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Between 1890 and 1919 the world became a geostrategist's paradise, leading to the formulation of the classical geopolitical theories. The international system featured rising and falling great powers, many with global reach. There were no new frontiers for the great powers to explore or colonize—the entire world was divided between the empires and colonial powers. From this point forward, international politics would feature the struggles of state against state.
Two strains of geopolitical thought gained prominence: an Anglo-American school, and a German school. Alfred Thayer Mahan and Halford J. Mackinder outlined the American and British conceptions of geostrategy, respectively, in their works "The Problem of Asia" and "The Geographical Pivot of History". Friedrich Ratzel and Rudolf Kjellén developed an organic theory of the state which laid the foundation for Germany's unique school of geostrategy.
The most prominent German geopolitician was General Karl Haushofer. After World War II, during the Allied occupation of Germany, the United States investigated many officials and public figures to determine if they should face charges of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials. Haushofer, an academic primarily, was interrogated by Father Edmund A. Walsh, a professor of geopolitics from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, at the request of the U.S. authorities. Despite his involvement in crafting one of the justifications for Nazi aggression, Fr. Walsh determined that Haushofer ought not stand trial.
After the Second World War, the term "geopolitics" fell into disrepute, because of its association with Nazi "geopolitik". Virtually no books published between the end of World War II and the mid-1970s used the word "geopolitics" or "geostrategy" in their titles, and geopoliticians did not label themselves or their works as such. German theories prompted a number of critical examinations of "geopolitik" by American geopoliticians such as Robert Strausz-Hupé, Derwent Whittlesey and Andrew Gyorgy.
As the Cold War began, N.J. Spykman and George F. Kennan laid down the foundations for the U.S. policy of containment, which would dominate Western geostrategic thought for the next forty years.
Alexander de Seversky would propose that airpower had fundamentally changed geostrategic considerations and thus proposed a "geopolitics of airpower." His ideas had some influence on the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, but the ideas of Spykman and Kennan would exercise greater weight. Later during the Cold War, Colin Gray would decisively reject the idea that airpower changed geostrategic considerations, while Saul B. Cohen examined the idea of a "shatterbelt", which would eventually inform the domino theory.
After Cold War ended, states started preferring management of space at low cost to expansion of it with military force. Use of military force in order to secure space causes not only great burden on countries, but also severe criticism from the international society as interdependence between countries continuously increases. As a way of new space management, countries either created regional institutions related to the space or make regimes on specific issues to allow intervention on space. Such mechanisms let countries to have indirect control over space. The indirect space management reduces required capital and at the same time provides justification and legitimacy of the management, that the countries involved do not have to face criticism from the international society.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, for most NATO or former Warsaw Pact countries, geopolitical strategies have generally followed the course of either solidifying security obligations or accesses to global resources; however, the strategies of other countries have not been as palpable.
The below geostrategists were instrumental in founding and developing the major geostrategic doctrines in the discipline's history. While there have been many other geostrategists, these have been the most influential in shaping and developing the field as a whole.
Alfred Thayer Mahan was an American Navy officer and president of the U.S. Naval War College. He is best known for his "Influence of Sea Power upon History" series of books, which argued that naval supremacy was the deciding factor in great power warfare. In 1900, Mahan's book "The Problem of Asia" was published. In this volume he laid out the first geostrategy of the modern era.
The "Problem of Asia" divides the continent of Asia into 3 zones:
The Debated and Debatable zone, Mahan observed, contained two peninsulas on either end (Anatolia and the Korean Peninsula), the Suez Canal, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, two countries marked by their mountain ranges (Iran and Afghanistan), the Pamir Mountains, the Himalayas, the Yangtze, and Japan. Within this zone, Mahan asserted that there were no strong states capable of withstanding outside influence or capable even of maintaining stability within their own borders. So whereas the political situations to the north and south were relatively stable and determined, the middle remained "debatable and debated ground."
