Is there a single, universally agreed definition of "strategy"? And are there strategies that apply across many contexts?

No single scientific definition exists — strategy is always viewed within a specific context (economic, sporting, political, military) — but some general-purpose strategies do recur across contexts.

Strategy is context-bound: the economic, sporting, political, and military lenses each frame it differently, and the academic literature has no homogeneous definition. What counts as a good strategy in a price war differs from one in a military campaign.

Even so, certain broadly applicable maxims show up everywhere, for example:

• react vs. act (proactive or responsive posture),
• "wait and see" before committing,
• "a sparrow in the hand is worth a pigeon on the roof" (take the secure smaller gain),
• only admit what can actually be proven.

Tip: The lack of one fixed definition is itself the lesson: judge a strategy by whether it fits its context, not against some universal template.

Go deeper:

• Strategy (Wikipedia) — surveys how the term is defined across the military, business, and game-theory contexts, underlining there's no single canonical definition.