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Is Chieftain Chess actually a chess variant?

Points against: Chief has no pawns, and no promotion. It is a multi-royal multi-move game, with a leadership rule, something that has never [almost never?] appeared in chess. In a sense, the game trades space for time. Modern chess is a game where one attacks a single position deep into time, planning several moves in advance. Chief is a game where attacks occur across space, not time. One cannot plan 4, 5, 6 moves into the future; this is impossible in Chief. The play of the game is such that people have called it a wargame, and not a chess game. Is it? Gerhard Josten would say no.
http://www.wishop.com/games/Chess/Chess%20a%20Living%20Fossil.pdf

Points for: Chief is an abstract strategy game, played entirely with chesspieces and chess rules. It was designed as a shatranj variant, being a [premature - posted 2 weeks before] Lemurian Shatranj variant. Differences from standard chess are minor. Movement is somewhat restricted, but movement restrictions are a common feature of many variants. Victory is by capture, not checkmate - again, minor, and sensible with multiple royal pieces. The key argument against, I think, is that it has no pawns. This does not happen in historic variants. They all have pawns, of some sort, although Eastern pawns and Western pawns are different animals. I would offer two things: first, that on such a large board, promotion is unlikely, and losing the opportunity is not really detrimental. Actually, if a player could get a guard to the last enemy rank for a possible promotion, that player would very likely already have a won game. 

But the basis of my argument here is that pawns are not necessary for an ahistorical chess variant. To bolster this position, let me reference the CVwiki: 
http://chessvariants.wikidot.com/chess-variants
As this post is long enough, I'll end here.