Alien: How Operational Art Devoured Strategy
Abstract
There was a time when the world had no need for operational art, a time when sovereigns led their armies in the field and where the yoking of war to politics was their personal undertaking. It was the sovereign who chose whether or not to fight, where to fight, how long to fight, and it was they who were constantly balancing opportunities and threats, risks and returns, costs and benefits. In the era of "strategies of a single point," the connections between tactics and statecraft were immediate and intimate. As modern states emerged, their economic and social organization enabled them to deploy and sustain armies of ever increasing size. Big armies needed more space, and the theater of operations grew along with them. This increasingly removed the actions of those armies from the direct scrutiny of the sovereign, and the connection between war and politics became unacceptably stretched.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA506962
Entities
People
- Justin Kelly
- Mike Brennan
Organizations
- United States Army War College