North of the 40th parallel, the vast expanse of Asia was dominated by the Russian Empire. Russia possessed a central position on the continent, and a wedge-shaped projection into Central Asia, bounded by the Caucasus Mountains and Caspian Sea on one side and the mountains of Afghanistan and Western China on the other side. To prevent Russian expansionism and achievement of predominance on the Asian continent, Mahan believed pressure on Asia's flanks could be the only viable strategy pursued by sea powers.
South of the 30th parallel lay areas dominated by the sea powers – the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and Japan. To Mahan, the possession of India by the United Kingdom was of key strategic importance, as India was best suited for exerting balancing pressure against Russia in Central Asia. The United Kingdom's predominance in Egypt, China, Malaysia, Australia, Canada and South Africa was also considered important.
The strategy of sea powers, according to Mahan, ought to be to deny Russia the benefits of commerce that come from sea commerce. He noted that both the Turkish Straits and Danish Straits could be closed by a hostile power, thereby denying Russia access to the sea. Further, this disadvantageous position would reinforce Russia's proclivity toward expansionism in order to obtain wealth or warm water ports. Natural geographic targets for Russian expansionism in search of access to the sea would therefore be the Chinese seaboard, the Persian Gulf, and Asia Minor.
In this contest between land power and sea power, Russia would find itself allied with France (a natural sea power, but in this case necessarily acting as a land power), arrayed against Germany, Britain, Japan, and the United States as sea powers. Further, Mahan conceived of a unified, modern state composed of Turkey, Syria, and Mesopotamia, possessing an efficiently organized army and navy to stand as a counterweight to Russian expansion.
Further dividing the map by geographic features, Mahan stated that the two most influential lines of division would be the Suez Canal and Panama Canal. As most developed nations and resources lay above the North–South divide, politics and commerce north of the two canals would be of much greater importance than those occurring south of the canals. As such, the great progress of historical development would not flow from north to south, but from east to west, in this case leading toward Asia as the locus of advance.
Halford J. Mackinder's major work, Democratic ideals and reality: a study in the politics of reconstruction, appeared in 1919.[12] It presented his theory of the Heartland and made a case for fully taking into account geopolitical factors at the Paris Peace conference and contrasted (geographical) reality with Woodrow Wilson's idealism. The book's most famous quote was: "Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World."
This message was composed to convince the world statesmen at the Paris Peace conference of the crucial importance of Eastern Europe as the strategic route to the Heartland was interpreted as requiring a strip of buffer state to separate Germany and Russia. These were created by the peace negotiators but proved to be ineffective bulwarks in 1939 (although this may be seen as a failure of other, later statesmen during the interbellum). The principal concern of his work was to warn of the possibility of another major war (a warning also given by economist John Maynard Keynes).
Mackinder was anti-Bolshevik, and as British High Commissioner in Southern Russia in late 1919 and early 1920, he stressed the need for Britain to continue her support to the White Russian forces, which he attempted to unite.
Mackinder's work paved the way for the establishment of geography as a distinct discipline in the United Kingdom. His role in fostering the teaching of geography is probably greater than that of any other single British geographer.
Whilst Oxford did not appoint a professor of Geography until 1934, both the University of Liverpool and University of Wales, Aberystwyth established professorial chairs in Geography in 1917. Mackinder himself became a full professor in Geography in the University of London (London School of Economics) in 1923.
Mackinder is often credited with introducing two new terms into the English language: "manpower" and "heartland".
The Heartland Theory was enthusiastically taken up by the German school of Geopolitik, in particular by its main proponent Karl Haushofer. Geopolitik was later embraced by the German Nazi regime in the 1930s. The German interpretation of the Heartland Theory is referred to explicitly (without mentioning the connection to Mackinder) in "The Nazis Strike", the second of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series of American World War II propaganda films.
The Heartland Theory and more generally classical geopolitics and geostrategy were extremely influential in the making of US strategic policy during the period of the Cold War.
Evidence of Mackinder's Heartland Theory can be found in the works of geopolitician Dimitri Kitsikis, particularly in his geopolitical model "Intermediate Region".
