The Clausewitz Collection (merged thread)

[M.L.]

c.) The claim that Napoleon "invented" the operational level is without evidence or any form of proof....

I was going to leave this entire entry alone since it is basically a rehash of previous arguments. However, the above statement merits a brief response.

I never claimed that Napoleon "invented" the operational level. Although there has been some discussion to that effect, the broad consensus is that the first vestiges of operational warfare "emerged" during the Napoleonic era.

To say that someone "invented" it is like saying that someone "invented" strategy. On the contrary, operational warfare, like strategy, is an evolving conglomeration of ideas.

[jmm99]

from ML
....the broad consensus is that the first vestiges of operational warfare "emerged" during the Napoleonic era.

As I think has been obvious, my interest in this topic is historical and in the 19th century texts (CvC, Jomini, Mahan, Halleck, Bigelow, as examples). I don't have the professional competence to judge what "operational warfare" and the "operational level of war" are or are not in the present-day; or whether the present-day usage of those terms (obviously replete in US manuals) is good, bad or indifferent.

What I do see in the 19th century is replete with references to the planning and execution of operations and campaigns - and a very rich vocabulary (of what I would call "terms of art") dealing with operations and campaigns; as well as something of a hierarchy of divisions (e.g., theatre of war, theatre(s) of operations, zone(s) of operations).

What are the "vestiges" of "operational warfare" in the Napoleonic era as you see those "vestiges" ? If those "vestiges" exist, they are not readily apparent to me. I see a very well developed "operational art" in what I've read (cited above); but I do not see "operational warfare" and the "operational level of war" until into the 20th century - e.g., Fuller as cited by the Brit LTG in his article.

Regards

Mike

[slapout9]

Copy of an article from (JFQ latest edition) one the other CvC threads. Has some stuff to say about the Operational Level of War, it appears he agrees somewhat but not completely with Wilf. It is a very good article at any rate IMO.


http://www.ndu.edu/press/war-and-its-aftermath.html

[M.L.]

Copy of an article from (JFQ latest edition) one the other CvC threads. Has some stuff to say about the Operational Level of War, it appears he agrees somewhat but not completely with Wilf. It is a very good article at any rate IMO.


http://www.ndu.edu/press/war-and-its-aftermath.html

Ack. I was excited to read this until I saw it was by Steven Melton. You might want to read the first 30 pages or so of his book, The Clausewitz Delusion. IMO, he is pretty mixed up and has some very wrong ideas.

However, just my opinion.

[slapout9]

Ack. I was excited to read this until I saw it was by Steven Melton. You might want to read the first 30 pages or so of his book, The Clausewitz Delusion. IMO, he is pretty mixed up and has some very wrong ideas.

However, just my opinion.

I think this will be under the Kindle tree so I will let you know.

[jmm99]

LTC Melton was the teacher; Cavguy was the student. Some brief (subdued) comments by the latter are here (Wilf Bait: The Clausewitz Delusion; post starting thread), here, and here.

Here is not the place for me to comment on LTC Melton's article, Conceptualizing Victory Anew (2011), which is subtitled "Revisiting U.S. Law, Doctrine, and Policy for War and Its Aftermath" - thus, entering my ballpark.

Basically, Melton mixes military strategy with "grand strategy" (a term he uses; also expressed inter alia as: Policy/Politik; the National Security Strategy; or Beaufre's "total strategy"). I'd argue that the results in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan (whether one calls them victories, half-victories or defeats) were primariily set by Policy/Politik. All four cases involved "first halves" and "second halves" (the latter still being played out in the continuations of OEF and OIF). Tell truth, Melton's article has little content re: either "Law" or "Policy" - and the "Doctrine" discussed is military. The military does not establish Policy/Politik except in the early 1990s science fiction of Charlie Dunlap (one of our great military lawyers, who should visit here), where the military makes a real hash of it.

Like the poltergeist, I'll be back - with discussion of agreement with LTG Kiszely re: Jomini and Fuller; and, taking off from that, my summary of what Jomini included in "Strategy", "Grand Tactics" and "Logistics".

Regards

Mike

[jmm99]

We first look to LTG Kiszerly's comments in regard to a portion of the historical development from Jomini to Fuller (the former with little substantial impact on the latter). We then will look to Jomini's Art of War taken as a whole, in its view of strategy and tactics.

