Military strategy

Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. Derived from the Greek word strategos, the term strategy, when it appeared in use during the 18th century, was seen in its narrow sense as the 'art of the general', or ''the art of arrangement' of troops. Military strategy deals with the planning and conduct of campaigns, the movement and disposition of forces, and the deception of the enemy. Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. Derived from the Greek word strategos, the term strategy, when it appeared in use during the 18th century, was seen in its narrow sense as the 'art of the general', or ''the art of arrangement' of troops. Military strategy 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.' 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'. Hence, both gave the pre-eminence 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. 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, and business, as well as modern warfare. The Eastern military strategy differs from the Western by focusing more on asymmetric warfare and deception. Strategy differs from tactics, in that strategy refers to the employment of all of a nation's military capabilities through high level and long term planning, development and procurement to guarantee security or victory. Tactics is the military science employed to secure objectives defined as part of the military strategy; especially the methods whereby men, equipment, aircraft, ships and weapons are employed and directed against an enemy. Military strategy is the planning and execution of the contest between groups of armed adversaries. Strategy, which is a subdiscipline of warfare and of foreign policy, is a principal tool to secure national interests. It is larger in perspective than military tactics, which involves the disposition and maneuver of units on a particular sea or battlefield, but less broad than grand strategy otherwise called 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. 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. 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 aim a series of military objectives to be achieved: to assess these objectives as to the military requirements they create, and the pre-conditions 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.' Field-Marshal Montgomery summed it up thus 'Strategy is the art of distributing and applying military means, such as armed forces and supplies, to fulfil 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.' 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. Strategy and tactics are closely related and exist on the same continuum; modern thinking places the operational level between them. All deal with distance, time and force but strategy is large scale, can endure through years, and is societal while tactics are small scale and involve the disposition of fewer elements enduring hours to weeks. Originally strategy was understood to govern the prelude to a battle while tactics controlled its execution. However, in the world wars of the 20th century, the distinction between maneuver and battle, strategy and tactics, expanded with the capacity of technology and transit. Tactics that were once the province of a company of cavalry would be applied to a panzer army. It is often said that the art of strategies defines the goals to achieve in a military campaign, while tactics defines the methods to achieve these goals. Strategic goals could be 'We want to conquer area X', or 'We want to stop country Y's expansion in world trade in commodity Z'; while tactical decisions range from a general statement—e.g., 'We're going to do this by a naval invasion of the North of country X', 'We're going to blockade the ports of country Y', to a more specific 'C Platoon will attack while D platoon provides fire cover'.