Military strategy

Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals.^[1] Derived from the Greek word strategos, the term strategy, when first used during the 18th century,^[2] was seen in its narrow sense as the "art of the general",^[3] or "the art of arrangement" of troops.^[4] and deals with the planning and conduct of campaigns, the movement and disposition of forces, and the deception of the enemy.

The father of Western modern strategic studies, Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831), defined military strategy as "the employment of battles to gain the end of war."^[5] B. H. Liddell Hart's definition put less emphasis on battles, defining strategy as "the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy".^[6] Hence, both gave the preeminence to political aims over military goals.

Sun Tzu (544–496 BC) is often considered as the father of Eastern military strategy and greatly influenced Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese historical and modern war tactics.^[7] The Art of War by Sun Tzu grew in popularity and saw practical use in Western society as well. It continues to influence many competitive endeavors in Asia, Europe, and America including culture, politics,^[8]^[9] and business,^[10] as well as modern warfare. The Eastern military strategy differs from the Western by focusing more on asymmetric warfare and deception.^[7] Chanakya's Arthashastra has been an important strategic and political compendium in Indian and Asian history as well.^[11]

Fundamentals

Military strategy is the planning and execution of the contest between groups of armed adversaries. It is a subdiscipline of warfare and of foreign policy, and a principal tool to secure national interests. Its perspective is larger than military tactics, which involve the disposition and maneuver of units on a particular sea or battlefield,^[12] but less broad than grand strategy (or "national strategy"), which is the overarching strategy of the largest of organizations such as the nation state, confederation, or international alliance and involves using diplomatic, informational, military and economic resources. Military strategy involves using military resources such as people, equipment, and information against the opponent's resources to gain supremacy or reduce the opponent's will to fight, developed through the precepts of military science.^[13]

NATO's definition of strategy is "presenting the manner in which military power should be developed and applied to achieve national objectives or those of a group of nations."^[14] Strategy may be divided into grand strategy, geopolitical in scope and military strategy that converts the geopolitical policy objectives into militarily achievable goals and campaigns. Field Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff and co-chairman of the Anglo-US Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee for most of the Second World War, described the art of military strategy as: "to derive from the [policy] aim a series of military objectives to be achieved: to assess these objectives as to the military requirements they create, and the preconditions which the achievement of each is likely to necessitate: to measure available and potential resources against the requirements and to chart from this process a coherent pattern of priorities and a rational course of action."^[15] Field-Marshal Montgomery summed it up thus "Strategy is the art of distributing and applying military means, such as armed forces and supplies, to fulfill the ends of policy. Tactics means the dispositions for, and control of, military forces and techniques in actual fighting. Put more shortly: strategy is the art of the conduct of war, tactics the art of fighting."^[16]

Background

Military strategy in the 19th century was still viewed as one of a trivium of "arts" or "sciences" that govern the conduct of warfare; the others being tactics, the execution of plans and maneuvering of forces in battle, and logistics, the maintenance of an army. The view had prevailed since the Roman times, and the borderline between strategy and tactics at this time was blurred, and sometimes categorization of a decision is a matter of almost personal opinion. Carnot, during the French Revolutionary Wars thought it simply involved concentration of troops.^[17]

As French statesman Georges Clemenceau said, "War is too important a business to be left to soldiers." This gave rise to the concept of the grand strategy^[18] which encompasses the management of the resources of an entire nation in the conduct of warfare. On this issue Clausewitz stated that a successful military strategy may be a means to an end, but it is not an end in itself.^[19]

Principles

Many military strategists have attempted to encapsulate a successful strategy in a set of principles. Sun Tzu defined 13 principles in his The Art of War while Napoleon listed 115 maxims. American Civil War General Nathan Bedford Forrest had only one: to "[get] there first with the most men".^[20] The concepts given as essential in the United States Army Field Manual of Military Operations (FM 3–0) are:^[21]

Objective type (direct every military operation towards a clearly defined, decisive, and attainable objective)
Offensive type (seize, retain, and exploit the initiative)
Mass Type (concentrate combat power at the decisive place and time)
Economy of force type (allocate minimum essential combat power to secondary efforts)
Maneuver type (place the enemy in a disadvantageous position through the flexible application of combat power)
Unity of command type (for every objective, ensure unity of effort under one responsible commander)
Security type (never permit the enemy to acquire an unexpected advantage)
Surprise type (strike the enemy at a time, at a place, or in a manner for which they are unprepared)
Simplicity type (prepare clear, uncomplicated plans and clear, concise orders to ensure thorough understanding)

According to Greene and Armstrong, some planners assert adhering to the fundamental principles guarantees victory, while others claim war is unpredictable and the strategist must be flexible. Others argue predictability could be increased if the protagonists were to view the situation from the other sides in a conflict.^[22] Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke expressed strategy as a system of "ad hoc expedients" by which a general must take action while under pressure. These underlying principles of strategy have survived relatively unchanged as the technology of warfare has developed.

