The Levels of War

The Levels of War


Extract from: Red Blitzkreig, Volume 1 by Breaker McCoyThe differences between tactics and operational art are best understood by first comparing each concept’s definition: "...Tactics are concerned with the physical destruction of the enemy’s front-line troops, up to a depth of about fifty kilometers, which embraces his forward divisions’ reserves. Operational Art is concerned with the disruption of the enemy’s overall cohesion on a much larger scale; depriving him of the ability to react to changes in the situation, preventing him from accomplishing his aims and breaking up his organization and control of higher formations. Destruction of large enemy groupings is achieved as a result of the disruption of his plans, timetables and ability to organize over a wide area and in great depth (i.e. 300-500 kilometers). It is not merely a matter of seeking and fighting battles..." Loyal to every principle of Operational Art, the Red Army eschews all unnecessary battles. Victory, not battle, is what they seek. Today, as in World War II: "... Soviet formations do not move in order to fight, as their NATO counterparts do; rather, they fight in order to be able to move. This is one of the main reasons why they do not consider the sacrifice of tactical flexibility to gain operational flexibility and speed to be unduly dangerous." The Levels Of War . • Strategic: Overall war plan and direction that might be applied to separate theaters of war (i.e. large geographic divisions where either independent or multiple army groups are deployed), or strategic directions. Operational Art is responsive to strategic dictates.• Operational: The arena where campaigns are plan and led in order to achieve theater goals. Such objectives require the practice of Operational Art, the essence of maneuver warfare. Operational Art requires the integration of tactical efforts into major operations, subsets of campaigns, and campaigns. Force employed at this level ranges from combined arms reinforced corps to several armies or army groups. Campaigns are mixes of deception, maneuver, battles, and pursuit.• Tactical: The building blocks of campaigns where small corps, divisions and below, fight engagements, subsets of battle, and battles.