An authoritative introduction to strategy-its enduring essentials, its inherent challenges, and the ways it will change in the twenty-first century We live in a world in which America's previous dominance has disappeared, violent states seek to remake the global order, and war itself has taken new forms. The Strategist is the definitive guide to the use of military means to achieve political ends. In this incisive book, Eliot Cohen addresses the deceptively straightforward questions at the heart of strategy, the reasons why strategists often choose badly, and the ways in which strategy, inevitably imperfect, can be improved. Who is the enemy? What are our means? What is the sequence in which we should act? Why do we believe we will succeed? These are some of the seemingly elementary questions all strategists must answer, and success or failure rests on choices that may also seem simple, such as selecting campaigns and deciding when to launch a war and when to stop it. Yet devising effective strategy, while achievable, is extremely difficult. Cohen draws on illuminating examples from history as well as his own experience as a strategic adviser to government to explain why. He demonstrates how to mitigate these limitations through habits of thought and qualities of character that enable a strategist to make the best possible decisions under conditions of profound uncertainty. We wish to be done with war, but unfortunately war is not done with us. At a time of radical change in geopolitics and military technology, The Strategist sheds light on the perils before us, and ways to cope with them.

Eliot A. Cohen is the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and professor emeritus and former dean at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. A contributing writer to The Atlantic, he was Counselor of the Department of State under Condoleezza Rice and has served in the intelligence community and the Department of Defense.