How Operational Art Devoured Strategy
How Operational Art Devoured Strategy
This is very much worth reading, but careful reading. It slaughters, or maims, a few sacred cows so emotional reactions are likely.
Having said that, I am becoming increasingly impressed with this guy Kelly. If anyone knows him, please pass it on.
I think it's a pretty good paper, Tom. Your objection on Rwanda is certainly valid
and one could argue that Bosnia and Kosovo were not strategic failures, rather the former another failure of moral courage and the latter getting schnookered and buying into a line of BS. East Timor seems to me to fall between those two poles. The rest were what they're tagged as...
I agree that your version of the US espousal of "The Operational Level of War" was the stated reason but I also suggest it was a specifically European theater and counter Soviet oriented construct which is not universally applicable -- and we have a bad tendency to make our 'doctrine' work even if all of it may not fit a given situation. There was also a flag officer space justification effort involved IIRC. I would contend that in both Afghanistan and Iraq the theater or nation IS the operational level of war. We can be pretty inflexible nowadays. Didn't use to be true, yet another bad habit we picked up post Viet Nam.
I think their principal point is summed up with this quote:
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"By taking a hierarchical view and linking discrete responsibilities to specifc levels of command, we risk degrading the intimacy of the conversation among ends, ways, and means, making it easier for strategy to make unreasonable demands; for example, in Iraq in 2003-2006, with ways overtaking ends; or in 1950, MacArthur’s precipitate pursuit to the Yalu, with tactics to taking on a life of its own. " (Pg 10 Document / Pg 18 of the .pdf... emphasis added /kw)
The heirarchial view issue...
As I said, we tend to be awfully inflexible. We say there is an Operational Level, therefor we must have one. They also mention that we, the US, do not do the political aspect of warfare at all well. True IMO and we have not since FDR. Truman never got it, nor have any subsequent Presidents other than Eisenhower who wisely stayed out of most stupidity. I think the thought that heirarchial orthodoxy is inimical to good war fighting practice and our failure to adapt the political to that practice is their message -- and I'm afraid they're correct.
The 'we' to whom I referred is the US Army, period.
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Originally Posted by
Tom Odom
Again. Ken, let's define who the "we" is... You just made the same leap and are like them chasing the wrong fox.
Nope. You misconstrued the initial 'we.' While I thought what I said was clear, perhaps it was not. There were two distinct items in that paragraph of mine you quoted. Here it is again:
""As I said, we tend to be awfully inflexible. We say there is an Operational Level, therefor we must have one. They also mention that we, the US, do not do the political aspect of warfare at all well. True IMO and we have not since FDR. Truman never got it, nor have any subsequent Presidents other than Eisenhower who wisely stayed out of most stupidity. I think the thought that heirarchial orthodoxy is inimical to good war fighting practice and our failure to adapt the political to that practice is their message -- and I'm afraid they're correct.""(emphasis added / kw)
The items in bold apply to the US Army, those underlined to the broader US government; two separate 'we's there. I agree with you on the interagency and US strategy issue. However, I still think the Army is remiss, doctrinally rigid and has a tendency to tailor its 'doctrine' to the exigencies of the day.
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If there is a problem with strategic thought in the USG--and I agree whole heartedly there is--hardly any of the problem relates to the so called "leavenworth heresy". Their premise is both a red herring and a reductionist; it is the wrong argument and an over-simplification at that.
I agree but I didn't read their paper that way. Also, this:
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... Somehow if we just put operational-level back in the box, strategy will emerge. Bull.
I didn't get that from it. I did get that the operational level as the US has adapted it is a distractor -- and while you may not, I totally agree with that. As I said, we're awfully inflexible. Not least because of this:
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...On the other hand I could and I am sure you could cite numerous examples of the need for levels because they limit those who would become the epitome of the squad leader in the sky.
The problem being that our adaptation of levels has not stopped the squad leaders in the sky -- it has encouraged them. Now that guy doesn't even have to leave air conditioned comfort and get in a bird that can be shot down, he can simply watch a video feed while three nations away...:mad:
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Again I give it a C.
That's cool, give it a D even -- or an F -- but do realize the broad message I drew by not having anything to get defensive about may be correct-- dangerously so. ""I think the thought that heirarchial orthodoxy is inimical to good war fighting practice and our failure to adapt the political to that practice is their message -- and I'm afraid they're correct.""
The Army cannot fix the strategic issue as you say -- the Army can and should fix the issues of over centralization 'squad leader in the sky;' inflexibility; and excessive orthodoxy.
I think we're walking and talking past each other...
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Originally Posted by
Tom Odom
I would have to assume that you feel my debating the clarity of these two authors' writing is defensive.
