Airland Battle Doctrinal Tenets in Operational Art: Do We Need an Output-Oriented Tenet that Focuses on the Enemy?

Abstract

The U.S. Army's AirLand Battle doctrine has contributed greatly toward codifying a comprehensive and widely accepted operational concept. With a new emphasis on fundamentals and principles, the essence of AirLand Battle doctrine is expressed in four tenets which are described as essential for success on the battlefield: initiative, agility, depth and synchronization. These tenets appear to provide guidance on how to conduct operations, rather than on what should be done to achieve victory. It also appears that this input- orientation may result in an omission that may be particularly important in operational art. The first essential requirement of operational art is to decided what military condition, or end state, must be produced to achieve the strategic goal. This study examines the tenets to determine if they adequately guide the conduct of operational art to achieve desired end states in terms of results required to cause defeat of the enemy.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 09, 1990
Accession Number
ADA234100

Entities

People

  • Gordon F. Atcheson

Organizations

  • United States Army Command and General Staff College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • C4I
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Active Defense
  • Bibliographies
  • Center Of Gravity
  • Classification
  • Command And Control
  • Doctrine
  • Geographic Regions
  • Identification
  • Maneuvers
  • Military Operations
  • National Security
  • Nato
  • Operating Systems
  • Security
  • Training
  • Training Management
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Military History / Militaries and War Studies