Well, thank you everyone. I had hoped for a few good recommendation on books people had read, but picking brains is fine as well.
My own take is that, strategy is
making something important. In CoH that would amount to making a strategy where saving MP was important but you could pretty much ignore fuel, or a strategy where overall mapcontrol was inconsequential, as long as you got a certain amount of fuel before your opponent.
This fits along the lines of WWII, where the Nazis were beaten in North Africa thus keeping them away from fuel, forcing them to either attack Russia or focus on training lightsaber cavalry
Looking at it this way, what the Allies did was making fuel important. They could have gone for ore for industry, food or airpower, but they chose fuel.
This allows the top to know which fights are important and which aren't - no reason to deploy forces in Norway fighting Nazis, Africa is all that counts. A pretty simple insight, but still valuable imho, as it points out that what is important is a creation of your own, not something you need to find out or realize *shrug*.