Perhaps Sun Tzu’s most important insight was that in a military or strategic contest, everything is relevant and connected: weather, terrain, diplomacy, the reports of spies and double agents, supplies and logistics, the balance of forces, historic perceptions, the intangibles of surprise and morale. Each factor influences the others, giving rise to subtle shifts in momentum and relative advantage. There are no isolated events. Hence the task of a strategist is less to analyse a particular situation than to determine its relationship to the context in which it occurs.

– Henry Kissinger from ‘ On China’