Accession Number:

ADA516157

Title:

Strategy and the Operational Level of War: Part II

Descriptive Note:

Journal article

Corporate Author:

ARMY WAR COLL CARLISLE BARRACKS PA

Personal Author(s):

• Jablonsky, David

Report Date:

1987-01-01

Pagination or Media Count:

17.0

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.

Descriptors:

• *MILITARY OPERATIONS
• *MILITARY STRATEGY
• *MILITARY ART
• DECISION MAKING
• DEFENSE SYSTEMS
• THREATS
• MILITARY DOCTRINE
• BATTLEFIELDS
• SECURITY
• HISTORY
• ADVERSE CONDITIONS
• RESOURCES
• MILITARY COMMANDERS
• UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
• NATIONAL SECURITY
• POLICIES
• WARFARE

Subject Categories:

• Military Operations, Strategy and Tactics

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE