Even if war is bad, is strategy bad?

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For as much as the actual death and destruction in wars is horrible, is the aspect of warfare known as strategy itself bad? I'm not referring to the etymological roots, which would mean a trick, but I mean instead it's more modern usage. Strategy is the planning of the general form of a war, as opposed to tactics which are specific actions taken to thwart a strategy. In computer gaming there are many games of strategy, my favorite being real time strategy games although the turn based ones do allow for more time to think actions through. For those who are opposed to warfare because it is violent and causes death and destruction, are you also opposed to strategy and games of strategy in which there is no real death or destruction occurring?

I hope not. If strategy was bad then I would be pure evil from the amount of wargames I play.

You dont mean "strategy". You mean simulated, or pretend warfare.

Before they had X-box they had football, and they had chess, to simulate armies in battle.


I would say no. Even if I were a strict pacifist I doubt that I would object to chess, football, or to X-box games.

People rarely die in any of those activities.

No, because better you can do at collapsing the opposition and doing it quickly the fewer lives lost on both sides.

What if its a species of lithovores living in a climate that's radioactive or toxic to us in some other way like Venus? What if they can make unique metal alloys in their climate of 900F with sulfuric acid and methane ultra-plentiful in ways that you can't? I'd personally chose to just squash the static and trade with them but if you're into annihilating sentient species and even being the aggressor in this example I suppose there wouldn't be much diplomacy to be done. I'd still think exterminating other races is sloppy and sets a bad precedent but what do I know.