I reckon it's the personnel management aspect that has the most to gain from a combat metaphor. Since in programming you're not (usually) in conflict with another intelligent being. Strategy is difficult because the confusing, inconsistent jumble of human thought is involved. In large scale military strategy, many minds are involved and often acting under severe stress. There's so many variables, so many unknowns, that it's intractable.

Programming problems are simple, predictable and usually much more easily grasped in comparison. I often find it more difficult negotiating with other staff about pragmatic design choices than actually coding solutions because the people are smart and complex while the solutions I code are necessarily limited by my own understanding.

... I wonder if quantum computing will do for programming what nuclear weaponry did for strategy? Damian Strangelove and the Doomsday Module