Politics, Strategy and Tactics: Rethinking the Levels of War

Journal Edition

The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose. Carl von Clausewitz1

Abstract

The ‘levels of war’ is a doctrinal construct which describes the way political objectives are translated into military strategies which in turn guide tactical actions. Or at least that is what it should be. The operational level has been expanded and redefined over the last century by writers of Western doctrine. Unfortunately, the distinctions between levels are now blurred and unnecessarily complex, and instead of illuminating a logical thread from political direction to military strategy and tactical action, the current definitions of the levels of war arguably obscure its logic. Furthermore, the terminology is prone to confusion with other ‘operational’ concepts like operational echelons of command and operational theatres. This has grave consequences for the way military professionals define and therefore think about warfare. This article directly challenges contemporary definitions of the levels of war and proposes instead a simple and coherent construct where levels are clearly distinguished according to their functions, objectives 48

and characteristics. In this way readers are reminded that war is a political instrument, shaped by strategy and executed by tactics.

Impetus to Change Our Thinking

As Clausewitz famously explained (see above), to be successful, military actions must be aimed at a political objective and must not be considered in isolation from this central purpose. This timeless reminder stresses the necessarily coherent logic of warfare as an agent of change, with military force employed to achieve a political objective. If this tenet is ignored or poorly implemented, nations may find themselves locked in wars with absent or loosely defined political objectives, in which military professionals are asked to solve political problems without a clearly defined political objective driving the strategy. To understand the link between military and political objectives, we rely on foundational doctrinal concepts such as the levels of war. How we define these levels provides the foundation for our understanding of warfare and how we prosecute it.

Warfare, in a holistic sense, comprises both political and military actions, and does not exclusively refer to the execution of tactical actions or battles. It has long been codified as belonging to hierarchical levels using terms like ‘politics,’ ‘strategy’, ‘tactics’ and more recently ‘operations’. This article challenges contemporary thinking about these levels, with particular focus on discussing why the levels exist and what purpose they serve. The article will outline weaknesses of the existing definitions and recommend a simple and coherent redefinition of these foundational terms which frame our understanding of war. These definitions are important as they shape the way that war is understood, planned and executed. Evolving our conceptualisation of warfare and how it is waged is worth careful consideration and offers valuable insight into how our military will come to understand modern warfare.

Problems with the Levels of War

While the levels of war are well known, their definition has altered over time. In Clausewitz’s day, the purely martial levels of war were commonly accepted to be ‘strategy’ and ‘tactics’. Above these, and specifically ‘non-military’ in nature, the ‘political’ level of war was the highest level. Since that 49

time, however, the levels of war have been redefined and are commonly defined as strategic, operational and tactical. The political level is noticeably absent and an intermediary ‘operational level’ overlaps and bridges a perceived gap between the strategic and tactical levels.

Current Australian doctrine consequently struggles to explain coherently the rationale for these levels.2 Definitions of the strategic level reflect the confused and blurred roles and nature of its functions.3 The flow-on effects of this confusion are pervasive. Strategy is no longer considered to be exclusively martial in nature, and has encompassed or displaced the political level, which is not included in Australian land doctrine. Likewise, many of the martial functions and characteristics of the strategic level have been assumed by the ‘operational level’, which overlaps with and ‘joins’ the strategic level to the tactical level. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) levels of war can thus be depicted as in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The current ‘levels of war’

Figure 1 (created by the author) attempts to depict the overlapping and blurred relationship between the three levels as currently described in Australian Army doctrine. Land Warfare Doctrine 1: The Fundamentals of Land Power states that the levels of war are ‘blurred’,4 and of warfare that ‘… its practice cannot be defined into discrete levels’.5 Figure 1 also depicts how the operational level bridges a perceived gap between strategy and tactics, and furthermore shows how it overlaps and blurs with the levels above and below. The operational level has undefined boundaries, and its

(Political strategic)

Strategic level

(Military strategic)

Military ‘Operations’

Operational level

Perceived gap

Tactical level 50

definition in doctrine is sufficiently vague as to require significant explanation to justify its existence. Finally, Figure 1 shows the common confusion between the ‘operational level of war’ and military ‘operations’, a function which this article suggests is clearer to conceptualise as traversing the levels of war.