True -- but only in that you caught their flaw in assigning blame to 100-5 and went to work on that, thus ,IMO, missing the broader points that you acknowledge are a problem -- and the point that we have become very (dangerously???) doctrinaire.
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Hardly the case as if one is going to write something and publish it hinged on a weak point, my criticism is neither defensive nor is ad hominem. It goes to the heart of their argument--the negative influence of the 1986 version of FM 100-5 and the term operational level of war. They state it is causal. I would argue that at best it may be symptomatic and at worst it is a red herring.
Herring perhaps. Sympotomatic? I'd say absolutely. We adopted 'the operational level' for a variety of reasons -- none particularly compelling, IMO (YMMV) and we tend to try to apply it where it is inappropriate because we're slaves to the book...:(
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Our national leaders have found it more convenient to contract strategy to think tanks than to actually think strategically.
I sadly suggest that truth is partly due to the fact that the Armed Forces (as a result of mutual distaste) have not attempted (deigned?) to give strategic advice to a DoS and several Administrations who were, umm, not particularly friendly, toward the Services. I'm not sure how to fix that but I think we need to try...
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In agreement on the issue, if not the cause:
Finally as for the need to fix over-centralization, no argument from me as I am firmly in that camp...we are as you know doing just the opposite.
We've beat this stud to death but I don't disagree with a thing you said -- other than your first line on the thread:
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I judge such works by how the authors form their argument. They lost me with this:...
I understand that but at my age, I've found out that I neglected a lot of good ideas due to having the same attitude and I've lately become inured to putting up- with some often specious arguments to still extract some idea with a bit of merit. I even look up dumb stuff to see what people are up to. The old bit about even a stopped clock being right twice a day sort of applies.
I'd say they arrived at the right destination by the wrong route and that happens often.
Keep on pushin' ;)
Isn't this monograph kinda off the mark...
I thought it was an interesting argument but to me it failed to differentiate between strategic and operational. I'm just a lowly nug and may be a little slow here at ILE but what does FM 100-5 or FM 3-0 have to do with strategy--which seems to be the main issue they have. I mean, the name of the manual is "Operations." Perhaps its a definitional issue but shouldn't strategy involve more than one branch of services and possibly--probably heresy--more than one department in the executive branch? The argument the authors make that the operational level of war "operate[s] free from unwelcome interference from strategy...(67)" is, IMHO, flawed. If they truly believe this, they fail to answer the question why. If you like the DIME model, FM 100-5 and FM 3-0 are really only a subset of the M--the failue of the USG to have a true strategic (i.e. longer term that the 1 year mandate of the NSS) plan is probably a huge contributing cause. The rest of the USG is not fully integrated into the strategic plan and therefore strategy devolves into the land of operations. The authors conclusions--specifically the CvC arguments about war and politics--I think are valid, but by laying the blame at the feet of the operational level they miss the true issues in contemporary warfare linking politics, strategy, and tactics.
That's true in German usage, nominally true for most but the US Army
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Originally Posted by
Fuchs
The Operational level is the tactical level of corps and theater headquarters.
has a tendency to get bogged down with minutia and adopt the latest, best thing as the holy grail. The authors of the monograph point out -- not too cleanly -- that our fetish with 'the operational level' tends to make us try to apply it where it isn't appropriate. Their problem is that since they apparently were not there when the Army adopted the 'operational art' and probably have little experience around the institution that is the US army (as opposed to the people in that Army), they misread our inability to apply what's needed when it's needed as a flawed adaptation instead of what it is; inflexibility and an excessively slavish approach to 'doctrine.' They pointed their attack upstream instead of downstream where it's more appropriate.
(With a note that we, the people in the Army aren't that inflexible or slavish -- but the institution is. Very much so. Sadly :( )
I tend to agree with Fuchs, above...
LINK.
I tend to agree with Wilf and PhilR, there is no such thing as an Operational level but it's not a major issue. If one just has to use the term for some reason, I believe Fuchs is correct. It was and is a Continental European construct and applicable to warfare there. It, as a term and concept, can be elsewhere employed but it is subject to dangerous misuse.
The Operational level of war applies to the Theater level and their employment of subordinate commands (be they Armies, Corps or Divisions) and it applies in only major conventional force on force combat (that does not preclude the use of SOF or irregular warfare as Operational assets or techniques). Operational level methodology entails maneuvering major formations in consonance with strategic aims in order to facilitate tactical success. Anything other than that is either Strategic or tactical.
Militarily, lacking a major conflict against a peer force, virtually all effort is going to be tactical as, in the West, we emphasize civilian control of the military. Strategy thus becomes the responsibility of the Government (hopefully, with military advice if the armed forces are to be employed) and the Forces are or should be responsible only for Operational and Tactical employment in the execution of that strategy.