Influenced by the works of Alfred Thayer Mahan, as well as the German geographers Carl Ritter and Alexander von Humboldt, Friedrich Ratzel would lay the foundations for "geopolitik", Germany's unique strain of geopolitics.
Ratzel wrote on the natural division between land powers and sea powers, agreeing with Mahan that sea power was self-sustaining, as the profit from trade would support the development of a merchant marine. However, his key contribution were the development of the concepts of "raum" and the organic theory of the state. He theorized that states were organic and growing, and that borders were only temporary, representing pauses in their natural movement. "Raum" was the land, spiritually connected to a nation (in this case, the German peoples), from which the people could draw sustenance, find adjacent inferior nations which would support them, and which would be fertilized by their "kultur" (culture).
Ratzel's ideas would influence the works of his student Rudolf Kjellén, as well as those of General Karl Haushofer.
Rudolf Kjellén was a Swedish political scientist and student of Friedrich Ratzel. He first coined the term "geopolitics." His writings would play a decisive role in influencing General Karl Haushofer's "geopolitik", and indirectly the future Nazi foreign policy.
His writings focused on five central concepts that would underlie German "geopolitik":
Karl Haushofer's geopolitik expanded upon that of Ratzel and Kjellén. While the latter two conceived of geopolitik as the state-as-an-organism-in-space put to the service of a leader, Haushofer's Munich school specifically studied geography as it related to war and designs for empire. The behavioral rules of previous geopoliticians were thus turned into dynamic normative doctrines for action on lebensraum and world power.
Haushofer defined geopolitik in 1935 as "the duty to safeguard the right to the soil, to the land in the widest sense, not only the land within the frontiers of the Reich, but the right to the more extensive Volk and cultural lands." Culture itself was seen as the most conducive element to dynamic expansion. Culture provided a guide as to the best areas for expansion, and could make expansion safe, whereas solely military or commercial power could not.
To Haushofer, the existence of a state depended on living space, the pursuit of which must serve as the basis for all policies. Germany had a high population density, whereas the old colonial powers had a much lower density: a virtual mandate for German expansion into resource-rich areas. A buffer zone of territories or insignificant states on one's borders would serve to protect Germany.
Closely linked to this need was Haushofer's assertion that the existence of small states was evidence of political regression and disorder in the international system. The small states surrounding Germany ought to be brought into the vital German order. These states were seen as being too small to maintain practical autonomy (even if they maintained large colonial possessions) and would be better served by protection and organization within Germany. In Europe, he saw Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Denmark, Switzerland, Greece and the "mutilated alliance" of Austro-Hungary as supporting his assertion.
Haushofer and the Munich school of geopolitik would eventually expand their conception of lebensraum and autarky well past a restoration of the German borders of 1914 and "a place in the sun." They set as goals a New European Order, then a New Afro-European Order, and eventually to a Eurasian Order. This concept became known as a pan-region, taken from the American Monroe Doctrine, and the idea of national and continental self-sufficiency. This was a forward-looking refashioning of the drive for colonies, something that geopoliticians did not see as an economic necessity, but more as a matter of prestige, and of putting pressure on older colonial powers. The fundamental motivating force was not be economic, but cultural and spiritual.
Beyond being an economic concept, pan-regions were a strategic concept as well. Haushofer acknowledged the strategic concept of the Heartland put forward by the Halford Mackinder. If Germany could control Eastern Europe and subsequently Russian territory, it could control a strategic area to which hostile sea power could be denied. Allying with Italy and Japan would further augment German strategic control of Eurasia, with those states becoming the naval arms protecting Germany's insular position.
Nicholas J. Spykman was a Dutch-American geostrategist, known as the "godfather of containment." His geostrategic work, "The Geography of the Peace" (1944), argued that the balance of power in Eurasia directly affected United States security.
George F. Kennan, U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, laid out the seminal Cold War geostrategy in his "Long Telegram" and "The Sources of Soviet Conduct". He coined the term "containment", which would become the guiding idea for U.S. grand strategy over the next forty years, although the term would come to mean something significantly different from Kennan's original formulation.
