The father of Western modern strategic studies, Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831), defined military strategy as "the employment of battles to gain the end of war." B. H. Liddell Hart's definition put less emphasis on battles, defining strategy as "the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy". Hence, both gave the pre-eminence to political aims over military goals.

Sun Tzu (544-496 BC) is often considered as the father of Eastern military strategy and greatly influenced Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese historical and modern war tactics. The Art of War by Sun Tzu grew in popularity and saw practical use in Western society as well. It continues to influence many competitive endeavors in Asia, Europe, and America including culture, politics, and business, as well as modern warfare. The Eastern military strategy differs from the Western by focusing more on asymmetric warfare and deception.

Strategy differs from tactics, in that strategy refers to the employment of all of a nation's military capabilities through high level and long term planning, development and procurement to guarantee security or victory. Tactics is the military science employed to secure objectives defined as part of the military strategy; especially the methods whereby men, equipment, aircraft, ships and weapons are employed and directed against an enemy.

Fundamentals

Military strategy is the planning and execution of the contest between groups of armed adversaries. Strategy, which is a subdiscipline of warfare and of foreign policy, is a principal tool to secure national interests. It is larger in perspective than military tactics, which involves the disposition and maneuver of units on a particular sea or battlefield but less broad than grand strategy otherwise called national strategy, which is the overarching strategy of the largest of organizations such as the nation state, confederation, or international alliance and involves using diplomatic, informational, military and economic resources. Military strategy involves using military resources such as people, equipment, and information against the opponent's resources to gain supremacy or reduce the opponent's will to fight, developed through the precepts of military science.

NATO's definition of strategy is "presenting the manner in which military power should be developed and applied to achieve national objectives or those of a group of nations. Strategy may be divided into 'Grand Strategy', geopolitical in scope and 'military strategy' that converts the geopolitical policy objectives into militarily achievable goals and campaigns. Field Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff and co-chairman of the Anglo-US Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee for most of the Second World War, described the art of military strategy as: "to derive from the [policy] aim a series of military objectives to be achieved: to assess these objectives as to the military requirements they create, and the pre-conditions which the achievement of each is likely to necessitate: to measure available and potential resources against the requirements and to chart from this process a coherent pattern of priorities and a rational course of action." Field-Marshal Montgomery summed it up thus "Strategy is the art of distributing and applying military means, such as armed forces and supplies, to fulfil the ends of policy. Tactics means the dispositions for, and control of, military forces and techniques in actual fighting. Put more shortly: strategy is the art of the conduct of war, tactics the art of fighting."

Background

Military strategy in the 19th century was still viewed as one of a trivium of "arts" or "sciences" that govern the conduct of warfare; the others being tactics, the execution of plans and maneuvering of forces in battle, and logistics, the maintenance of an army. The view had prevailed since the Roman times, and the borderline between strategy and tactics at this time was blurred, and sometimes categorization of a decision is a matter of almost personal opinion. Carnot, during the French Revolutionary Wars thought it simply involved concentration of troops.

Strategy and tactics are closely related and exist on the same continuum, modern thinking places the operational level between them. All deal with distance, time and force but strategy is large scale, can endure through years, and is societal while tactics are small scale and involve the disposition of fewer elements enduring hours to weeks. Originally strategy was understood to govern the prelude to a battle while tactics controlled its execution. However, in the world wars of the 20th century, the distinction between maneuver and battle, strategy and tactics, expanded with the capacity of technology and transit. Tactics that were once the province of a company of cavalry would be applied to a panzer army.

It is often said that the art of strategies defines the goals to achieve in a military campaign, while tactics defines the methods to achieve these goals. Strategic goals could be "We want to conquer area X", or "We want to stop country Y's expansion in world trade in commodity Z"; while tactical decisions range from a general statement—e.g., "We're going to do this by a naval invasion of the North of country X", "We're going to blockade the ports of country Y", to a more specific "C Platoon will attack while D platoon provides fire cover".

In its purest form, strategy dealt solely with military issues. In earlier societies, a king or political leader was often the same person as the military leader. If not, the distance of communication between the political and the military leader was small. But as the need of a professional army grew, the bounds between the politicians and the military came to be recognized. In many cases, it was decided that there was a need for a separation.