How then do the ‘levels of war’ help us to understand war, if doctrinal definitions cannot distinguish clearly between the levels? There are other important logical questions which emerge and deserve to be answered: What purpose do the levels serve if they cannot be defined as discrete levels? Is it helpful to have overlapping levels of war as our doctrine suggests? Why should hierarchical echelons of a military organisation be defined as belonging to a level of war? Have improvements in command and control technologies rendered intermediary levels of war irrelevant? How might doctrinal levels of war illuminate a logical thread from political objective to tactical execution? This article will help answer these questions by suggesting how Australian doctrine might better define the levels of war.

To do so, this article will examine the logic of distinctions between, and definitions of, the levels of war according to their functions, objectives and characteristics. It will examine the link between strategy and tactics, challenge the rationale for having an operational level, and examine functions which traverse the levels of war. It will conclude by suggesting an alternative concept for these foundational terms in Australian doctrine which the author hopes might progress the professional military discussion and debate on this subject. The article will begin with a brief analysis of the levels as described in current doctrine.

If Strategists Are Engaging in Politics, Who Is Devising Strategy?

When conceptualising war in ‘levels’, the lack of a political level of war which encompasses the characteristics, functions and objectives of the whole of government is concerning. The logical thread from political objective to tactical action is immediately lost. As a result of the absence of a political level, the strategic level has assumed certain political functions. This led our doctrinal concept of strategy to have a dual mission. This invites the question: If strategists are setting political objectives then who is devising strategies to achieve them? What has happened to the strategic level?51

The strategic level is often subdivided into two sub-levels in modern Western doctrine: ‘political strategic’ and ‘military strategic’ as depicted earlier in Figure 1. This division attempts to reconcile the duality of the currently defined strategic level of war which evidently has two different functions, each with distinct objectives and characteristics. The [political] strategic level is where policies and political objectives are determined, which in turn will direct the employment of national power (including military action) to achieve national objectives. The [military] strategic level is where military force options are defined and strategic level direction and resourcing are provided to the subordinate ‘operational’ level. This combined role of defining the political objectives and conceiving a military ‘strategy’ to achieve these objectives, shows the unnecessarily complicated and awkward duality of functions for commanders or headquarters at the ‘strategic level’ as currently defined.

This awkwardness is arguably symptomatic of the broadening of the term ‘strategy’. In his collected works On War, Clausewitz consistently referred to the ‘political’ and the ‘strategic’ as two different levels with distinct functions, characteristics and objectives. The political level had a distinctively political and civil character and was responsible for directing the holistic mobilisation of national power, expressing political constraints, and determining clear political objectives. By contrast, the strategic level had a distinctly martial nature and was involved with developing strategies to realise those political objectives in cooperation with the other instruments of national power. It thus seems logical and helpful to uncouple the political and military strategic levels and make them two distinct levels. The first recommendation of this article, therefore, is to separate the political strategic and military strategic sub-levels of the strategic level of war and redefine them simply as the ‘political’ and ‘strategic’ levels of war.

The strategic level of war would henceforth have a distinctly military character and would be where political objectives and guidance are translated into military strategies. These strategies would be expressed in force preparedness directives, campaigns and strategic directives to subordinate tactical forces, who would then be aligned to political objectives with a clearly defined military end-state. This level will logically be responsible for the allocation of strategic resources (strategic logistics), ensuring force preparedness in accordance with political guidance for potential missions (strategic contingency planning), and providing advice to political leaders on military capacity and force development (strategic advice). Importantly, it also 52

includes the orchestration of military activities with whole-of-government initiatives: synchronising military efforts with those of the other instruments of national power6 towards the political end-state. The military would thus reclaim strategy and be responsible for strategies which re-illuminate the logical thread between political objectives and tactical actions.

Having clarified the distinctions between the political and strategic levels, with distinct functions, objectives and characteristics, it is clear that these same distinctions are currently blurred between the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war. These distinctions will be addressed in the next section.