Kennan advocated what was called "strongpoint containment." In his view, the United States and its allies needed to protect the productive industrial areas of the world from Soviet domination. He noted that of the five centers of industrial strength in the world—the United States, Britain, Japan, Germany, and Russia—the only contested area was that of Germany. Kennan was concerned about maintaining the balance of power between the U.S. and the USSR, and in his view, only these few industrialized areas mattered.
Here Kennan differed from Paul Nitze, whose seminal Cold War document, NSC 68, called for "undifferentiated or global containment," along with a massive military buildup. Kennan saw the Soviet Union as an ideological and political challenger rather than a true military threat. There was no reason to fight the Soviets throughout Eurasia, because those regions were not productive, and the Soviet Union was already exhausted from World War II, limiting its ability to project power abroad. Therefore, Kennan disapproved of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and later spoke out critically against Reagan's military buildup.
Henry Kissinger implemented two geostrategic objectives when in office: the deliberate move to shift the polarity of the international system from bipolar to tripolar; and, the designation of regional stabilizing states in connection with the Nixon Doctrine. In Chapter 28 of his long work, "Diplomacy", Kissinger discusses the "opening of China" as a deliberate strategy to change the balance of power in the international system, taking advantage of the split within the Sino-Soviet bloc. The regional stabilizers were pro-American states which would receive significant U.S. aid in exchange for assuming responsibility for regional stability. Among the regional stabilizers designated by Kissinger were Zaire, Iran, and Indonesia.
Zbigniew Brzezinski laid out his most significant contribution to post-Cold War geostrategy in his 1997 book "The Grand Chessboard". He defined four regions of Eurasia, and in which ways the United States ought to design its policy toward each region in order to maintain its global primacy. The four regions (echoing Mackinder and Spykman) are:
In his subsequent book, "The Choice", Brzezinski updates his geostrategy in light of globalization, 9/11 and the intervening six years between the two books.
In his journal called "America's New Geostrategy", he discusses the need of shift in America's geostrategy to avoid its massive collapse like many scholars predict. He points out that:
A strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal.
The most basic way to evaluate one's position is to count the total value of pieces on both sides. The point values used for this purpose are based on experience. Usually pawns are considered to be worth one point, knights and bishops three points each, rooks five points, and queens nine points. The fighting value of the king in the endgame is approximately four points. These basic values are modified by other factors such as the "position of the pieces" (e.g. advanced pawns are usually more valuable than those on their starting squares), "coordination between pieces" (e.g. a usually coordinates better than a bishop plus a knight), and the "type of position" (knights are generally better in with many pawns, while bishops are more powerful in ).
Another important factor in the evaluation of chess positions is the pawn structure or pawn skeleton. Since pawns are the most immobile and least valuable of the chess pieces, the pawn structure is relatively static and largely determines the strategic nature of the position. Weaknesses in the pawn structure, such as isolated, doubled, or backward pawns and , once created, are usually permanent. Care must therefore be taken to avoid them unless they are compensated by another valuable asset, such as the possibility to develop an attack.
A advantage applies both strategically and tactically. Generally more pieces or an aggregate of more powerful pieces means greater chances of winning. A fundamental strategic and tactical rule is to capture opponent pieces while preserving one's own.
Bishops and knights are called "minor pieces". A knight is about as valuable as a bishop, but less valuable than a rook. Rooks and the queen are called "major pieces". Bishops are usually considered slightly better than knights in open positions, such as toward the end of the game when many of the pieces have been captured, whereas knights have an advantage in closed positions. Having two bishops (the ) is a particularly powerful weapon, especially if the opposing player lacks one or both of their bishops.
Three pawns are likely to be more useful than a knight in the endgame, but in the middlegame, a knight is often more powerful. Two minor pieces are stronger than a single rook, and two rooks are slightly stronger than a queen. The bishop on squares of the same color as the player is slightly more valuable in the opening as it can attack the vulnerable f7/f2-square. A rook is more valuable when with another rook or queen; consequently, doubled rooks are worth more than two .
