Strategic studies is a practical field whose scholarly professionals are expected to be socially useful. Unfortunately, the core problem area of the field, i.e., war and its causes, shows no sign of being solved by research. The scholar of strategy, indeed of international politics, focuses on conflict for the same reason that doctors focus on disease. Neither profession pretends to address the totality of human life, but both focus on conditions that, if neglected, can prove lethal. Four broad assumptions important to safety in statecraft are advanced and explained: bad times return; there are thugs out there; military power is trumps; and new world orders come and go and come again. The author identifies the knowledge most essential to international security that scholars should either forget nor neglect. The author makes a personal statement regarding his duty as a scholar-citizen. He argues that the scholar of strategy has a duty to explain the structure of security problems, to "mind the store" of existing knowledge, to expose fallacies, and to undertake for society those studies that the public and its policymakers are not well-equipped to make for themselves. 52 footnotes