As French statesman Georges Clemenceau said, "War is too important a business to be left to soldiers." This gave rise to the concept of the grand strategy which encompasses the management of the resources of an entire nation in the conduct of warfare. In the environment of the grand strategy, the military component is largely reduced to operational strategy—the planning and control of large military units such as corps and divisions. As the size and number of the armies grew and the technology to communicate and control improved, the difference between "military strategy" and "grand strategy" shrank. Fundamental to grand strategy is the diplomacy through which a nation might forge alliances or pressure another nation into compliance, thereby achieving victory without resorting to combat. Another element of grand strategy is the management of the post-war peace.

As Clausewitz stated, a successful military strategy may be a means to an end, but it is not an end in itself. There are numerous examples in history where victory on the battlefield has not translated into long term peace, security or tranquility.

Principles

Many military strategists have attempted to encapsulate a successful strategy in a set of principles. Sun Tzu defined 13 principles in his The Art of War while Napoleon listed 115 maxims. American Civil War General Nathan Bedford Forrest had only one: to "[get] there first with the most men". The concepts given as essential in the United States Army Field Manual of Military Operations (FM 3–0) are:

1. Objective (Direct every military operation towards a clearly defined, decisive, and attainable objective)
2. Offensive (Seize, retain, and exploit the initiative)
3. Mass (Concentrate combat power at the decisive place and time)
4. Economy of Force (Allocate minimum essential combat power to secondary efforts)
5. Maneuver (Place the enemy in a disadvantageous position through the flexible application of combat power)
6. Unity of Command (For every objective, ensure unity of effort under one responsible commander)
7. Security (Never permit the enemy to acquire an unexpected advantage)
8. Surprise (Strike the enemy at a time, at a place, or in a manner for which he is unprepared)
9. Simplicity (Prepare clear, uncomplicated plans and clear, concise orders to ensure thorough understanding)

According to Greene and Armstrong, some strategists assert adhering to the fundamental principles guarantees victory, while others claim war is unpredictable and the general must be flexible in formulating a strategy. Others argue predictability is low, but could be increased if experts were to perceive the situation from both sides in the conflict. Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke expressed strategy as a system of "ad hoc expedients" by which a general must take action while under pressure. These underlying principles of strategy have survived relatively unscathed as the technology of warfare has developed.

Strategy (and tactics) must constantly evolve in response to technological advances. A successful strategy from one era tends to remain in favor long after new developments in military weaponry and matériel have rendered it obsolete. World War I, and to a great extent the American Civil War, saw Napoleonic tactics of "offense at all costs" pitted against the defensive power of the trench, machine gun and barbed wire. As a reaction to her World War I experience, France entered World War II with a purely defensive doctrine, epitomized by the "impregnable" Maginot Line, but only to be completely circumvented by the German blitzkrieg in the Fall of France.

List of military strategies and concepts

Military strategies are methods of arranging and maneuvering large bodies of military forces during armed conflicts.

