Conceptual Resilience Versus Social Utility in Strategic Thinking

The West produces a lot of strategic thinking, most of it ad hoc responses to present stimuli not only rarely analytically or strategically useful but often damaging existing and useful strategic theory as a consequence. Lukas Milevski applies resilience to strategic theory and contrasts it with its opposite, social utility. Resilience is explained and applied to the particulars of strategic thought. The social utility of ad hoc theory is recognised, notably in attracting attention, which even militaries need to do. The tension between conceptual resilience and social utility should be reflected in strategic education so that the advantages of both are maintained.