Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
... my concern is rather with the appropriate application versus inappropriate use of ANY military technique.

The Operational Level as holy grail is blatant misuse. Operational art is a concept, it has applicability in some cases, none in others. Its use in the wrong situation is at least wasteful and time consuming for little to no benefit and at worst is going to get people killed unnecessarily.
No argument here. The misuse of concepts is rampant (center of gravity comes to mind in the US system). My argument with Mr. Owen is with the existence of operational warfare. The fact that the concepts are misunderstood and/or badly applied is a related but separate issue. Just because something is misused doesn't make that something inherently bad.