Offensive strategies

• Air superiority – Essential to a successful air campaign. It is achieved by 1) mastery of the air, 2) attacking the means of production, 3) maintain battle ourselves, 4) prevent the enemy from battle
• Attrition warfare – A strategy of wearing down the enemy to the point of collapse through continuous loss of personnel and material. Used to defeat enemies with low resources and high morale.
• Bait and bleed – to induce rival states to engage in a protracted war of attrition against each other "so that they bleed each other white", similar to the concept of divide and conquer
• Battle of annihilation – The goal of destroying the enemy military in a single planned pivotal battle
• Bellum se ipsum alet – A strategy of feeding and supporting an army with the potentials of occupied territories
• Blitzkrieg – An attack that uses concentrated force and rapid speed to break through enemy lines, named after the German World War II strategy meaning Lightning War
• Blockade / Siege / Investment – An attempt to cut off food, supplies, war material or communications from a particular area by force, usually taking place by sea
• Clear and hold – A counter-insurgency strategy
• Coercion – Compelling the enemy to involuntarily behave in a certain way by targeting the leadership, national communications, or political-economic centers
• Command of the sea – The naval equivalent of air superiority
• Counter-offensive – A strategic offensive taking place after the enemy's front line troops and reserves have been exhausted, and before the enemy has had the opportunity to assume new defensive positions. Tactic is usually implemented through surging at the enemy after their attack.
• Counterforce – A strategy used in nuclear warfare of targeting military infrastructure (as opposed to civilian targets)
• Countervalue – The opposite of counterforce; targeting of enemy cities and civilian populations. Used to distract the enemy.
• Decapitation – Achieving strategic paralysis by targeting political leadership, command and control, strategic weapons, and critical economic nodes
• Deception – A strategy that seeks to deceive, trick, or fool the enemy and create a false perception in a way that can be leveraged for a military advantage
• Denial – A strategy that seeks to destroy the enemy's ability to wage war
• Distraction – An attack by some of the force on one or two flanks, drawing up to a strong frontal attack by the rest of the force
• Encirclement – Both a strategy and tactic designed to isolate and surround enemy forces
• Ends, Ways, Means, Risk – Strategy is much like a three legged stool of ends, ways, means balanced on a plane of varying degree of risk
• Enkulette – A strategy used often in the jungle that aims at attacking the enemy from behind.
• Exhaustion – A strategy that seeks to erode the will or resources of a country
• Feint – To draw attention to another point of the battle where little or nothing is going on
• Flanking maneuver – Involves attacking the opponent from the side, or rear
• Guerrilla tactics – Involves ambushes on enemy troops. Usually used by insurgency.
• Heavy force – A counterinsurgency strategy that seeks to destroy an insurgency with overwhelming force while it is still in a manageable state
• Human wave attack – An unprotected frontal attack where the attacker tries to move as many combatants as possible into engaging close range combat with the defender
• Incentive – A strategy that uses incentives to gain cooperation
• Indirect approach – Dislocation is the aim of strategy. Direct attacks almost never work, one must first upset the enemy's equilibrium, fix weakness and attack strength, Eight rules of strategy: 1) adjust your ends to your means, 2) keep your object always in mind, 3) choose the line of the least expectation, 4) exploit the line of least resistance, 5) take the line of operations which offers the most alternatives, 6) ensure both plans and dispositions are flexible, 7) do not throw your weight into an opponent while he is on guard, 8) do not renew an attack along the same lines if an attack has failed
• Interior lines – Placing ones forces in between the enemy forces and attacking each in turn in order to allow ones forces to have better communications and allows one to mass all of ones forces against a part of the enemies
• Limited war – A war in which the survival of a nation is not at stake
• Penetration – A direct attack through enemy lines, then an attack on the rear once through
• Periclean strategy – The two basic principles of the "Periclean Grand Strategy" were the rejection of appeasement (in accordance with which he urged the Athenians not to revoke the Megarian Decree) and the avoidance of overextension
• Persisting strategy – A strategy that seeks to destroy the means by which the enemy sustains itself
• Pincer ambush – A "U"-shaped attack with the sides concealed and the middle held back until the enemy advances, at which point the concealed sides ambush them
• Pincer maneuver – Allowing the enemy to attack the center, sometimes in a charge, then attacking the flanks of the charge
• Punishment – A strategy that seeks to push a society beyond its economic and physiological breaking point
• Rapid Decisive Operations – Compelling the adversary to undertake certain actions or denying the adversary the ability to coerce or attack others.
• Raiding – Attacking with the purpose of removing the enemy's supply or provisions
• Refusing the flank – Holding back one side of the battle line to keep the enemy from engaging with that flank. The refused flank is held by smallest force necessary to hold out against the enemy's attack while concentrating the main battle force against the enemies center or other flank
• Separation of insurgents – A counterinsurgency strategy should first seek to separate the enemy from the population, then deny the enemy reentry, and finally execute long enough to deny the insurgent access
• Scorpion attack – A pincer attack that is supplemented by an air strike
• Shape, Clear, Hold, Build – The counterinsurgency theory that states the process of winning an insurgency is shape, clear, hold, build
• Siege – Continuous attack by bombardment on a fortified position, usually by artillery
• Shock and awe – A military doctrine using overwhelming power to try and achieve rapid dominance over the enemy
• Swarming – Military swarming involves the use of a decentralized force against an opponent, in a manner that emphasizes mobility, communication, unit autonomy and coordination/synchronization.
• Theater strategy – Concepts and courses of action directed toward securing the objectives of national and multinational policies and strategies through the synchronized and integrated employment of military forces and other instruments of national power
• Total war – War in which a nation's survival is at stake
• Troop surge – deploying a large number of troops into theatre in order to overcome resistance
• Turning maneuver – An attack that penetrates the enemy's flank, then curls into its rear to cut it off from home
• Win without fighting – Sun Tzu argued that a brilliant general was one that could win without killing anybody