Strategy (and tactics) must constantly evolve in response to technological advances. A successful strategy from one era tends to remain in favor long after new developments in military weaponry and matériel have rendered it obsolete. World War I, and to a great extent the American Civil War, saw Napoleonic tactics of "offense at all costs" pitted against the defensive power of the trench, machine gun and barbed wire.^{[citation needed]} As a reaction to its World War I experience, France attempted to use its Maginot Line to apply the principles of mass and economy of force, in that troops could be concentrated in the north for an offensive there while the Line acted as force multiplier in the south, and maneuver and security, by preventing the Germans from going directly from Alsace to Paris.^{[citation needed]}

Development

Antiquity

The principles of military strategy emerged at least as far back as 500 BC in the works of Sun Tzu and Chanakya. The campaigns of Alexander the Great, Chandragupta Maurya, Hannibal, Qin Shi Huang, Julius Caesar, Zhuge Liang, Khalid ibn al-Walid and, in particular, Cyrus the Great demonstrate strategic planning and movement. Mahan describes in the preface to The Influence of Sea Power upon History how the Romans used their sea power to effectively block the sea lines of communication of Hannibal with Carthage; and so via a maritime strategy achieved Hannibal's removal from Italy, despite never beating him there with their legions.^{[citation needed]}

One of these strategies was shown in the battle between Greek city states and Persia. The Battle of Thermopylae in which the Greek forces were outnumbered stood as a good military strategy. The Greek allied forces ultimately lost the battle, but the training, use of armor, and location allowed them to defeat many Persian troops before losing. In the end, the Greek alliance lost the battle but not the war as a result of that strategy which continued on to the battle of Plataea. The Battle of Plataea in 479 BC resulted in a victory for the Greeks against Persia, which exemplified that military strategy was extremely beneficial to defeating a numerous enemy.^{[citation needed]}

Early strategies included the strategy of annihilation, exhaustion, attrition warfare, scorched earth action, blockade, guerrilla campaign, deception and feint. Ingenuity and adeptness were limited only by imagination, accord, and technology. Strategists continually exploited ever-advancing technology. The word "strategy" itself derives from the Greek "στρατηγία" (strategia), "office of general, command, generalship",^[23] in turn from "στρατηγός" (strategos), "leader or commander of an army, general",^[24] a compound of "στρατός" (stratos), "army, host" + "ἀγός" (agos), "leader, chief",^[25] in turn from "ἄγω" (ago), "to lead".^[26]

Middle Ages

Genghis Khan and the Mongols

As a counterpoint to European developments in the strategic art, the Mongol emperor Genghis Khan provides a useful example. Genghis' successes, and those of his successors, were based on maneuver and terror. The main focus of Genghis' strategic assault was the psychology of the opposing population. By steady and meticulous implementation of this strategy, Genghis and his descendants were able to conquer most of Eurasia. The building blocks of Genghis' army and his strategy were his tribal levies of mounted archers, scorched earth-style methods, and, equally essential, the vast horse-herds of Mongolia. Each archer had at least one extra horse—there was an average of five horses per man—thus the entire army could move with astounding rapidity. Moreover, since horse milk and horse blood were the staples of the Mongolian diet, Genghis' horseherds functioned not just as his means of movement but as his logistical sustainment. All other necessities would be foraged and plundered. Khan's marauders also brought with them mobile shelters, concubines, butchers, and cooks. Through maneuver and continuous assault, Chinese, Persian, Arab and Eastern European armies could be stressed until they collapsed, and were then annihilated in pursuit and encirclement.^[27]

Early Modern era

In 1520 Niccolò Machiavelli's Dell'arte della guerra (Art of War) dealt with the relationship between civil and military matters and the formation of grand strategy. In the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden demonstrated advanced operational strategy that led to his victories on the soil of the Holy Roman Empire. It was not until the 18th century that military strategy was subjected to serious study in Europe. The word was first used in German as "Strategie" in a translation of Leo VI's Tactica in 1777 by Johann von Bourscheid. From then onwards, the use of the word spread throughout the West.^[28]

In the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), Frederick the Great improvized a "strategy of exhaustion" (see attrition warfare) to hold off his opponents and conserve his Prussian forces.^{[citation needed]} Assailed from all sides by France, Austria, Russia and Sweden, Frederick exploited his central position, which enabled him to move his army along interior lines and concentrate against one opponent at a time.

