Strategy: the art of setting up tactics?

 Makes sense to me.  And especially coming from a 4k-rated FIDE player!  

But in all seriousness that is the truth.  Accurate positional play is simply deep defensive-offensive tactics at work.

Yeah, that's a good way of thinking of it.

You can also observe that winning the game, checkmate, is itself more of a strategic concept (controlling all the squares around the enemy king). Winning material is only to set yourself up for a successful mating attack, and winning material is actually not necessary to win the game. At the core of chess is basically only this: mobility.

Strategy at the higher levels involves detecting weaknesses or "holes" in your opponents position.  This takes lots and LOTS of practice and experience.  Watch ChessNetwork on youtube....he teaches extremely well.

On the other hand, if your opponent is just as mobile as you are then the game is easily drawn. Perhaps mobility alone is not the core of chess, or maybe the meaning of mobility itself should be thought of as a comparison, or ratio.

But I understand what you're saying, and you're right, if you're 'faster' than your opponent, you'll be able to overpower them just by making threats.

I have heard much about holes, but they seem impossible for either side to avoid, and they also seem very unpredictable indicators of tactical success(in my games)...eg. I put knight on a great square and then see no tactical shots or my opponent simply avoids the invasive squares and survives, or they just find some way to exchange it....in short I wish I was better at identifying and exploiting positional weaknesses and holes lol.

And yes, Jerry just might be my favorite chess streamer. Though there's a lot of good competition.

This is the same conclusion I had reached when i was first trying to under 'strategy'. And I still believe that is the best definition of strategy. The simple point is that chess is fundamentally a game of tactics(threats and captures). But since we cannot come up tactics(threats and captures) in every move, we make moves that improve our position and help us in setting up those tactics. Developing pieces, putting pieces on squares where they would be most potent, taking control of key rank, file, diagonal or squares, keeping king safe by castling, queening the soldier, pawn breaks to open up the game(or conversely keep the game closed)...etc. This is called strategy. But strategy by itself cannot win you games or even save you from losing games. Games get decided by tactics. Only when  both opponents are neutralizing each other's tactics, then the games might be decided by strategy.

Tactics flow in a good position. Strategy helps at building up good position.  Tactics too help at setting up a good position based on strategy. For example a tactical combination might leave you with superior pawn structure or a bishop pair in  an open position. When you make a strategic move, you still need to blunder check.

That's not what I mean at all. For example a queen is worth more than a knight not because its power of attack or defense is greater (all pieces capture at the same rate) it's more valuable because it influences more squares, this is what I mean by mobility.

Also tied for mobility means very little, this is not a draw at all, this is why you can sacrifice in chess. Where strategy really comes in (including positions beginners tend to think of as tactical like successful mating attacks) is having superior influence / mobility in an isolated area like a quadrant, a color complex, or even just a few key squares. Having equal influence / mobility averaged over all 64 squares almost always means nothing.