1. Historical View of LTG Kiszely

Here we follow the development and expansion of Jomini's concept of "grand tactics" (which we will then show is something of a red herring in this particular historical kettle of fish). So, we proceed to John Kiszely, Thinking about the Operational Level (2005; HT to ML), pp.38-39 (pp. 1-2 pdf; emphasis added and paragraphs subdivided for ease of reading in this post and references to the endnotes, included here as subquotes):

A level between the tactical and strategic had also been identified by Baron Jomini, writing in the 1830s: a level he termed grand tactics. Jomini was much admired and quoted by many British military writers, such as E. B. Hamley, so that Jomini’s concept of ‘grand tactics’ was well known to the military establishment: for example, at the Staff College where Hamley was the commandant from 1870 to 1878. An instructor there at the end of the nineteenth century was the military historian, Colonel G. F. R. Henderson, who developed his own ideas of ‘grand tactics’ which he defined as ‘the higher art’ of generalship, ‘those stratagems, manoeuvres and devices by which victories are won’.[4]

4. Brian Holden Reid, Studies in British Military Thought. Debates with Fuller and Liddel Hart,(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), p.67 & 70.

But the greatest development of thinking in Britain about this level resulted from the work of J. F. C. Fuller. He, too, used the term grand tactics, which, in his 1926 book, The Foundations of the Science of War, he described as ‘the plan of the war or campaign…[which] secures military action by converging all means of waging war towards gaining a decision’. [5]

5. J. F. C. Fuller, The Foundations of the Science of War, (London: Hutchinson, 1926) pp 107-108.

He subsequently defined grand tactics as ‘the organization and distribution of the fighting forces themselves in order to accomplish the grand strategic plan, or idea’, [6] which is a long way from Jomini’s rather prosaic concept [7] and comes close indeed to our definition of the operational level today.

6. Holden Reid, op cit, p.65. See Chapter 5 ‘Fuller and the Operational Level’.

7. ‘Grand tactics is the art of posting troops upon the battle field according to the accidents of the ground, of bringing them into action, and the art of fighting upon the ground, in contradistinction to planning upon a map.’ Baron Jomini, The Art of War, (London: Greenhill Books, 1996), p.69. According to Holden Reid, Jomini’s influence on Fuller was ‘negligible’, op cit, p.66.

Grand tactics, as defined by Jomini (as opposed to Henderson's and Fuller's later extensions), was based on tactical combinations, which linked tactics to operations and campaigns. Since the latter were expressly part of Jomini's strategy construct, it is true that grand tactics linked tactics and starategy. But, grand tactics were not part of operations and campaigns in Jomini's construct of the "art of war".

2. Summary of Jomin's Construct

Jomini's "The Art of War" is sometimes translated as "Summary of the Art of War". The original French ("Précis") may translate better to "handbook" than "summary"; but this relatively slim book was indeed a "summary" of Jomini's military studies and experiences as a staff officer expressed in prior multiple volumes.

The 1862 West Point Preface recommends starting with "Strategy" (Chap III) and then proceeding through the following chapters before returning to Chaps I and II. The first two chapters are concerned with the political and moral aspects of war (more akin to Policy/Politik and National Security Strategy, though those terms absent from Jomini - so also "operational warfare" and the "operational level of war" are absent).

Following the advice from That Place on the Hudson, we will start with Chap III, entitled "Strategy" and subtitled "Definition of Strategy and the Fundamental Principle of War", which begins::

The art of war, independently of its political and moral relations, consists of five principal parts, viz: Strategy, Grand Tactics, Logistics, Tactics of the different arms, and the Art of the Engineer. We will treat of the first three branches, and begin by defining them. In order to do this, we will follow the order of procedure of a general when war is first declared, who commences with the points of the highest importance, as a plan of campaign, and afterwards descends to the necessary details. Tactics, on the contrary, begins with details, and ascends to combinations and generalization necessary for the formation and handling of a great army. (p.59)

We will follow Jomini's structure in his presentation of the first three "principal parts" of war, Strategy, Grand Tactics and Logistics. We continue with what the "strategic general" does first:

We will suppose an army taking the field: the first care of its commander should be to agree with the head of the state upon the character of the war: then he must carefully study the theater of war, and select the most suitable base of operations, taking into consideration the frontiers of the state and those of its allies. (p.59)

Jomini then continues with this simplified model war with introduction of a number of "terms of art" that are later much more fully described (pp.60-61). He then lists 13 points that are embraced by strategy (pp.61-62), which define the limits of his purely strategical construct. He also lists "other operations of a mixed nature" (river crossings through winter quarters) "the execution of which belongs to tactics, the conception and arrangement to strategy." (p.62). He also lists the 8 general objects of Grand Tactics (pp.62-63), after reiterating the differences between Strategy, Grand Tactics and Logistics:

The maneuvering of an army upon the battle-field, and the different formations of troops for attack, constitute Grand Tactics. Logistics is the art of moving armies. It comprises the order and details of marches and camps, and of quartering and supplying troops; in a word, it is the execution of strategical and tactical enterprises.