Napoleonic

Waterloo

Clausewitz and Jomini

Clausewitz's On War has become a respected reference^[29]^[30] for strategy, dealing with political, as well as military, leadership,^[31]^{[need quotation to verify]} his most famous assertion being:

"War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of policy by other means."

Clausewitz saw war first and foremost as a political act, and thus maintained that the purpose of all strategy was to achieve the political goal that the state was seeking to accomplish. As such, Clausewitz famously argued that war was the "continuation of politics by other means",^[32] and as such, suggested that the amount of force used by a warring state would and should be proportional to whatever political aim that the state sought to achieve via war. Clausewitz further dismissed "geometry" as an insignificant factor in strategy, believing instead that ideally all wars should follow the Napoleonic concept of victory through a decisive battle of annihilation and destruction of the opposing force, at any cost. However, he also recognized that his ideal of how war should be fought was not always practical in reality and that limited warfare could influence policy by wearing down the opposition through a "strategy of attrition".

In contrast to Clausewitz, Antoine-Henri Jomini (1779-1869) dealt mainly with operational strategy, planning and intelligence, the conduct of a campaign, and "generalship" rather than "statesmanship". He proposed that victory could be achieved by occupying the enemy's territory rather than destroying a opposing army.

As such, geometric considerations were prominent in Jomini's theory of strategy. Jomini's two basic principles of strategy were to concentrate against fractions of the enemy force at a time and to strike at the most decisive objective.

Clausewitz and Jomini remain required reading for today's military professional officer.^[33]

Interwar

Technological change had an enormous effect on strategy, but little effect on leadership. The use of telegraph and later radio, along with improved transport, enabled the rapid movement of large numbers of men. One of Germany's key enablers in mobile warfare was the use of radios, where these were put into every tank. However, the number of men that one officer could effectively control had, if anything, declined. The increases in the size of the armies led to an increase in the number of officers. Although the officer ranks in the US Army did swell, in the German army the ratio of officers to total men remained steady.^[34]

World War II

Interwar Germany had as its main strategic goals the reestablishment of Germany as a European great power^[35] and the complete annulment of the Versailles treaty of 1919. After Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party took power in 1933, Germany's political goals also included the accumulation of Lebensraum ("Living space") for the Germanic "race" and the elimination of communism as a political rival to Nazism. The destruction of European Jewry, while not strictly a strategic objective, was a political goal of the Nazi regime linked to the vision of a German-dominated Europe, and especially to the Generalplan Ost for a depopulated east^[36] which Germany could colonize.

Cold War

Soviet strategy in the Cold War was dominated by the desire to prevent, at all costs, the recurrence of an invasion of Russian soil. The Soviet Union nominally adopted a policy of no first use, which in fact was a posture of launch on warning.^[37] Other than that, the USSR adapted to some degree to the prevailing changes in the NATO strategic policies that are divided by periods as:
^[38]

Strategy of massive retaliation (1950s) (Russian: стратегия массированного возмездия)
Strategy of flexible reaction (1960s) (Russian: стратегия гибкого реагирования)
Strategies of realistic threat and containment (1970s) (Russian: стратегия реалистического устрашения или сдерживания)
Strategy of direct confrontation (1980s) (Russian: стратегия прямого противоборства) one of the elements of which became the new highly effective high-precision targeting weapons.
Strategic Defense Initiative (also known as "Star Wars") during its 1980s development (Russian: стратегическая оборонная инициатива – СОИ) which became a core part of the strategic doctrine based on Defense containment.

