Quote Originally Posted by Infanteer View Post
I'm not arguing that the operational art doesn't exist - it is the art of linking tactics to strategy and people can be poor or good at it. It involves those factors that you mention.
If you believe that strategy must be linked to tactics, then you are on the right track.

Whether is should be called a "level or war" or not is largely irrelevant - that is an argument about what should be in the dictionary. I personally believe it should be portrayed as a level of war because there are important concepts in operational warfare which are neither tactical nor strategic.

Operational warfare is neither concrete nor distinct from tactics or strategy. If its purpose is to link the two, how could it be? That is why many people who haven't had the opportunity to either serve at those level or read a lot of history have a hard time envisioning operational warfare. Tactics and strategy are easy because they exist at opposite ends of a continuum. Operational warfare is tougher.

Despite the numerous opinions in this forum, I've seen little in the way of evidence that would convince me that operational warfare does not exist. People here are very good at giving opinions, but not as good at proving a point through the use of empirical evidence, acknowledged experts, and/or historical vignettes.

I've offered several historical examples which demonstrate both the existence and importance of operational warfare.