To repeat. Strategy is the art of making war upon the map, and comprehends the whole theater of operations. Grand Tactics is the art of posting troops upon the battle-field according to the accidents of the ground, of bringing them into action, and the art of fighting upon the ground, in contra-distinction to planning upon a map. Its operations may extend over a field of ten or twelve miles in extent. Logistics comprises the means and arrangements which work out the plans of strategy and tactics. Strategy decides where to act; Logistics brings the troops to this point; Grand Tactics decides the manner of execution and the employment of the troops. (p.62)

This introduction ends with the "Fundamental Principle of War" (pp.63-64) - basically: git thar firstest with the mostest.

The remainder of Chap III is captioned "Of Strategic Operations" (p.65) and is following by Arts. XVI-XXIX, which are expressly concerned witn operations.

Chap IV is titled "Grand Tactics and Battles" and continues in more specifics in Chap VII, “Of the Formation of Troops for Battle, and the Separate or Combined Use of the Three Arms"; again defining Grand Tactics:

Grand Tactics is the art of making good combinations preliminary to battles, as well as during their progress, The guiding principle in tactical combinations, as in those of startegy, is to bring the mass of the force in hand against a part of the opposing army, and upon that point the possession of which promises the most important results. (p.161)

Chap V is titled "Of Several Mixed Operations, Which Are in Character Partly Strategical and Partly Tactical".

The foregoing establishes that Jomini separated Strategy (including Operations) from Tactics (where Grand Tactics consisted of tactical combinations); knew Mixed Operations (Strategical-Tactical); and knew Logistics which supported both Strategy and Tactics depending on the context. His "operational art" (which was well developed in his system) was part of his strategical construct, except in a limited number of "Mixed Operations" (where "the execution of which belongs to tactics, the conception and arrangement to strategy"; see p.62).

Regards

Mike

[M.L.]

As I think has been obvious, my interest in this topic is historical and in the 19th century texts (CvC, Jomini, Mahan, Halleck, Bigelow, as examples). I don't have the professional competence to judge what "operational warfare" and the "operational level of war" are or are not in the present-day; or whether the present-day usage of those terms (obviously replete in US manuals) is good, bad or indifferent.

What I do see in the 19th century is replete with references to the planning and execution of operations and campaigns - and a very rich vocabulary (of what I would call "terms of art") dealing with operations and campaigns; as well as something of a hierarchy of divisions (e.g., theatre of war, theatre(s) of operations, zone(s) of operations).

What are the "vestiges" of "operational warfare" in the Napoleonic era as you see those "vestiges" ? If those "vestiges" exist, they are not readily apparent to me. I see a very well developed "operational art" in what I've read (cited above); but I do not see "operational warfare" and the "operational level of war" until into the 20th century - e.g., Fuller as cited by the Brit LTG in his article.

Regards

Mike

Mike,

I agree that the operational level as we know it emerged in WWI, specifically 1916-18, as the combined arms battlefield.

However, some of what we now lump into operational warfare did emerge during the Napoleonic wars. The French Revolution gave rise to a new era in warfare in the sense that virtually all the resources of the state were mobilized for war. Among the many impacts of this change, two seem salient here. First, it broadened the necessary scope of strategy (to include non-military considerations, such as a state's economic base). Second, it gave rise to huge land forces, and as you say, the rough outlines of modern command echelons began to emerge.

This meant commanders had to coordinate the activities of large units which were not necessarily collocated, and perhaps even in multiple theaters (think US civil war). Furthermore, these activities had to be linked to broader strategic objectives related not just to military means, but to the state itself, as well as the people of the state.

The operational level did not emerge suddenly and totally in the early 1800s, nor did it do so in 1918. Rather, it emerged over a long period of time between Napoleon and WWI. Certainly, it continues to evolve, but the combined arms battlefield of 1918 is not too much different from, say, Desert Storm in 1991.