Defensive strategies

• Boxing maneuver – A strategy used to "box in" and force an attack on all sides at once
• Choke point – A use of strategic geography, usually in a narrow area, intended to concentrate the enemy into a confined area where the defender can maximize his forces
• Defence in depth – A strategy to delay rather than prevent the advance of the attackers by buying time and causing additional casualties by yielding space so that the momentum of the attack is lost and the attacking force can be attacked on its flanks
• Elastic Defense - A strategy to flexibly absorb then repel the advance of attackers through carefully planned integrated fighting positions, perfected by the German Army in WWI
• Fortification – A semi-permanent or permanent defensive structure that gives physical protection to a military unit
• Fabian strategy – Wearing down the enemy by using attrition warfare and indirection, while avoiding pitched battles or frontal assaults. Named after Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus in his defense against Carthage. See Pyrrhic warfare
• Military district – An area controlled by a military force, for administrative purposes rather than combat. Also known as Wehrkreis in German
• Scorched earth – Destroying anything that might be of use to the enemy while retreating, or advancing
• Turtling – Continuous reinforcement of the military front until it has reached its full strength, then an attack with the now-superior force
• Withdrawal – A retreat of forces while maintaining contact with the enemy

Military Tactics

Military tactics are the science and art of organizing a military force, and the techniques for combining and using weapons and military units to engage and defeat an enemy in battle. Changes in philosophy and technology have been reflected in changes to military tactics. In contemporary military science, tactics are the lowest of three planning levels: (i) strategic, (ii) operational, and (iii) tactical. The highest level of planning is strategy: how force is translated into political objectives by bridging the means and ends of war. The intermediate level, operational, the conversion of strategy into tactics, deals with formations of units. In the vernacular, tactical decisions are those made to achieve the greatest immediate value; strategic decisions are those made to achieve the greatest overall value, irrespective of the immediate results of a tactical decision.

Concept

Military tactics answer the questions of how best to deploy and employ forces on a small scale. Some practices have not changed since the dawn of warfare: assault, ambushes, skirmishing, turning flanks, reconnaissance, creating and using obstacles and defenses, etc. Using ground to best advantage has not changed much either. Heights, rivers, swamps, passes, choke points, and natural cover, can all be used in multiple ways. Before the nineteenth century, many military tactics were confined to battlefield concerns: how to maneuver units during combat in open terrain. Nowadays, specialized tactics exist for many situations, for example for securing a room in a building.

Technological changes can render existing tactics obsolete, and sociological changes can shift the goals and methods of warfare, requiring new tactics. Tactics define how soldiers are armed and trained. Thus technology and society influence the development of types of soldiers or warriors through history: Greek Hoplite, Roman Legionary, Medieval Knight, Turk-Mongol Horse Archer, Chinese Crossbowman, or an Air Cavalry trooper. Each – constrained by his weaponry, logistics and social conditioning – would use a battlefield differently, but would usually seek the same outcomes from their use of tactics. The First World War forced great changes in tactics as advances in technology rendered prior tactics useless.

