Colin Gray's essays on strategy (II): Why 3 strategic classics remain relevant

In his 14th essay, Colin
Gray makes a good argument that all you really need to do to understand
strategy is read and re-read Thucydides, Sun Tzu, and Clausewitz. "These three
books constitute the strategic canon," he advises.

He adds an interesting thought: "It is only the generality
of strategic ideas in the three classics that saves them from utter irrelevance
to the supremely pragmatic and ever changing world of the practicing strategist."
I'd go a step farther and say that their very generality is what makes them so
useful. War is chaotic, crammed with startling details and unexpected turns. In
2004 and 2005, as I was writing Fiasco
and so trying to understand the war in Iraq, I took all those details and
developments and sat down with Clausewitz and T.E. Lawrence for a month. Both
books helped me "make sense" of what I had seen -- Clausewitz in strategic terms,
Lawrence more on the tactical and cultural.