Military strategy

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Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue
desired strategic goals.[1] Derived from the Greek word strategos, the term
strategy, when it appeared in use during the 18th century,[2] was seen in its
narrow sense as the "art of the general",[3] or "'the art of arrangement" of
troops.[4] Military strategy deals with the planning and conduct of campaigns, the
movement and disposition of forces, and the deception of the enemy.

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."[citation needed] 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".[5] 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.[6] 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,[7]
[8] and business,[9] as well as modern warfare. The Eastern military strategy
differs from the Western by focusing more on asymmetric warfare and deception.[6]

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.[10][unreliable source?]

Contents
1 Fundamentals
1.1 Background
2 Principles
3 Development
3.1 Antiquity
3.2 Middle Ages
3.2.1 Genghis Khan and the Mongols
3.3 Early Modern era
3.4 Napoleonic
3.4.1 Waterloo
3.4.2 Clausewitz and Jomini
3.5 Industrial age
3.6 World War I
3.7 Inter war
3.8 World War II
3.8.1 German
3.8.1.1 Pre-war
3.8.1.2 War strategy
3.8.2 British
3.8.3 European Allies
3.8.4 Soviet
3.8.5 Japanese
3.8.6 American
3.8.7 Australian
3.9 Communist China's strategy
3.10 Cold War
3.11 Post Cold War
3.12 Netwar
4 See also
5 References
5.1 Notes
5.2 Bibliography
6 Further reading
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,[11] 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.[12]

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.[13] 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."[14] 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."[15]

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.
[16]

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[citation
needed] 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.[17] There are numerous examples in history where
victory on the battlefield has not translated into long term peace, security or
tranquility.[which?]

Principles

Military stratagem in the Maneuver against the Romans by Cimbri and Teutons circa
100 B.C.
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".[18] The concepts given as
essential in the United States Army Field Manual of Military Operations (FM 3�0)
are:[19]
Objective (Directly every military operation towards a clearly defined, decisive,
and attainable objective)
Offensive (Seize, retain, and exploit the initiative)
Mass (Concentrate combat power at the decisive place and time)
Economy of Force (Allocate minimum essential combat power to secondary efforts)
Maneuver (Place the enemy in a disadvantageous position through the flexible
application of combat power)
Unity of Command (For every objective, ensure unity of effort under one responsible
commander)
Security (Never permit the enemy to acquire an unexpected advantage)
Surprise (Strike the enemy at a time, at a place, or in a manner for which he is
unprepared)
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.[20][not in citation given] 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 mat�riel 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.

Development
Antiquity
The principles of military strategy emerged at least as far back as 500 BC in the
works of Sun Tzu and Chanakya. The campaigns of Alexander the Great, Chandragupta
Maurya, Hannibal, Qin Shi Huang, Julius C�sar, Zhuge Liang, Khalid ibn al-Walid
and, in particular, Cyrus the Great demonstrate strategic planning and movement.
Mahan describes in the preface to The Influence of Sea Power upon History how the
Romans used their sea power to effectively block the sea lines of communication of
Hannibal with Carthage; and so via a maritime strategy achieved Hannibal's removal
from Italy, despite never beating him there with their legions.

One of these strategies was shown in the battle between Greek city states and
Persia. The Battle of Thermopylae in which the Greek forces were outnumbered stood
as a good military strategy. The Greek allied forces ultimately lost the battle,
but the training, use of armor, and location allowed them to defeat many Persian
troops before losing. In the end, the Greek alliance lost the battle but not the
war as a result of that strategy which continued on to the battle of Plataea. The
Battle of Plataea in 479 BC resulted in a victory for the Greeks against Persia,
which exemplified that military strategy was extremely beneficial to defeating a
numerous enemy.

Early strategies included the strategy of annihilation, exhaustion, attrition

warfare, scorched earth action, blockade, guerrilla campaign, deception and feint.
Ingenuity and adeptness were limited only by imagination, accord, and technology.
Strategists continually exploited ever-advancing technology. The word "strategy"
itself derives from the Greek "st?at???a" (strategia), "office of general, command,
generalship",[21] in turn from "st?at????" (strategos), "leader or commander of an
army, general",[22] a compound of "st?at??" (stratos), "army, host" + "????"
(agos), "leader, chief",[23] in turn from "???" (ago), "to lead".[24] No evidence
exists of it being used in a modern sense in Ancient Greek, but we find it in
Byzantine documents from the 6th century onwards, and most notably in the work
attributed to Emperor Leo VI the Wise of Byzantium.

Middle Ages
Genghis Khan and the Mongols

Mongol Empire in 1227 at Genghis Khan's death

As a counterpoint to European developments in the strategic art, the Mongol Emperor
Genghis Khan provides a useful example. Genghis' successes, and those of his
successors, were based on manoeuvre and terror. The main focus of Genghis'
strategic assault was the psychology of the opposing population. By steady and
meticulous implementation of this strategy, Genghis and his descendants were able
to conquer most of Eurasia. The building blocks of Genghis' army and his strategy
were his tribal levies of mounted archers, scorched earth-style methods, and,
equally essential, the vast horse-herds of Mongolia.

Each archer had at least one extra horse � there was an average five horses per man
� thus the entire army could move with astounding rapidity. Moreover, since horse
milk and horse blood were the staples of the Mongolian diet, Genghis' horse-herds
functioned not just as his means of movement but as his logistical sustainment. All
other necessities would be foraged and plundered. Khan's marauders also brought
with them mobile shelters, concubines, butchers, and cooks. Through maneuver and
continuous assault, Chinese, Persian, Arab and Eastern European armies could be
stressed until they collapsed, and were then annihilated in pursuit and
encirclement.[25]

Compared to the armies of Genghis, nearly all other armies were cumbersome and
relatively static. It was not until well into the 20th century that any army was
able to match the speed of deployment of Genghis' armies. When confronted with a
fortified city, the Mongol imperatives of maneuver and speed required that it be
quickly subdued. Here the terror engendered by the bloody reputation of the
Mongolians helped to intimidate and subdue.

So too did primitive biological warfare. A trebuchet or other type of ballista

weapon would be used to launch dead animals and corpses into a besieged city,
spreading disease and death, such as the Black Plague. If a particular town or city
displeased the Mongolian Khan, everyone in the city would be killed to set an
example for all other cities. This was early psychological warfare.

To refer to the nine strategic principles outlined above, the Mongol strategy was
directed toward an objective (that schwerpunkt (main focus) being the morale and
mental state of the opposing population) achieved through the offensive; this
offensive was itself characterized by concentration of force, maneuver, surprise,
and simplicity.

Early Modern era

In 1520 Niccol� Machiavelli's Dell'arte della guerra (Art of War) dealt with the
relationship between civil and military matters and the formation of grand
strategy. In the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden
demonstrated advanced operational strategy that led to his victories on the soil of
the Holy Roman Empire. It was not until the 18th century that military strategy was
subjected to serious study in Europe. The word was first used in German as
"Strategie" in a translation of Leo's work in 1777, shortly thereafter in French as
"strat�gie" by Leo's French translator, and was first attested in English 1810.[26]

In the Seven Years' War (1756�1763), Frederick the Great improvised a "strategy of
exhaustion" (see attrition warfare) to hold off his opponents and conserve his
Prussian forces. Assailed from all sides by France, Austria, Russia and Sweden,
Frederick exploited his central position, which enabled him to move his army along
interior lines and concentrate against one opponent at a time. Unable to achieve
victory, he was able to stave off defeat until a diplomatic solution emerged.
Frederick's "victory" led to great significance being placed on "geometric
strategy" which emphasized lines of manoeuvre, awareness of terrain and possession
of critical strong-points.

Napoleonic

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The French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars that followed revolutionized
military strategy. The impact of this period was still to be felt in the American
Civil War and the early phases of World War I.

With the advent of cheap small arms and the rise of the drafted citizen soldier,
armies grew rapidly in size to become massed formations. This necessitated dividing
the army first into divisions and later into corps. Along with divisions came
divisional artillery; light-weight, mobile cannon with great range and firepower.
The rigid formations of pikemen and musketeers firing massed volleys gave way to
light infantry fighting in skirmish lines.

