If operational art is as important to successful war fighting as our leaders and schools say it is, and if operational art is to be learned in the manner that it is now being taught, then I believe, as the saying goes, "You can't get there from here." There is no criticism intended. On the contrary, the reintroduction, after many years in the closet, of operational art and the concept of an operational level of war points to a renaissance in the Army's attention to warfighting doctrine. Nowhere is the renaissance more pronounced than in the curricula of our staff and war colleges and in the pages of our professional journals. One has only to look at the tables of contents of recent journals to see the proliferation of thoughtful, challenging, and in some cases visionary articles on the subjects of military strategy and doctrine.
If operational art is as important to successful war fighting as our leaders and schools say it is, and if operational art is to be learned in the manner that it is now being taught, then I believe, as the saying goes, "You can't get there from here." There is no criticism intended. On the contrary, the reintroduction, after many years in the closet, of operational art and the concept of an operational level of war points to a renaissance in the Army's attention to warfighting doctrine. Nowhere is the renaissance more pronounced than in the curricula of our staff and war colleges and in the pages of our professional journals. One has only to look at the tables of contents of recent journals to see the proliferation of thoughtful, challenging, and in some cases visionary articles on the subjects of military strategy and doctrine.
NOTE: NO FURTHER DISCOUNT FOR THIS PRINT PRODUCT--OVERSTOCK SALE -- Significantly reduced list price while supplies last Historical Perspectives of the Operational Art, a companion volume to Clayton R. Newell's and Michael D. Krause's On Operational Art, captures the doctrinal debate over the evolving concept of operational art-the critical link between strategy and tactics-in the face of the new complexities of warfare and the demands of irregular operations in the twenty-first century. Consisting of fifteen original essays selected and edited by Michael D. Krause in collaboration with R. Cody Phillips, the well-organized anthology presents the collective view of distinguished military historians and scholars that operational art must be adjusted to accommodate the changing circumstances happening around the world, especially when dealing with broad coalitions and alliances in regional environments and at an international level. Related products: The Rise of iWar: Identity, Information, and the Individualization of Modern Warfare can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01198-2 Yemen: A Different Political Paradigm in Context can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-070-00865-3 A Masterpiece of Counterguerrilla Warfare: BG J. Franklin Bell in the Philippines 1901-1902 is avaialble here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01000-5 Operational Culture for the Warfighter: Principles and Applications is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01061-7
The Army has recently adopted a new warfighting doctrine--AirLand Battle. Fundamental to this new doctrine is the concept of operational art. Historically, operational art is not new, but it has not been taught in more than thirty years and is, therefore, new to the current generation of Army officers. The Army has institutionalized a system to produce excellence in tactical warfighting, but no such system exists to produce excellence in operational warfighting. There is more to learning the operational art than voluntary reading programs, doing short case studies, and attending lectures. Operational art, like tactics, is learned only through practice--through experience. Detailed, systematic study of military history can provide such experience. The institutionalized operational excellence of the German General Staff prior to and during World War II seems to prove the methodology is valid. The author's personal experience and historical research attempt to show that this methodology is the only way to learn operational art in peacetime. A number of suggestions on how the Army might proceed with institutionalizing excellence in operational art are provided. (Author).
On Operations: Operational Art and Military Disciplines traces the history of the development of military staffs and ideas on the operational level of war and operational art from the Napoleonic Wars to today, viewing them through the lens of Prussia/Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States. B. A. Friedman concludes that the operational level of war should be rejected as fundamentally flawed, but that operational art is an accurate description of the activities of the military staff, an organization developed to provide the brainpower necessary to manage the complexity of modern military operations. Rather than simply serve as an intercession between levels, the military staff exists as an enabler and supporting organization to tacticians and strategists alike. On Operations examines the organization of military staffs, which has changed little since Napoleon’s time. Historical examinations of the functions staffs provided to commanders, and the disciplines of the staff officers themselves, leads to conclusions about how best to organize staffs in the future. Friedman demonstrates these ideas through case studies of historical campaigns based on the military discipline system developed.
One can argue that the development of true doctrine required the formal adoption of the concept of operational art. Prior to the Great War, no army in the world possessed a codified body of thought that enabled senior military commanders to visualize the aggregate effects of tactical engagements across time and space. By 1918, after a dramatic revision of drill regulations into something approaching true doctrine, the German army was furthest in realizing this goal. Ultimately, though, the Germans could not translate tactical success into strategic victory because they could not resource military operations in sufficient depth to render local successes decisive. Understanding that the character of warfare in 1918 was radically different from 1914 would have enabled Ludendorff to see the flaws in the MICHAEL offensives and perhaps mitigate them. And although the interwar German Army spent a great deal of effort reflecting on the lessons of 1914-1918, German understanding of the operational art remained incomplete. The separate and unequal Allied efforts against Nazi Germany in World War II, followed immediately by the superpower competition of the Cold War, created a significant gap in American officers' understand ing of the factors that contributed to Soviet victories on the Eastern Front. As a result, in the decades following the war the concept of "operational art" was recognized and adopted by the US Army almost as a proprietary creation. In the 1990s, however, Western military historians and theorists discovered that the Soviets had gotten there first. Bruce Menning's translation of Georgii Samoilovich Isserson's 1936 treatise The Evolution of Operational Art is the best example available of the distillation of Soviet military thought before the Second World War. Isserson, Tukhachevsky, Shaposhnikov, and others like them were founding members of a focused military Enlightenment whose goal was to change the way armies and leaders thought about war. Moreover, unlike contemporaries such as B.H. Liddell Hart or Billy Mitchell, they had the opportunity to build their ideas into the modem Soviet Army and see their doctrine survive despite the existential challenges of Stalin's purges and the German invasion.
This is a curated and comprehensive collection of the most important works covering matters related to national security, diplomacy, defense, war, strategy, and tactics. The collection spans centuries of thought and experience, and includes the latest analysis of international threats, both conventional and asymmetric. It also includes riveting first person accounts of historic battles and wars.Some of the books in this Series are reproductions of historical works preserved by some of the leading libraries in the world. As with any reproduction of a historical artifact, some of these books contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. We believe these books are essential to this collection and the study of war, and have therefore brought them back into print, despite these imperfections.We hope you enjoy the unmatched breadth and depth of this collection, from the historical to the just-published works.
The Basic Principles of Operational Art and Tactics was translated and published under the auspices of the United States Air Force. The original Russian edition was published by the Military Publishing House of the Ministry of Defense in the USSR.The author, Colonel Vasiliy Yefisovich Savkin, has served on the faculty of the Frunze Military Academy. As a candidate of Military Science he has written several military affairs articles and authored at least two earlier books.According to Soviet military theorists, operational art and tactics are two of the three components of military art. The third is strategy. Operational art is the connecting link between strategy and tactics, and is called on to work out the theory and practice of preparing and conducting contemporary operations. This book, focusing on operational art and tactics, does not deal with either doctrine, which represents the official Soviet view of the nature of a future war, or strategy, since the most important aspect of strategy is policy. In U.S. terms the book treats operations, tactics, laws of war and laws of armed conflict.