All-out nuclear World War III between NATO and the Warsaw Pact did not take place. The United States recently (April 2010) acknowledged a new approach to its nuclear policy which describes the weapons' purpose as "primarily" or "fundamentally" to deter or respond to a nuclear attack.^[39]

Post–Cold War

Strategy in the post Cold War is shaped by the global geopolitical situation: a number of potent powers in a multipolar array which has arguably come to be dominated by the hyperpower status of the United States.^[40]

Parties to conflict which see themselves as vastly or temporarily inferior may adopt a strategy of "hunkering down" – witness Iraq in 1991^[41] or Yugoslavia in 1999.^[42]

The major militaries of today are usually built to fight the "last war" (previous war) and hence have huge armored and conventionally configured infantry formations backed up by air forces and navies designed to support or prepare for these forces.^[43]

Netwar

A main point in asymmetric warfare is the nature of paramilitary organizations such as Al-Qaeda which are involved in guerrilla military actions but which are not traditional organizations with a central authority defining their military and political strategies. Organizations such as Al-Qaeda may exist as a sparse network of groups lacking central coordination, making them more difficult to confront following standard strategic approaches. This new field of strategic thinking is tackled by what is now defined as netwar.^[44]

References

Notes

^ Gartner (1999), p. 163
^ Carpenter (2005), p. 25
^ Matloff (1996), p. 11
^ Wilden (1987), p. 235
^ von Clausewitz, Carl. "On War. Book 3, Chapter 1". www.clausewitz.com. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
^ Liddell Hart, B. H. Strategy London:Faber, 1967 (2nd rev ed.) p. 321
^ ^a ^b Matti Nojonen, Jymäyttämisen taito. Strategiaoppeja muinaisesta Kiinasta. [Transl.: The Art of Deception. Strategy lessons from Ancient China.] Gaudeamus, Finland. Helsinki 2009. ISBN 978-952-495-089-3.
^ Scott, Wilson (March 7, 2013), "Obama meets privately with Jewish leaders", The Washington Post, Washington, DC, archived from the original on July 24, 2013, retrieved May 22, 2013
^ "Obama to challenge Israelis on peace", United Press International, March 8, 2013, retrieved May 22, 2013
^ Garner, Rochelle (October 16, 2006), "Oracle's Ellison Uses 'Art of War' in Software Battle With SAP", Bloomberg, archived from the original on April 11, 2012, retrieved May 18, 2013
^ Albinski, Henry S. (1958). "The Place of the Emperor Asoka in Ancient Indian Political Thought". Midwest Journal of Political Science. 2 (1): 62–75. doi:10.2307/2109166. ISSN 0026-3397. JSTOR 2109166.
^ Headquarters, Department of the Army (February 27, 2008). FM 3–0, Operations (PDF). Washington, DC: GPO. ISBN 9781437901290. OCLC 780900309. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 2, 2012. Retrieved August 31, 2013.
^ School of Advanced Air and Space Studies.^{[full citation needed]}
^ AAP-6(V) NATO Glossary of Terms and Definitions
^ British Defence Doctrine, Edition 3, 2008
^ Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, A History of Warfare, Collins. London, 1968
^ Chaliand (1994), p. 638.
^ Liddell Hart, B. H. Strategy London: Faber & Faber, 1967. 2nd rev. ed. p.322
^ Strachan, Hew (2007). Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century. Oxford University Press. p. 319. ISBN 978-0-19-923202-4. Retrieved July 31, 2012.
^ Catton Bruce (1971). The Civil War. American Heritage Press, New York. Library of Congress Number: 77-119671.
^ Headquarters, Department of the Army (February 27, 2008). FM 3–0, Operations (PDF). Washington, DC: GPO. pp. A–1 – A–3. ISBN 9781437901290. OCLC 780900309. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 2, 2012. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
^ "the advice is to think about how other protagonists will view the situation in order to predict their decisions"—Kesten C. Greene and J. Scott Armstrong (2011). "Role thinking: Standing in other people's shoes to forecast decisions in conflicts" (PDF). International Journal of Forecasting. 27: 69–80. doi:10.1016/j.ijforecast.2010.05.001. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 17, 2012. Retrieved December 29, 2011.
^ στρατηγία, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
^ στρατηγός, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
^ ἀγός, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
^ ἄγω, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
^ May (2007), pp. 115ff.
^ Heuser (2010), p. 4-5
^ Hughes, R. Gerald (2019). "Clausewitz, War, and Strategy in the Twenty-first Century". War in History. 26 (2): 287–296. doi:10.1177/0968344518804624. hdl:2160/dfc61137-9005-4346-9a91-353be2927e0f. JSTOR 26746704. [...] Vom Kriege remains the most important book on war ever written.