General tactics

• Exploiting prevailing weather – the tactical use of weather as a force multiplier has influenced many important battles throughout history, such as the Battle of Waterloo.
• Fire attacks – reconnaissance by fire is used by apprehensive soldiers when they suspect the enemy is nearby.
• Force concentration – the practice of concentrating a military force against a portion of an enemy force.
• Night combat – combat that takes place at night. It often requires more preparation than combat during daylight and can provide significant tactical advantages and disadvantages to both the attacker and defender.
• Reconnaissance – a mission to obtain information by visual observation or other detection methods, about the activities and resources of the enemy or potential enemy, or about the meteorologic, hydrographic, or geographic characteristics of a particular area.
• Smoke screening - the practice of creating clouds of smoke positioned to provide concealment, allowing military forces to advance or retreat across open terrain without coming under direct fire from the enemy.

Small unit tactics

The use of suppressive fire is a key part of modern small unit tactics

• Individual movement techniques
  • Fire and movement (also known as leapfrogging) – working in 'fire teams', one team attempts to suppress the enemy while the other moves either toward the enemy or to a more favourable position.
  • Basic drill – a standard drill that all individual soldiers are supposed to perform if they come under fire.
  • Contact drill
  • Immediate ambush drill
  • Counter ambush drill
• Hull-down (in armored warfare)
• Shoot-and-scoot
• Infiltration tactics
• Marching fire
  • Four Fs: find, fix, flank, finish
  • Overwatch
    • Bounding overwatch
  • Center peel
• Patrolling
  • Reconnaissance patrol
  • Fighting patrol
  • Standing patrol (OP/LP)
• Ambush
  • Linear ambush
  • L ambush
  • Area ambush
• Guerrilla

Eight classical maneuvers of warfare

1. the creation of a gap in the enemy line and its exploitation. Two ways of accomplishing this are separating enemy forces and using a reserve to exploit the gap that forms between them (e.g. Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC), the first recorded use of the penetration of the center) or having fast, elite forces smash at a specific point in the enemy line (an enemy weak spot or an area where your elites are at their best in striking power) and, while reserves and holding forces hold your opponent, drive quickly and immediately for the enemy's command or base (i.e., blitzkrieg).
2. Battle of Issus, a classic example of the single envelopment
3. Attack from a defensive position: Establishing a strong defensive position from which to defend and attack your opponent. However, the defensive can become too passive and result in ultimate defeat (e.g., Siege of Alesia and the Battle of the Granicus).
4. Battle of Maling, the earliest known use of the feigned retreat
5. Single envelopment: A strong flank beating its opponent opposite and, with the aid of holding attacks, attack an opponent in the rear. Sometimes, the establishment of a strong, hidden force behind a weak flank will prevent your opponent from carrying out their own single envelopment (e.g., Battle of Rocroi).
6. Double envelopment: Both flanks defeat their opponent opposite and launch a rear attack on the enemy center. Its most famous use was Hannibal's tactical masterpiece, the Battle of Cannae and was frequently used by the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front of World War II.
7. Attack in oblique order: This involves placing your flanks in a slanted fashion (refusing one's flank) or giving a vast part of your force to a single flank (e.g., Battle of Leuthen). The latter can be disastrous, however, due to the imbalance of force.
8. Feigned retreat: Having a frontal force fake a retreat, drawing the opponent in pursuit and then launching an assault with strong force held in reserve (such as the Battle of Maling) and the Battle of Hastings). However, a feigned retreat may devolve into a real one, such as in the Battle of Grunwald.
9. Indirect approach: Having a minority of your force demonstrate in front of your opponent while the majority of your force advance from a hidden area and attack the enemy in the rear or flank (e.g., Battle of Chancellorsville).
10. Crossing the "T": a classic naval maneuver which maximizes one side's offensive firepower while minimizing that of the opposing force.