One thing for sure, no Corporal or Platoon is going to be Operational or Strategic. That's a dumb and dangerous misnomer. Situation dependent, a Battalion might be a strategic force. More likely, a Brigade, Task Force, Division or Corps with a General Officer commanding can be but such a force is unlikely to need or even be able to employ Operational level methodology.
Error occurs when one attempts to apply Operational level concepts and methodology to inappropriate settings. To wit, the Coalition in Afghanistan. Afghanistan itself IS the operational level for this war. Strategy put us there, everything done there is tactical.
In most western COIN efforts, the nation involved is the de facto Operational level, it becomes the Theater as operations will generally be limited to that nation only and maneuver of large formations will not be necessary -- or even desirable. Strategy places forces in that nation, all that then transpires there is tactical. Tactical operations, as always, can have strategic effect. Similarly, Strategic decisions can have tactical effects. Rules of engagement developed politically for example. Or a decision to not deploy or use certain military assets, equipment or units. Conversely, a political decision that forces the use of certain elements can have an effect.
Operational decisions can have strategic and / or tactical effects. An effort to employ Operational level processes in an inappropriate setting can also have strategic and tactical effects and they will almost always be adverse. See Afghanistan...
Yep. We did that until we got overinvolved with
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Originally Posted by
slapout9
Instead of calling it the Operational level, didn't we used to call them Campaigns? Or is that something else?
Europe and all things European in the 80s... :rolleyes:
Operations are performed by Doctors on the unsuspecting...
Operations can be the title or part thereof of an office, officer or other entity. Operation __(insert name here)___ can be whatever anyone wants it to be as Fuchs says. The Operational level of war is just that. operations (small 'o') are what units do... ;)
operations (small 'o') are also performed by computer programs and subsets thereof... :D
To preclude confusion, I suggest re-titling 'The Operational level of war' to 'the Mediocre level of war' (based on the number of Corps Commanders relieved over the years...). :wry:
Which brings up a question. How can COIN be the 'graduate level of war' (which is fallacious, it's the middle school level of war -- chaos and hormones driving pettiness and all round immaturity to new new levels) with no Operational level per se? * :o
* GO make work employment ala Field Forces / XXIV Corps in Viet Nam and similar later examples do not count.
I can't see the argument being proved
The paper neds a rewrite and to substantiate the argument. It fails to substantaite its claims in the introduction or even explain them.
East Timor was not a failure of military strategy, and it was too small to claim any theory of an operational art. It failed because the poltical groups in East Timor, who were split along differing lines of personalities long before independence, were usurped by Mari Alkatiri's FRETLIN group. Threw the East Timorese political parties plans into disarray. There are other reasons I am happy to explain off line.
The paper wrongly promotes Tukhachevsky as the star of the operational art, but it was Sveckhin and to a lesser extent Kamanev who started it, although Tukhachevsky put it into practice. The Operational art was based on the needs of various fronts during the Russian Civil War.
This is not meant as a criticism but....
Wilf you wrote:
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Depends where you start the clock.
A.A. Sveckhin's 1927 paper is for some reason commonly cited, but as concerns someone talking about solving the "problem", but it's Triandafillov's 1929 "The Nature of Operations of Modern Armies," is, IMO the actual starting point.
- but If you believe the PU-36, is the "how to" cook book of "Deep battle" then poster child of the "Operational Level," is Tukhachesvsky. Svechkin and Triandifillov never really say anything about "Deep Battle" and it is that which has come to define the idea of Operational Art.
I have to disagree with you. This is taken from my PhD so sorry for the dry tone:
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Soviet staff officers, utilising their experiences during the 1919-1920 Civil War, first espoused the operational level of war in the mid-1920s. The nascent Red Army was involved in fighting on many fronts, and both strategy and tactics did not cover this type of conflict. The concept of the operational art was advanced by Alecsandr A. Svechin, who in 1926 was a member of the Frunze Academy and the Red Army Staff Academy. The concept was developed further by a number of theorists in the 1930s and received its full definition in the Red Army’s Polvei Ustav (Field Regulations) of 1936.
Using the idea of successive operations, Svechin explained operational art thus:
The concept of the operational art was advanced by Alecsandr A. Svechin, who in 1926 was a member of the Frunze Academy and the Red Army Staff Academy. The concept was developed further by a number of theorists in the 1930s and received its full definition in the Red Army’s Polvei Ustav (Field Regulations) of 1936. Using the idea of successive operations, Svechin explained operational art thus:
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. . . tactical creativity is governed by operational art. Combat operations are not self contained, they are only the basic material from which an operation is formed. Only in very infrequent cases can one rely on achieving the ultimate goal of combat operations in a single battle. Normally this path is broken into a series of operations separated by more or less lengthy pauses, which take place in different areas in a theatre and differ significantly from one another due to the differences between the immediate goals one’s forces strive for.