^ Brooks, M. Evan (May 30, 2002). "Military Theorists". Military History's Most Wanted: The Top 10 Book of Improbable Victories, Unlikely Heroes, and Other Martial Oddities. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, Inc. p. 164. ISBN 9781597974608. Retrieved April 7, 2024. [...Clausewitz] wrote On War (1819), an attempt to synthesize strategy and the conduct of war within the state [...] it has become the standard reference for military theory.
^ Hughes, R. Gerald (2019). "Clausewitz, War, and Strategy in the Twenty-first Century". War in History. 26 (2): 287–296. doi:10.1177/0968344518804624. hdl:2160/dfc61137-9005-4346-9a91-353be2927e0f. JSTOR 26746704.
^ German: Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln. - Vom Kriege, 1. Buch, 1. Kapitel, Unterkapitel 24 (Überschrift). The German word Politik can express either "politics" or "policy" - see Wiktionary.
^ See U.S. Army War College http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ ^{[dead link‍]} and Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, U.K. ^{[failed verification]}
^ See Martin Van Creveld's Fighting Power for more on this topic.
^ Die Errichtung der Hegemonie auf dem europäischen Kontinent [Constructing hegemony on the European continent]. Beiträge zur Militär- und Kriegsgeschichte: Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg (in German). Vol. 2. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. 1979. ISBN 9783421019356. Retrieved January 31, 2017.
^ Snyder, Timothy (2010). Bloodlands — Europe between Hitler and Stalin. London: Vintage Books. pp. preface page ix–x. ISBN 978-0-09-955179-9. Retrieved January 31, 2017. Hitler wanted not only to eradicate the Jews; he wanted also to destroy Poland and the Soviet Union as states, eliminate their ruling classes, and kill tens of millions of Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles). If the German war against the USSR had gone as planned, thirty million civilians would have been starved in the first winter, and tens of millions more expelled, killed, assimilated or enslaved thereafter.
^ Beatrice Heuser, "Warsaw Pact Military Doctrines in the 70s and 80s: Findings in the East German Archives", Comparative Strategy Vol. 12 No. 4 (Oct.–Dec. 1993), pp. 437–457.
^ Pupkov, et al. Weapons of anti-missile defense of Russia
^ "2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) Fact Sheet" (PDF). U.S. Department of Defense Office of Public Affairs. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 27, 2010. Retrieved April 13, 2010.
^ The term was coined by French politician Hubert Vérdine. See: International Herald Tribune, "To Paris, U.S. Looks Like a 'Hyperpower'," February 5, 1999.
^ Loges, Marsha J. (1996). The Persian Gulf War: Military Doctrine and Strategy. Executive research project. Washington, D.C.: Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National Defense University. p. 16. Retrieved April 2, 2020. U.S. officials described Saddam Hussein's military strategy in Desert Storm as 'hunkering down.'
^ Daalder, Ivo H.; O'Hanlon, Michael E. (2000). "Losing the War". Winning Ugly: NATO's War to Save Kosovo. G - Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press (published 2004). p. 106. ISBN 9780815798422. Retrieved April 2, 2020. [... Milosevic] had a fairly promising strategy: hunker down, tolerate the bombing, and wait for Russian pressure or NATO internal dissension to weaken the alliance's resolve. [...] Had Milosevic not thoroughly 'cleansed' Kosovo [...] a hunker-down strategy might well have succeeded, as a number of NATO officials with whom we spoke acknowledged.
^ The Utility of Force, General Sir Rupert Smith, Allen Lane, London, 2005, ISBN 0-7139-9836-9
^ Arquilla, John; Ronfeldt, David F. (1996). The advent of netwar. Santa Monica, Calif: Rand. ISBN 978-0-8330-2414-5.

Bibliography

Brands, Hal, ed. The New Makers of Modern Strategy: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age (2023) excerpt, 46 essays by experts on ideas of famous strategists; 1200 pp
Carpenter, Stanley D. M., Military Leadership in the British Civil Wars, 1642–1651: The Genius of This Age, Routledge, 2005.
Chaliand, Gérard, The Art of War in World History: From Antiquity to the Nuclear Age, University of California Press, 1994.
Gartner, Scott Sigmund, Strategic Assessment in War, Yale University Press, 1999.
Heuser, Beatrice, The Evolution of Strategy: Thinking War from Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge University Press, 2010), ISBN 978-0-521-19968-1.
Matloff, Maurice, (ed.), American Military History: 1775–1902, volume 1, Combined Books, 1996.
May, Timothy. The Mongol Art of War: Chinggis Khan and the Mongol Military System. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 2007. ISBN 978-1844154760.
Wilden, Anthony, Man and Woman, War and Peace: The Strategist's Companion, Routledge, 1987.

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