Strategy and Tactics, Military

[rangerrebew]

Strategy and Tactics, Military


Military strategy and tactics are essential to the conduct of warfare. Broadly stated, strategy is the planning, coordination, and general direction of military operations to meet overall political and military objectives. Tactics implement strategy by short-term decisions on the movement of troops and employment of weapons on the field of battle. The great military theorist Carl von Clausewitz put it another way: "Tactics is the art of using troops in battle; strategy is the art of using battles to win the war." Strategy and tactics, however, have been viewed differently in almost every era of history.

 

The change in the meaning of these terms over time has been basically one of scope as the nature of war and the shape of society have changed and as technology has developed. Strategy, for example, literally means "the art of the general" (from the Greek strategos) and originally signified the purely military planning of a campaign. Thus until the 17th and 18th centuries strategy included to varying degrees such problems as fortification, maneuver, and supply. In the 19th and 20th centuries, however, with the rise of mass ideologies, vast conscript armies, global alliances, and rapid technological change, military strategy became difficult to distinguish from "grand strategy," that is, the proper planning and utilization of the entire resources of a society —military, technological, economic, and political. The change in the scope and meaning of tactics over time has been largely due to enormous changes in technology. Tactics have always been difficult — and have become increasingly difficult — to distinguish in reality from strategy because the two are so interdependent. (Indeed, in the 20th century, tactics have been termed operational strategy.) Strategy is limited by what tactics are possible; given the size, training, and morale of forces, type and number of weapons available, terrain, weather, and quality and location of enemy forces, the tactics to be used are dependent on strategic considerations.

Strategic and Tactical Principles of Warfare

https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/strategy-and-tactics-military/

[AARguy]

Well said. But, in its effect, such sentiments mean we are preparing to fight an enemy that is as god as us. An enemy like us. We recently found out that all our technology, all our advanced strategy and tactics... all our F-22's and Apaches, all our planning and technology... couldn't keep us from getting our butts kicked by an illiterate Army with nothing but old rifles and a total dedication to victory.

Technology used to enhance our warfighting capabilities. Now it is an impediment. We plan to attack our enemy's industrial base. But many of our enemies have no industrial base. Can you imagine fighting the plains Indians of the 1800's today? We can wipe out their cities... but they had no cities. We can wipe out their large attacking formations. But, with an occasional exception like Little Big Horn, they never had large formations. And we can track their location with SIGINT... but they had no radios or iPhones. We can destroy their tanks with penetrative DU sabot rounds... but thy had no tanks. We can disrupt their logistics chains... but they had no such chains.

This is what happened to us in Afghanistan. We were ready to defeat a modern enemy but we were totally unprepared to face a Bronze Age enemy. And they kicked our butt.