One commonly used simple scoring system is:
Other things being equal, the side that controls more on the board has an advantage. More space means more options, which can be exploited both tactically and strategically. A player who has all pieces developed and no tactical tricks or promising long-term plan should try to find a move that enlarges their influence, particularly in the center. However, in some openings, one player accepts less space for a time, to set up a counterattack in the middlegame. This is one of the concepts behind hypermodern play.
The easiest way to gain space is to push the pawn skeleton forward. However, one must be careful not to over stretch. If the opponent succeeds in getting a protected piece behind enemy lines, this piece can become such a serious problem that a piece with a higher value might have to be exchanged for it.
Larry Evans gives a method of evaluating space. The method (for each side) is to count the number of squares attacked or occupied on the opponent's side of the board. In this diagram from the Nimzo-Indian Defense, Black attacks four squares on White's side of the board (d4, e4, f4, and g4). White attacks seven squares on Black's side of the board (b5, c6, e6, f5, g5, and h6 – counting b5 twice) and occupies one square (d5). White has a space advantage of eight to four and Black is cramped.
The strategy consists of placing pieces so that they attack the central four squares of the board. However, a piece being placed on a central square does not necessarily mean it controls the center, e.g., a knight on a central square does not attack any central squares. Conversely, a piece does not have to be on a central square to control the center. For example, the bishop can control the center from afar.
Control of the center is generally considered important because tactical battles often take place around the central squares, from where pieces can access most of the board. Center control allows more movement and more possibility for attack and defense.
Chess openings try to control the center while developing pieces. Hypermodern openings are those that control the center with pieces from afar (usually the side, such as with a fianchetto); the older Classical (or Modern) openings control it with pawns.
The initiative belongs to the player who can make threats that cannot be ignored, such as checking the opponent's king. They thus put their opponent in the position of having to use their turns responding to threats rather than making their own, hindering the development of their pieces. The player with the initiative is generally attacking and the other player is generally defending.
It is important to defend one's pieces even if they are not directly threatened. This helps stop possible future campaigns from the opponent. If a defender must be added at a later time, this may cost a tempo or even be impossible due to a fork or discovered attack. The approach of always defending one's pieces has an antecedent in the theory of Aron Nimzowitsch who referred to it as "overprotection." Similarly, if one spots undefended enemy pieces, one should immediately take advantage of those pieces' weakness.
Even a defended piece can be vulnerable. If the defending piece is also defending something else, it is called an overworked piece, and may not be able to fulfill its task. When there is more than one attacking piece, the number of defenders must also be increased, and their values taken into account. In addition to defending pieces, it is also often necessary to defend key squares, open files, and the . These situations can easily occur if the pawn structure is weak.
To exchange pieces means to capture a hostile piece and then allow a piece of the same value to be captured. As a rule of thumb, exchanging pieces eases the task of the defender who typically has less room to operate in.
Exchanging pieces is usually desirable to a player with an existing advantage in material, since it brings the endgame closer and thereby leaves the opponent with less ability to recover ground. In the endgame even a single pawn advantage may be decisive. Exchanging also benefits the player who is being attacked, the player who controls less space, and the player with the better pawn structure.
When playing against stronger players, many beginners attempt to constantly exchange pieces "to simplify matters". However, stronger players are often relatively stronger in the endgame, whereas errors are more common during the more complicated middlegame.
Note that "the exchange" may also specifically mean a rook exchanged for a bishop or knight. The phrase, "going up the exchange," means capturing a rook in exchange for a bishop or knight as that is a materially better trade. Conversely, "going down an exchange," means losing a rook but capturing a bishop or knight, a materially worse trade.
In the endgame, passed pawns, unhindered by enemy pawns from promotion, are strong, especially if advanced or protected by another pawn. A passed pawn on the sixth is roughly as strong as a knight or bishop and often decides the game. (Also see isolated pawn, doubled pawns, backward pawn, connected pawns.)
Since knights can easily be chased away by pawn moves, it is often advantageous for knights to be placed in "" in the enemy position as outposts—squares where they cannot be attacked by pawns. Such a knight on the fifth rank is a strong asset. The ideal position for a knight is the opponent's third rank, when it is supported by one or two pawns. A knight at the edge or corner of the board controls fewer squares than one on the board's interior, thus the saying: "A Knight on the rim is dim!"
