Reading the new "European Commission contribution to the European Council" on EU-China – A strategic outlook I can only say: Very well done, all you panda huggers in the EU Commission! "A strategic outlook"...Wait, what is strategy? There are numerous definitions and I don't talk about war and Carl von Clausewitz or Liddell Hart. But even Wikipedia is able to explain - citing a book of Lawrence Freedman - that "Strategy generally involves setting goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources). Strategy can be intended or can emerge as a pattern of activity as the organization adapts to its environment or competes." And - citing Mintzberg and Quinn - "it involves activities such as strategic planning and strategic thinking." When I read this EU paper I hardly see any strategic planning or strategi
"Information at best will always be in some part fragmentary, obsolete, and ambiguous." (Armstrong, Willis C. (et al.): The Hazards of Single-Outcome Forecasting, in: Westerfield Bradford, H. (Ed.), Inside CIA's private world, Yale 1995, p. 242)