What's the Matter with Being a Strategist (Now)?

American strategic competence is in decline. Twenty years after victory in the Cold War, a victory brought about by the shrewd use of state power and alliances while ably balancing international and domestic pressures, the United States now is struggling to find the right balance of military force and other forms of power in its current wars, while peering into an uncertain future. Despite a rich history, the role of military strategists diminished following World War II, and this crucial capability atrophied. During the Cold War, the role of civilian nuclear strategists increased Congress reduced the service departments responsibilities from global command in 1946 to simply organizing, training, and equipping the force and many senior uniformed leaders spent the majority of their careers in tactical troop-leading assignments. Little time and limited resources were devoted to developing military strategists. These factors and a number of others combined to diminish the military strategist and erode Americas strategic competence. ample evidence exists to support the assertion that the role of strategists has greatly diminished from the organizers of victory to Wolfowitzs actions. Nonetheless, we are ten years into a reversal of this protracted trend. The reality is that Army strategists now serve in every major joint force and Army command. But what do these strategists actually do in support of these organizations Indeed, what precisely is meant by the descriptor strategy