A king and one knight is not sufficient material to checkmate an opposing lone king (see Two knights endgame). A king and two knights can checkmate a lone king but
A bishop always stays on squares of the color it started on, so once one of them is gone, the squares of that color become more difficult to control. When this happens, pawns moved to squares of the other color do not block the bishop, and enemy pawns directly facing them are stuck on the vulnerable color.
A "fianchettoed" bishop, e.g. at g2 after pawn g2–g3, can provide a strong defense for the castled king on g1 and often exert pressure on the long diagonal h1–a8. After a fianchetto, giving up the bishop can weaken the holes in the pawn chain; doing so in front of the castled king may thus affect its safety.
In general, a bishop is of roughly equal value to a knight. In certain circumstances, one can be more powerful than the other. If the game is "closed" with many interlocked pawn formations, the knight tends to be stronger, because it can hop over the pawns while they block the bishop. A bishop is also weak if it is restricted by its own pawns, especially if they are blocked and on the bishop's color. Once a bishop is lost, the remaining bishop is considered weaker since the opponent can now plan their moves to play a white or black color game.
In an with action on both sides of the board, the bishop tends to be stronger because of its long range. This is especially true in the endgame; if passed pawns race on opposite sides of the board, the player with a bishop usually has better winning chances than a player with a knight.
A king and a bishop is not sufficient material to checkmate an opposing lone king, but two bishops and a king checkmate an opposing lone king easily.
Rooks have more scope of movement on half-open files (ones with no pawns of one's own color). Rooks on the seventh rank can be very powerful as they attack pawns that can only be defended by other pieces, and they can restrict the enemy king to its back rank. A pair of rooks on the player's seventh rank is often a sign of a winning position.
In middlegames and endgames with a passed pawn, Tarrasch's rule states that rooks, both friend and foe of the pawn, are usually strongest "behind" the pawn rather than in front of it.
A king and a rook is sufficient material to checkmate an opposing lone king, although it's a little harder than checkmating with king and queen; thus the rook's distinction as a major piece above the knight and bishop.
Queens are the most powerful pieces. They have great mobility and can make many threats at once. They can act as a rook and as a bishop at the same time. For these reasons, checkmate attacks involving a queen are easier to achieve than those without one. Although powerful, the queen is also easily harassed. Thus, it is generally wise to wait to the queen until after the knights and bishops have been developed to prevent the queen from being attacked by minor pieces and losing tempo. When a pawn is promoted, most of the time it is promoted to a queen.
During the middle game, the king is often best protected in a corner behind its pawns. Such a position for either of the players is often achieved by castling by that player. If the rooks and queen leave the first rank (commonly called that player's "back rank"), however, an enemy rook or queen can checkmate the king by invading the first rank, commonly called a back-rank checkmate. Moving one of the pawns in front of the king (making a luft) can allow it an escape square, but may weaken the king's overall safety otherwise. One must therefore wisely balance between these trade-offs.
Castling is often thought to help protect the king and often "connects" the player's two rooks together so the two rooks may protect each other. This can reduce a threat of a back-rank skewer in which the king can be skewered with capture of a rook behind it.
The king can become a strong piece in the endgame. With reduced material, a quick checkmate becomes less of a concern, and moving the king towards the center of the board gives it more opportunities to make threats and actively influence play.
Considerations for a successful long term deployment.
Chess strategy consists of setting and achieving long-term goals during the game—for example, where to place different pieces—while tactics concentrate on immediate maneuver. These two parts of chess thinking cannot be completely separated, because strategic goals are mostly achieved by the means of tactics, while the tactical opportunities are based on the previous strategy of play.
Because of different strategic and tactical patterns, a game of chess is usually divided into three distinct phases: Opening, usually the first 10 to 25 moves, when players develop their armies and set up the stage for the coming battle; middlegame, the developed phase of the game; and endgame, when most of the pieces are gone and kings start to take an active part in the struggle.