He further wrote:
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An operation is a conglomerate of quite different actions: namely, drawing up the plan of the operation; logistical preparations; concentrating one’s forces at the starting position; building defensive fortifications; marching; fighting battles which lead to the encirclement or destruction of a portion of the hostile forces and the forced withdrawal of other hostile forces, either as a result of a direct envelopment or as a result of a preliminary breakthrough, and to the capture or holding of a certain line or geographical area. Tactics and administration are the material and the success of the development of an operation depends on both the successful solution of individual tactical problems by the forces and the provision of all the material they need to conduct an operation without interruption until the ultimate goal is achieved. On the basis of the goal of an operation, operational art sets forth a whole series of tactical missions and a number of logistical requirements. Operational art also dictates the basic line of conduct of an operation, depending on the material available, the time which may be deployed for battle on a certain front, and finally on the nature of the operation itself. We cannot acknowledge the full superiority of objective battlefield conditions over our will. Combat operations are only one aspect of the greater whole represented by an operation, and the nature of the planned operation.
In the immediate post-civil war period, Soviet Russian military academicians, staff and commanders set up associations to study military science, under the guidance of the Communist Party. One area that was of particular concern to the Military Studies Society of the Red Army was how to articulate as doctrine forms of combat action as well as the restructuring of the armed forces to match these changes in military thought. Two leaders of this school of thought were S.S. Kamanev, the commander of the Red Army from 1919-1924 and M.N. Tukhachevsky. Kamanev wrote:
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In spite of all victorious fights before the battle, the fate of the campaign will be decided in the very last battle – Interim defeats in a campaign, however serious they may be, subsequently will be viewed as ‘individual episodes’ – In the warfare of modern large armies, defeat of the enemy results from the sum of continuous and planned victories on all fronts, . . . the uninterrupted conduct of operations is the main condition of victory.
In 1926 Tukhachevsky wrote:
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Modern tactics are characterised primarily by organisation of battle, presuming coordination of various branches of troops. Modern strategy embraces its former meaning: that is the ‘tactics of a theatre of military operations.’ However this definition is complicated by the fact that strategy prepares for battle, but it also participates in and influences the course of battle. Modern operations involve the concentration of forces necessary to strike a blow, and the infliction of continual and uninterrupted blows of these forces against the enemy throughout an extremely deep area. The nature of modern weapons and the modern battle is such that it is impossible to destroy the enemy’s manpower by one blow in a one day battle. Battle in a modern operation stretches out into a series of battles not only along the front but also in depth until that time when the enemy has been struck by a final annihilating blow or when the offensive forces are exhausted. In that regard, modern tactics of a theatre of military operations are tremendously more complex by the inescapable condition mentioned above that the strategic commander cannot personally organise combat.
In all my readings I never came across the term 'Deep Battle' . From memory this is a US Army term which is used to describe the area 70 to 150km behind the FEBA (old term I know). To strike at the second echelon. It is certainly not what Soviet officers were talking about. A series of successive battles in disparate sections along many fronts.
However I really do believe, to quote a mentor and friend, we are over intellectualising something which is quite simple. We are all arguing over the same thing, from a different viewpoint. :(
Want to go all the way back to Movchin?
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Originally Posted by
GI Zhou
I have to disagree with you. This is taken from my PhD so sorry for the dry tone:
Not sure what you are disagreeing with, but I would be interested to read your PhD.
I am pretty well aware of how the Soviets tried to explain the idea - which is why I remain unconvinced. You are right that the term "Deep Battle" is never used. IMO, it actually comes from Simpkin's book on Tukhachesvsky. - which is why is said,
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- but If you believe the PU-36, is the "how to" cook book of "Deep battle" then poster child of the "Operational Level," is Tukhachesvsky. Svechkin and Triandifillov never really say anything about "Deep Battle" and it is that which has come to define the idea of Operational Art.
Sure AA Svechkin may up with the all terminology, but what about the actual practice? I've only read the paper attributed to Svechkin, in the 1927 "Strategiya," - and it's pretty rambling stuff, and the definitions are not good.
He does not tackle the real issues that Triandiffolov does. IMO, Triandiffolov gets the ball rolling in a practical way - a year later, and may have written it well before. You have to split and encircle enemy armies, to destroy them across their "depth." Like it or not, "Deep Battle" is how the Soviet attack into the enemies depth is described.
Now I do not believe that PU-36 is the "how to" cook book of "Deep battle," because it's actually pretty banal stuff. I do not think it is actually anything much to do with Operational Art either, but it is supposed to be the practical guidance laid out by Tukhachesvsky. If you know or can prove he didn't write it, then sing out.