That’s news to me (and him too more than likely, unless he’s one of those types who is unself-conscious about what he says and rather more concerned with the volume of his work....you’d think I disliked him from that commentOriginally Posted by William F. Owen
) The following quotes are from Colin S. Gray, War, Peace and International Relations: An Introduction to Strategic History.....
... it is essential to be clear as to the meanings of, and distinctions among, three key terms: tactics, operations and strategy.
Tactics, operations and strategy
• Tactics refers to the actual use of armed forces, primarily, though not exclusively, in combat. In essence, tactics are about how to fight, about military behaviour itself.
• Operations refers to the use made of tactics for the conduct of a military campaign.
• Operational art is the skill with which forces are manoeuvred so that they are well positioned for tactical advantage. But it refers also to the ability to know when to accept or decline combat, with a view to advancing campaign wide goals. Operational art uses the threat and the actuality of battle to win a campaign.
• Strategy refers to the use made of operations for their impact upon the course and outcome of a war. Strategy [ways] is the bridge between military power [means] and policy [ends]. (p. 40)
(All emphasis and additions in parentheses are mine)
Gray is one of those who uses the term “operational” inconsistently throughout the book but who also believes that Napoleon invented the operational level, or, perhaps more strictly speaking practiced it but may not have known about it (which basically means Gray’s taking modern concepts and applying them to people and places who would not have known about them and thus couldn’t possibly be doing such things- the empiricism of Elton or Acton rather than the verstehende/hermeneutic Collingwood-ian one)...
Personally, I was taught that Napoleon was a master “grand tactician” (the term and concept then in practical use). He could not have been operationally, or for that matter strategically, capable because his wars never brought about a more favourable peace nor did they secure his long term goals of French continental hegemony and thus, he couldn’t have understood strategy either given the numerous opportunities he had for forming favourable alliances. Of course operational art as a self-consciously practised and taught concept didn’t exist either so he wouldn’t have understood what we are arguing about over strategy and operational art (given they would have understood those terms differently, if at all). Obviously, in today’s terminology, Napoleon didn’t harmonise his ends (policy) with his ways (strategy) which meant he merely frittered away his means (making his eventual defeat all the more likely) though in his age, suffused as it still was with notions of glory and honour that really didn’t matter (realpolitik and came later).Napoleon’s military genius did not lie in any unique understanding of warfare and how to succeed at it. He did not know things about war that were mysteries to other professionals. Rather, his genius lay in the ability actually to do what the general wisdom recognized should be done. Recall that strategy – or, in Napoleon’s case, largely operations [?!]– is an eminently practical undertaking. He had an outstanding coup d’oeil on the battlefield. He was a brilliant practitioner, by any historical standard, of operational manoeuvre for battle. (p. 44)
In the age of Napoleon the term “Strategy” actually encompassed what we now largely subsume under “theatre strategy” and “operations” with “grand tactics” bridging that and “minor tactics” (the clue’s in the name!). If we want to know what Napoleon intended at Jena (for instance) than we must think like him, with knowledge then available to him, not in terms and concepts he would not have comprehended and would not have acted upon. In his day “grand strategy” (a term we still use) covered things like “national military strategy”/ “foreign policy” (&c) that Clausewitz subsumed under the simpler (and “theoretically” parsimonious sounding) term politik (and he, too, was innovating by trying to come up with a theory of warfare using existing terms to convey new meanings).
Do I believe that there is an operational level of war? I believe that we (some of us at any rate) believe that there is and thus we act on that belief thereby making it a self-fulfilling prophecy just as people did when they thought there were such things as river faeries and thunder cracks were proof of the existence of Thor and thereby acted accordingly (whether or not there is an existential, un-changing, “real” entity that equates to what we describe as “operational” level warfare...who knows? I’m just a poor, ugly, semi-literate man on a tiny blue planet in a very large universe...I’ll leave that for my betters to thrash out
).
Anyway, I’m done for this year.
It’s Christmas and much as I enjoy these “virtual” debates ---I really couldn’t care less who’s right or wrong on the internet and I really don’t have an axe to grind or a name/reputation to make/maintain for myself--- there’s mulled wine to be drunk, presents to be opened, children to be played with, single women to be flirted with, family fences to be (temporarily) mended, a Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy marathon to be watched and all kinds of meat and poultry to be enjoyed. Let’s spare a thought too, over Christmas, for all those brave men and women who will be celebrating (if they have that luxury) in less friendly climes, yet, without whom, the peace we enjoy on the home front would be impossible.
Happy Christmas everyone!
(As a gift allow me to leave you all this chipper variant on my favourite carol Good King Wenceslas by the Irish Rovers)
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