A chess opening is the group of initial moves of a game (the "opening moves"). Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as "openings" and have been given names such as the Ruy Lopez or Sicilian Defence. They are catalogued in reference works such as the "Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings". It is recommended for anyone but the chessmasters that when left with a choice to either invent a new variation or follow a standard opening, choose the latter.
There are dozens of different openings, varying widely in character from quiet positional play (e.g. the Réti Opening) to very aggressive (e.g. the Latvian Gambit). In some opening lines, the exact sequence considered best for both sides has been worked out to 30–35 moves or more. Professional players spend years studying openings, and continue doing so throughout their careers, as opening theory continues to evolve.
The fundamental strategic aims of most openings are similar:
During the opening, some pieces have a recognized optimum square they try to reach. Hence, an optimum deployment could be to push the king and queen pawn two steps followed by moving the knights so they protect the center pawns and give additional control of the center. One can then deploy the bishops, protected by the knights, to pin the opponent's knights and pawns. The optimum opening is ended with a castling, moving the king to safety and deploying for a strong back rank and a rook along the .
Apart from these fundamentals, other strategic plans or tactical sequences may be employed in the opening.
Most players and theoreticians consider that White, by virtue of the first move, begins the game with a small advantage. Black usually strives to neutralize White's advantage and achieve , or to develop in an unbalanced position.
The middlegame is the part of the game when most pieces have been developed. Because the opening theory has ended, players have to assess the position, to form plans based on the features of the positions, and at the same time to take into account the tactical possibilities in the position.
Typical plans or strategic themes—for example the , that is the attack of pawns against an opponent who has more pawns on the queenside—are often appropriate just for some pawn structures, resulting from a specific group of openings. The study of openings should therefore be connected with the preparation of plans typical for resulting middlegames.
Middlegame is also the phase when most combinations occur. Middlegame combinations are often connected with the attack against the opponent's king; some typical patterns have their own names, for example the Boden's Mate or the Lasker—Bauer combination.
Another important strategical question in the middlegame is whether and how to reduce material and transform into an endgame (i.e. ). For example, minor material advantages can generally be transformed into victory only in an endgame, and therefore the stronger side must choose an appropriate way to achieve an ending. Not every reduction of material is good for this purpose; for example, if one side keeps a light-squared bishop and the opponent has a dark-squared one, the transformation into a "bishops and pawns" ending is usually advantageous for the weaker side only, because an endgame with bishops on opposite colors is likely to be a draw, even with an advantage of one or two pawns.
The endgame (or "end game" or "ending") is the stage of the game when there are few pieces left on the board. There are three main strategic differences between earlier stages of the game and endgame:
Endgames can be classified according to the type of pieces that remain on board. Basic checkmates are positions where one side has only a king and the other side has one or two pieces and can checkmate the opposing king, with the pieces working together with their king. For example, king and pawn endgames involve only kings and pawns on one or both sides and the task of the stronger side is to promote one of the pawns. Other more complicated endings are classified according to the pieces on board other than kings, e.g. "rook and pawn versus rook endgame".
A strategist is a person with responsibility for the formulation and implementation of a strategy. 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). The senior leadership of an organization is generally tasked with determining strategy. Strategy can be intended or can emerge as a pattern of activity as the organization adapts to its environment or competes. It involves activities such as strategic planning and strategic thinking.
The strategy role exists in a variety of organizations and fields of study.
In large corporations, strategic planners or corporate financial planning and analysis (FP&A) personnel are involved in the formulation and implementation of the organization's strategy. The strategy is typically set by business leaders such as the chief executive officer and key business or functional leaders and is reviewed by the board of directors.
An AI strategist uses evidence and reason to make circumstance-dependent decisions that shape the development of AI towards a set of desired outcomes. The scope of AI development can range from within small organizations to global landscape.
A design strategist has the ability to combine the innovative, perceptive and holistic insights of a designer with the pragmatic and systemic skills of a planner to guide strategic direction in context of business needs, brand intent, design quality and customer values.