Tearing off the ‘Operational Bandaid’

Army doctrine tells us that ‘… the operational level achieves military strategic objectives by orchestrating, sequencing and resourcing tactical actions and efforts’,7 and defines ‘campaigning’ and ‘operational art’ as its processes. What, however, is the benefit of defining an additional level of war between the strategic and tactical levels? Is there really still a gap between strategy and tactics that needs to be bridged? Doesn’t this intermediary and overlapping level duplicate functions conducted at the strategic and tactical levels? Does the naming of this level create confusion with other terms like ‘operational theatres’ and ‘operational status of equipment or forces’ or with command relationships such as ‘operational control’ and ‘operational command’? This section will investigate these questions and critically discuss the ongoing relevance of an ‘operational’ level of war.

The operational level of war was initially developed in response to the challenges of controlling mass conscript armies on dispersed battlefields of the Napoleonic era,8 and was further evolved as modern mass armies equipped with the arms of an industrial revolution.9 The complexity and scale of warfare outpaced technological developments in command and control, and intermediary command structures were developed as a ‘bandaid’ to bridge a perceived gap between the strategic commander and the lower tactical commanders who executed orders. These commanders did not have distinct functions, objectives and characteristics from their superiors, and were really just a command and control echelon.

The operational level concept evolved and experienced further growth in the 20th century, notably by Russian military thinkers10 who conceived of up to 53

five levels of war in order to breach the technological command and control gap for large-scale, dispersed warfare.11 American doctrine followed with operational concepts focusing on manoeuvre and technological integration, such as ‘Air Land Battle’ and more recently ‘Multi Domain Battle’.12 These doctrinal concepts can be understood without an operational level of war overlapping the strategic and tactical levels. They offer ‘time-stamped’, ‘situation specific’ answers to the same question: How will military forces participate in achieving political objectives? An intermediary ‘operational’ level of war seems to be only distinguished from the tactical level by scale, by the size of the echelon, or by the grouping of tactical actions into a campaign. However, this raises an important question: What justifies the distinction of a ‘level of war’?

Russian military thinker Alexander Andreyevich Svechin described tactics as the steps that make an operational leap possible, while strategy points the way.13 This compilation of tactical ‘steps’ into an operational ‘leap’ is depicted in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Operations as campaigns

Within this concept, operations, as a collection of tactical actions, are not logically depicted as a level, but rather as a collection or sequence. This correlates with the idea of ‘campaigning’; yet, while there is a reference to campaigning in the definition of the operational level of war, the only explanation for how an operational level links tactical actions with strategy is through the idea of operational art which ‘[sequences] tactical actions to achieve abstract strategic ends’.14 This demonstrates a confusion of terminology between campaign planning and levels of war. Campaigns could instead be considered as a series of tactical operations which are aimed and enabled by strategies towards a specific political objective, as contrasted with an abstract strategic end. They are logically tactical in nature, yet their sequencing, resourcing and support are strategic in nature. The concept of campaigning is still valuable, yet best understood as a strategic function. Vague terms like ‘operational art’ and ‘operational planning’ could simply be

Strategy

Operations (Campaigns)

Tactics

Tactics54

replaced with the more obvious and unambiguous ‘campaign planning’ or perhaps just ‘strategy’.

The combination of having an operational level between strategic and tactical levels of war, and the tendency to define headquarters according to a level of war has led to the creation of ‘operational level headquarters’.15 Is it too cynical to suggest that these headquarters needed to define roles and functions that justified their existence? This resulted in the gradual replacement of (military) strategic planning by anything prefixed with the word ‘operational’, which arguably blurred relationships between political objectives, strategies, campaigns and tactical actions. Furthermore, ‘confusing tactical success with progress towards strategic objectives’16 and ‘confusing winning campaigns [with] winning wars’17 have been identified as two reasons for failure to achieve strategic or political victory in Afghanistan.18 US Lieutenant Colonel Echevarria, writing about the American ‘Way of War’ or ‘Way of Battle’, summarises this by stating that the US military ‘tends to [avoid] … the complicated process of turning military triumphs, whether on the scale of major campaigns [strategy] or small-unit actions [tactics], into strategic successes [achieving the political objective]’.19 It might be fair to say the same of the ADF. This brings us to the lowest level of war, the tactical level.

