  Over the last decade a fruitful interplay has developed between analyses of
strongly coupled non-abelian plasmas via the gauge/string duality and the
phenomenology of the quark-gluon plasma created in heavy ion collisions. I
review the reasons why the gauge/string duality is not a precision tool for QCD
physics at present, with emphasis on conceptual issues. I then argue that,
nevertheless, the duality can provide valuable insights at both the quantitive
and the qualitative level. I illustrate this with a few examples, and conclude
with a brief discussion of future prospects.
