blighted this magazine up until quite recently, stemmed from the fact that most articles could not conform to even the widest and most subjective definitions of strategy. Many still don’t, but it’s no longer 75%.
Anyone wishing to submit, and we are always short of material that passes review, should understand “military strategy” as that area of discussion which is below policy, as in the conditions and behaviours sought by politicians, and Tactics, as the conduct of battles and engagements. More to the point, if you think you have a better idea or explanation for imparting the same guidance, please feel free to contact us.
My sincerest wish is that reading this edition will lead someone to submit something for the next, and even if it fails peer review, they get right to something better at a later date. In a better-informed professional community, the well-informed should fuck up less than the uninformed.
William F. Owen
Editor, Military Strategy Magazine
Volume 10, Issue 3
October 2025