The operational art of war series#

Scholarship on operational art generally falls into several categories that include current military theorists, schools of thought on the development of operational art, and campaign studies. Historians have largely overlooked the operational level of war, but to the extent it has been studied, there is a good deal of debate on when, how, and why operational art developed. The roots of modern operational art can be traced back to World War I in which the conduct of operations in three dimensions became necessary. During the interwar years, practitioners and theorists from several countries began to formalize theories of operational art.

The operational art of war series#

The armies were simply too large for single decisive battles to provide political results, and so campaigns designed to arrange a series of battles became necessary. By World War I, it was clear that single battles could not yield strategic results. During the Napoleonic Wars the aim of this maneuver was the pursuit of the decisive battle, such as Austerlitz and Waterloo.

The maneuver of large armies or multiple armies required commanders to orchestrate large-scale maneuvers in the theater of war. Strategy and tactics have long been studied and described, but the third level of war, the operational level, began to emerge only in the 19th century as nations began to field ever-larger armies. Operational art is inextricably linked to the planning and conduct of military campaigns in specific theaters of war, which distinguishes it from tactics and strategy. Operational art refers to the military commanderвЂ™s employment of force in a theater of operations to achieve strategic objectives. The art of warfare is practiced in three levels: the strategic, operational, and tactical.