I am working on a project that is exploring a concept that we ware calling, at least for the time being, 'strategic compression'. Thought I'd run by a brief narrative of what we are looking at and ask the Council to comment - expand on the following:

Strategic compression is a nascent term with widely used ideas such as the ‘strategic corporal’ and ‘CNN effect’ intermixed in it. Both attest to the realization that in today’s security environment, tactical actions can have operational and strategic consequences.

While both phrases are necessary for an understanding of strategic compression, neither suffices as an explanation. The former is essentially an implication of a new security environment—how soldiers will need to act under new circumstances—and the latter is a mechanism of how the environment has changed. Neither provides a complete definition or full understanding to what strategic compression is.

Our project cautiously defines strategic compression as the overlapping or merging of the three levels of war: strategic, operational, and tactical. As a result, the past distinctions between the levels have become less clear. More specifically, the role of the operational level as an intermediary and “buffer” between the strategic and tactical levels may be reduced. There are two major directions of strategic compression: strategic to tactical compression and tactical to strategic compression.

The first is that the strategic level of war—specifically strategic level actors—increasingly have the ability to directly control and manage the tactical level of war in real-time. From the perspective of history, attempts by strategic level actors to directly control the tactical level are not a new phenomenon. Only recently through C4ISR capabilities has this ability been realized. C4ISR capabilities allow strategic level actors to control and impact the tactical level of war in unprecedented ways.

The second is that at the tactical level of war units and individual soldiers have the ability through tactical actions to affect the strategic level of war through what is commonly referred to as the ‘CNN Effect’. However, a situation where the tactical level directly affects the strategic level is not an entirely new phenomenon. In fact, the tactical level of war affecting the strategic level has been a common aspect of small wars for a while. Lately the concept has been largely reintroduced as a facet of war fighting and through a relatively new mechanism—the 24 hour news-cycle. Another aspect is that tactical units have increasing mobility and firepower. Directed by the previously mentioned C4ISR, small units can have an incredible effect on the battlespace and accomplish operational or even strategic level goals.

Furthermore, it should be noted that strategic compression isn’t a term limited specifically to small wars or major combat operations. Strategic compression can occur under either context though it has many specific implications for small wars (i.e. strategic corporal) and the current security environment.