Offensive tactics

The cavalry charge is a quintessential offensive military tactic

• Charge
  • Highland charge
• Ambush
• Skirmish
• Trench raiding
• Peaceful penetration
• Rapid dominance
  • Blitzkrieg – a method of warfare whereby an attacking force is spearheaded by a dense concentration of armoured and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, and heavily backed up by close air support.
  • Carpet bombing – also known as saturation bombing, is a large aerial bombing done in a progressive manner to inflict damage in every part of a selected area of land.
  • Human wave attack
  • Shock tactics
  • Swarming (military)
• Planned attack
  • Use of supporting fire
  • Indirect fire support
  • Base of fire
  • Flying wedge (used by Alexander the Great)
  • Armoured spearhead
  • Encirclement
  • Hammer and anvil
  • Inverted wedge
  • Frontal assault
  • Holding attack – to hold the enemy in position while other offensive or defensive activity takes place
  • Penetration or infiltration
  • Pincer movement – an army assaults an enemy by attacking two sides at opposite locations, often planning to cut off the enemy from retreat or additional support in preparation for annihilation.
  • Bull horn formation – an army assaults an enemy force by sending troops to the enemy's flanks and by attacking their front attacking three areas at once, often planning to cut off any retreat or support as well as confusing the enemy in preparation for annihilation.
  • Flanking maneuver
• Interdiction – severing or disrupting lines of communication and supply
  • Air interdiction
• Control MSR (main supply routes)
• Envelopment tactics
  • Circumvallation
  • Finnish motti tactics
  • Siege (For attacking fortified places)
  • Vertical envelopment
    • Airborne forces
    • Air mobile forces
• Rapid deployment
  • Capturing key points
  • Airborne operations
  • Air mobile operations
  • Amphibious operations
  • Motorized operations
  • Tank desant
  • Mechanized operations
  • Armored operations
  • Raiding – a small team is inserted deep behind enemy lines to capture a high-value individual or destroy a vital enemy installation then extracted before the enemy can respond.
• Decapitation strike
• Preemptive war
• Disrupting communications
  • Electronic countermeasures
  • Radar jamming
  • Radio jamming

Defensive tactics

Defensive trenches were used commonly during World War I

• Basic principles
  • Defence in depth
  • Mutual support (e.g., by crossfire)
  • Echelon formation
  • Phalanx formation
  • All round defence
  • Force dispersal
  • Fire trap
  • Ambush
• Fighting withdrawal
  • Reserved demolitions
  • Scorched earth
  • Booby traps
    • Minefields
  • Trench warfare
• Counter attack
  • Breakout
  • Counter battery fire
  • Rapid reaction force
• Delaying defence
  • Break contact
• Hedgehog defence
  • military bottleneck
• Pakfront
• Fortification
  • Field works (entrenchments)
    • Over head protection
    • Revetting
    • Sangars
    • Shell scrapes
    • Foxholes
    • Manholes
    • Spider holes
  • Strong points
• Use and improvement of terrain
  • High ground
  • Protection
  • Natural barriers – e.g., rivers
  • Reverse slope defence
  • Obstacles and barriers – man made
    • Barbed wire
    • Anti-vehicle ditches
    • Anti-vehicle berms (knife edges)
• Multiple axis of movement

Deception

A mounted archer of the Ming Dynasty Army fires a parthian shot

• Deception and misdirection
  • Deception: Sun Tzu said that all war is based on deception back in the 4th century BC; a wise commander takes measures to let his opponent only react to the wrong circumstances. Diversionary attacks, feints, decoys; there are thousands of tricks that have been successfully used, and still have a role in the future.
    • Perfidy: Combatants tend to have assumptions and ideas of rules and fair practices in combat, but the ones who raise surrender flags to lure their attackers in the open, or who act as stretcher bearers to deceive their targets, tend to be especially disliked.
    • False flag: An ancient ruse de guerre – in the days of sail, it was permissible for a warship to fly the flag of an enemy power, so long as it properly hoisted its true colors before attacking. Wearing enemy uniforms and using enemy equipment to infiltrate or achieve surprise is also permissible though they can be punished as spies if caught behind enemy lines.
  • Military camouflage
  • Stealth technology
  • Disinformation
  • Feint or diversionary attacks
  • Electronic warfare
  • Electronic countermeasures
    • Electronic counter-countermeasures
    • Radio silence – while traveling, a fleet will refrain from communicating by radio to avoid detection by enemy forces.
  • Force multiplication
• Use of surprise
  • Parthian shot
  • Hit-and-run tactics
  • Irregular warfare

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