The Operational Level of War

The Operational Level of War Edward N. Luttwak II t is a peculiarity of Anglo-Saxon military terminology that it knows of tactics (unit, branch, and mixed) and of theater strategy as well as of grand strategy, but includes no adequate term for the operational level of warfare-precisely the level that is most salient in the modern tradition of military thought in continental Europe . The gap has not gone unnoticed, and Basil Liddell-Hart for example attempted to give currency to the term ”grand tactics” as a substitute (already by his day the specialized usage of the directly translated term “operationalfunctioning machine/unit,” was too well established to be redeemed.) The operational level of war, as opposed to the tactical and strategiclevels, is or ought to be of greatest concern to the analyst. In theater strategy, political goals and constraints on one hand and available resources on the other determine projected outcomes. At a much lower level, tactics deal with specific techniques. In the operational dimension, by contrast, schemes of warfare such as blitzkrieg or defense in depth evolve or are exploited. Such schemes seek to attain the goals set by theater strategy through suitable combinations of tactics. It is not surprising that the major works of military literature tend to focus on the operational level, as evidenced by the writings of Clausewitz. What makes this gap in Anglo-Saxon military terminology important for practical purposes is that the absence of the term referring to the operational level reflects an inadvertence towards the whole conception of war associated with it, and this in turn reflects a major eccentricity in the modern AngloSaxon experience of war. It is not merely that officers do not speak the word but rather that they do not think or practice war in operational terms, or do so only in vague or ephemeral ways. The causes of this state of affairs are to be found in the historic circumstances of Anglo-Saxon warfare during this century. In the First World War, American troops were only employed late, and then under French direction; their sphere of planning and action was essentially limited to the tactical level. As for the British, who did have to endure the full five years and more of that conflict, they mostly did not I am greatly indebted to my partner, Steven L. Canby, for many key ideas developed in this essay. Edward N . Luttwak is a co-founder and executive officer of C B L Associates, a consulting firm specializing in defense analysis. He has authored The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, several works on modern military affairs, and more recently, Strategy & Politics:Collected Essays. Znternntional Security, Winter 1980/81(Vol. 5, No. 3) 0162-2889/81/030061-19$02.50/0 @ 1981 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 61 lnternational Security I 62 transcend their pre-1914 experience, characterized by battalion fights in the colonies. It was precisely the failure of the British Army to extend its mental horizons that the "English" school of post-World War I military thinkers so greatly deplored, and which it set out to correct. The advocacy of large-unit armored warfare in depth by Fuller, Liddell Hart, etc. was aimed at expanding operations to transcend the tactical battlefield-and was not simply inspired by the need to find employment for the newly invented tank. In other words, their ideas were not tank driven but merely tank using. The motivating factor was not the attraction of the technology, but rather the powerful urge to escape the bloody stalemate of the tactical battlefields of World War I. Nor did the radically different character of the World War I1 suffice to establish the operational level in the conduct, planning, and analysis of Anglo-Saxon warfare. To be sure, there were isolated examples of generalship at the operational level, and indeed very fine examples, but they, and all that they implied, never became organic to the national tradition of warfare . Instead such operational approaches remained the trade secrets and personal attributes of men such as Douglas MacArthur, Patton, and the British General O'Connor, victor of the first North...