Strategy and the Operational Level of War: Part II
Abstract
In Part I, in our Spring 1987 issue, Colonel Jablonsky examined the interplay between the operational and strategic levels of war, observing that the strategic is governing because all battlefield endeavor is ultimately subservient to it. He surveyed historical mismatches between strategic ends and operational means, and highlighted the adverse results when operational resourcing falls short. In American defense thought, national strategy concerns the coordinated employment of the total national resources to achieve national objectives and is rarely found in a single document. When the focus is narrowed to the security of the nation and these resources are marshaled to satisfy national security interests, the result is national security policy, which has appeared during the Reagan Administration in the form of National Security Decision Directives. It is national security policy that determines national military strategy, the primary concern of the operational commanders, since it involves the "art and science of employing the armed forces of a nation to secure the objectives of national policy by the application of force, or the threat of force."
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1987
- Accession Number
- ADA516157
Entities
People
- David Jablonsky
Organizations
- United States Army War College