The tactical level does not need to change much. It remains concerned with force-preparation for missions, the creation of tactical plans to execute ‘strategic’ campaigns, and the execution and tactical control of these missions. New battle management systems and communications capacities have given strategic commanders significantly improved situational awareness and even the tempting ability to influence tactical decisions directly, sometimes known as the ‘strategic screwdriver’. The reverse is also true, as shown by the well-known concept of the ‘strategic corporal’ whose actions and decisions have strategic and even political consequences. The distinction of whether a unit is strategic or tactical level should not be defined by the rank of a commander or the size of a force but by whether the force is executing plans and manoeuvre, or whether it is planning, synchronising and resourcing them at the higher ‘strategic’ level. In this context an intermediate level between strategy and tactics adds bureaucracy, slows down decision cycles, and makes headquarters larger and more numerous. It contradicts potential benefits of having 55

modern networked armies with common operating pictures and real-time communications.

In contrast, defining logical distinctions between the levels of war means it is no longer necessary to accept the so-called ‘inevitable blurring of the levels of war’.20 By reducing the levels of war to the classic three (political, strategic and tactical), bureaucracy and duplication can be reduced and military decision-making can accelerate. This change will furthermore promote the return of ‘strategy’ to a position of importance in military training and planning. It will remove the ambiguity and confusion surrounding the link between the strategic and tactical levels of war. Finally, it will emphasise the responsibility of the political level to establish clear political objectives and policies for whole-of-government efforts, including military efforts.

Levels of War are Not Organisational Echelons

The distinction between the levels of war should not be confused with distinctions between different-sized military echelons and formations (as seen in the 20th century Russian doctrine) or by the rank of their respective commanders. Equally, there is no longer a technological command and control gap which would necessitate the creation of an intermediary level of war, as these are just different tactical echelons. The levels of war could, if redefined as suggested, help to explain the different characteristics, functions and objectives as political objectives and policies are formed into strategies and executed by tactical actions.

Functions are already performed at the strategic or tactical levels, and there is no technological span-of-control imperative that would necessitate an intermediary level. In fact, this level seems unnecessary and even problematic. Furthermore, the additional level engenders command structures which are prone to duplication of functions. The second recommendation for this article, therefore, is to remove the operational level of war. The levels of war could then be simply depicted as shown in Figure 3 below.56

Figure 3. Recommended structure

Political level

Strategic level

Tactical level

The recommended removal of the operational level does not imply that every function which currently falls under the ‘operational’ nomenclature should be discarded. It merely seeks to place these functions at the appropriate level as defined by their characteristics, functions and objectives. In other words, they would be attributed to either the strategic or the tactical level of war or removed if deemed as duplicate or unnecessary. The strategic level would gain those ‘operational’ functions that are strategic in character, function and objective, such as the crafting of military campaigns to achieve political objectives, force assignment of task-organised forces for specific missions and operations, allocation of strategic enablers and logistics, and synchronisation of military effects with whole-of-government initiatives. The tactical level would gain those which are focused on the planning and execution of tactical missions.

Functions Traversing the Levels of War

At this point it is necessary to acknowledge certain military functions that seem to traverse the levels of war. General functions like command, logistics, and administration take place throughout the military hierarchy and have no need to be linked to a level. These functions will have different characteristics at each level and potentially require distinct terminology defined in doctrine if deemed necessary for clarity. Examples each way are (strategic) logistics versus (tactical) combat service support, and strategic command versus tactical command.

Similarly, it is important to clarify the concept of ‘operational theatres, operational command and theatre command’. For the deployment of forces to a distant area of operations, it is logical to have a command structure 57

focused on the particularities of that specific theatre of war. It would be assigned the forces and strategic assets required for the mission and be authorised to make certain decisions locally. This command structure should not, however, be misrepresented as belonging to a certain level of war. Accordingly, the term ‘theatre command’ clearly expresses a geographically specific command arrangement that traverses the levels of war, containing a tailored microcosm of each level (Figure 4).

Political level

CSS Logistics

Command and Control

Strategic level

Tactical level

Figure 4. Theatre command traversing the recommended levels of war

The distinction between these levels is clearly defined by three logical criteria: different function, different objectives and different characteristics. Without these essential distinctions, the logic for having different levels of war is, at best, questionable.

Conclusion

It is logical to expect that evolutions of doctrine would be triggered by the redefinition of these doctrinal terms. While this could seem inconsequential, it is important to recognise the foundational nature of these terms and to understand the significant consequences their redefinition would have on other areas of doctrine, force generation and force structures. To start, the practice and study of strategy as a military art in the ADF training continuum could be renovated for a new generation of military professionals. It would certainly simplify the doctrinal concept for linking political direction to tactical action.

