The difficulty of defining strategy

    Edward Mead Earle wrote that ‘strategy is the art of controlling and utilizing the resources of a nation… to the end that its vital interests shall be effectively promoted and secured against enemies, actual, potential, or merely presumed’. Basil Liddell Hart wrote that strategy is ‘the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy.’ What do these quotes reveal about the difficulty of defining strategy, and which one offers the better definition?