Strategically Thinking

Published November 11, 2026 | Episode 484 Strategy has become a word with nearly all its meaning extracted from it. As my guest Eliot Cohen observes, “every village lost to Russian advances in Ukraine has had the adjective ‘strategic’ attached to it by journalists who merely mean to say ‘important’; every tactical scheme to cross a river or seize a town is a ‘strategy.’” In typical day-to-day usage, he writes, the word “strategy…is more or less equivalent to the word ‘plan.’” This is in many ways comparable to the overuse and misuse of the word “culture.” But just as dispensing with the concept of culture would be an act of intellectual nihilism, so also—Cohen argues—would dispensing with strategy. In his new book, The Strategist: How to Think About War and Politics, he provides a primer for would-be strategists, consumers of their intellectual output, and everyone implicated in the consequences of strategy—which is to say, citizens. Eliot A. Cohen is the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and professor emeritus at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where he formerly served as dean. He has taught at Harvard and the U.S. Naval War College, served in the U.S. Army Reserve, worked in the Department of Defense and intelligence community, and served as counselor of the Department of State from 2007 to 2009. His books include Supreme Command, Conquered into Liberty, and The Hollow Crown: Shakespeare on How Leaders Rise, Rule, and Fall. With Eric Edelman, he hosts the podcast and Substack Shield of the Republic. This is his third appearance on Historically Thinking.