Other improvements to doctrine which might follow the recommended redefinition of the levels of war could include analysis of potential flattening of force structures, both in force generation and training and on operations. 58

Another is the potential for re-centralisation of ‘strategic’ capabilities in support of force generation. Already in progress is further analysis of the way technology might enable, and not paralyse, military decision-making at the interface between the strategic and tactical levels. Finally, the study of historical wars and campaigns through this evolved doctrinal framework, to analyse how tactical actions have or have not led to strategic success, which in turn met or failed to meet political objectives and end-states, may provide useful insights which shape how politics, strategy and tactics interact in the future.

This article has argued that the levels of war should be redefined to ensure that the distinctions between them are clearly based on three logical criteria. Noting how the historical asymmetry between technological capabilities and the scale of war prompted both the creation of an operational level and the blending of political and strategic levels, this article has questioned the logic of persisting with these arguably flawed definitions. This should progress and inspire further professional military reflection on this subject and eventually lead to a redefinition of the levels of war as the political, the strategic and the tactical levels of war, distinguished by three criteria: different characteristics, different functions and different objectives. The thread of logic flowing from politics through strategy into tactics is at once clearer and more coherent, as famously expressed by Clausewitz:

[W]ar is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means.2159

Endnotes

1 Carl von Clausewitz, 2007, (1832), On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, ed and Oxford: Oxford University Press, ‘Book One—On the Nature of War’, section 24.

2 Australian Army, 2017, Land Warfare Doctrine 1: The Fundamentals of Land Power (Canberra: Australian Army), 18.

3 Ibid. The definition of Levels of War in Land Warfare Doctrine 1 begins by confusing levels of war and levels of command. This article exclusively refers to levels of war, as command is a function which traverses the levels of war and should not be confined to a single level.

4 Also referred to as levels of command.

5 Australian Army, 2017, 18.

6 Instruments/levers of national power: diplomacy, information, [military] and economy (DIME).

7 Australian Army, 2017, 19.

8 The inability to command and control large forces in dispersed battlefields necessitated an intermediary command structure. Field marshals (Les Maréchaux) were thus appointed to command armies in dispersed battlefields.

9 Olivier Zajec, 2017, lecture delivered at the École de Guerre, 20 February 2017. Zajec is author of O Zajec, 2018, Introduction à l’analyse géopolitique: Histoire, outils, méthodes (Introduction to Geopolitical Analysis: History, Tools, Methods) (Éditions du Rocher).

10 Such as Isserson, Tukhachevsky, Svechin, Varfolomeev and Triandafillov.

11 Ash Irwin, 1993, The Levels of War, Operational Art and Campaign Planning (Camberley: Strategic and Combat Studies Institute).

K McCoy, 2017, ‘The Road to Multi-Domain Battle: An Origin Story’, Modern War Institute, 27 October 2017, at: https://mwi.usma.edu/road-multi-domain-battle-origin-story/

13 Svechin quoted in CDM Glantz, 2012, Soviet Military Operational Art: In Pursuit of Deep Battle (Routledge).

14 Australian Army, 2017, 20, speaking of operational art: ‘Primarily cognitive rather than organisational, it features the creation and sequencing of a series of tactical actions to achieve abstract strategic ends.’

15 Despite notional Australian operational headquarters existing during the Second World War, the ADF’s modern operational headquarters was formed in 1996 as ‘Headquarters Australian Theatre’ (HQAST) after a study commissioned in 1987 into ADF command arrangements. The current operational headquarters is known today as ‘Headquarters Joint Operations Command’ (HQJOC).

16 Jeannie Johnson, 2018, ‘The Marines, Counterinsurgency and Strategic Culture’, quoted in Jason Dempsey, ‘Coming to Terms with America’s Undeniable Failure in Afghanistan’, War on the Rocks [website], 11 February 2019, at: https://warontherocks.com/2019/02/ coming-to-terms-with-americas-undeniable-failure-in-afghanistan/

17 AJ Echevarria, 2004, Toward an American Way of War (DIANE Publishing), 2.

18 Dempsey, 2019.60

19 Echevarria, 2004, 7.

20 Australian Army, 2017, 16.

21 Clausewitz, 2007.