War Transformed by Mick Ryan

Author:Mick Ryan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Naval Institute Press

Aligning Activities with Objectives

More dispersed, combined arms joint forces must conduct their activities so that they achieve desired outcomes of operational commanders and strategic leaders. Strategic and operational objectives provide vital context for planning, executing, and measuring the success of tactical actions by military forces. They must guide the undertaking of operations and, thus, of tactical activities.

This comes with a caveat, however. Strategic aims and operational goals must be in alignment with the tactical competence and capabilities of military forces. For example, a strategic objective that insists on achieving a military strategic deterrent effect would be ineffective if that nation’s military institutions lack any form of offensive long-range strike, intelligence collection, or strategic influence capabilities. As Williamson Murray writes, “What is tactically feasible should shape the selection of strategic objectives and plans.”68

In his 2017 book On Tactics, B. A. Friedman explains many of the most vital tactical approaches and places them in a framework of physical, moral, and mental tenets.69 In the book, he connects tactics to policy through the use of strategy: “Overwhelming military success was once enough to bridge the gap between tactics and policy, and thus was a sufficient strategy. Military success alone is no longer enough.… Military success is only the means to an end. If we do not understand our end, no means will accomplish it, and the battle becomes only slaughter.”70 To that end, a third measure of tactical effectiveness for twenty-first-century military forces will be their ability to carefully align tactical activities with operational and strategic objectives.

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