Napoleon I of France took advantage of these developments to pursue an effective

"battle of annihilation". Napoleon invariably sought to achieve decision in battle,
with the sole aim of utterly destroying his opponent, usually achieving success
through superior maneuver. As ruler and general he dealt with the grand strategy as
well as the operational strategy, making use of political and economic measures.

Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French
Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806.
While not the originator of the methods he used, Napoleon effectively combined the
relatively superior maneuver and battle stages into one event. Before this, General
Officers had considered this approach to battle as separate events. However,
Napoleon used the maneuver to battle to dictate how and where the battle would
progress. The Battle of Austerlitz was a perfect example of this maneuver. Napoleon
withdrew from a strong position to draw his opponent forward and tempt him into a
flank attack, weakening his center. This allowed the French army to split the
allied army and gain victory.

Napoleon used two primary strategies for the approach to battle. His "Manoeuvre De
Derri�re" (move onto the rear) was intended to place the French Army across the
enemy's lines of communications. This forced the opponent to either march to battle
with Napoleon or attempt to find an escape route around the army. By placing his
army into the rear, his opponent's supplies and communications would be cut. This
had a negative effect on enemy morale. Once joined, the battle would be one in
which his opponent could not afford defeat. This also allowed Napoleon to select
multiple battle angles into a battle site. Initially, the lack of force
concentration helped with foraging for food and sought to confuse the enemy as to
his real location and intentions.

The "indirect" approach into battle also allowed Napoleon to disrupt the linear
formations used by the allied armies. As the battle progressed, the enemy committed
their reserves to stabilize the situation, Napoleon would suddenly release the
flanking formation to attack the enemy. His opponents, being suddenly confronted
with a new threat and with little reserves, had no choice but to weaken the area
closest to the flanking formation and draw up a battle line at a right angle in an
attempt to stop this new threat. Once this had occurred, Napoleon would mass his
reserves at the hinge of that right angle and launch a heavy attack to break the
lines. The rupture in the enemy lines allowed Napoleon's cavalry to flank both
lines and roll them up leaving his opponent no choice but to surrender or flee.

The second strategy used by Napoleon I of France when confronted with two or more
enemy armies was the use of the central position. This allowed Napoleon to drive a
wedge to separate the enemy armies. He would then use part of his force to mask one
army while the larger portion overwhelmed and defeated the second army quickly. He
would then march on the second army leaving a portion to pursue the first army and
repeat the operations. This was designed to achieve the highest concentration of
men into the primary battle while limiting the enemy's ability to reinforce the
critical battle. The central position had a weakness in that the full power of the
pursuit of the enemy could not be achieved because the second army needed
attention.

So overall the preferred method of attack was the flank march to cross the enemy's
logistics. Napoleon used the central position strategy during the Battle of
Waterloo.

Waterloo

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Map of the Waterloo campaign

19th century musketeers from Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander

Hillingford, 18 June 1815
See also: Waterloo Campaign
Napoleon masked Wellington and massed against the Prussian army, and then after the
Battle of Ligny was won, Napoleon attempted to do the same to the Allied/British
army located just to the south of Waterloo. His subordinate was unable to mask the
defeated Prussian army, who reinforced the Waterloo battle in time to defeat
Napoleon and end his domination of Europe.

It can be said that the Prussian Army under Bl�cher used the "maneuver de derri�re"
against Napoleon who was suddenly placed in a position of reacting to a new enemy
threat.

Napoleon's practical strategic triumphs, repeatedly leading smaller forces to

defeat larger ones, inspired a whole new field of study into military strategy. In
particular, his opponents were keen to develop a body of knowledge in this area to
allow them to counteract a masterful individual with a highly competent group of
officers, a General Staff. The two most significant students of his work were Carl
von Clausewitz, a Prussian with a background in philosophy, and Antoine-Henri
Jomini, who had been one of Napoleon's staff officers.

One notable exception to Napoleon's strategy of annihilation and a precursor to

trench warfare were the Lines of Torres Vedras during the Peninsular War. French
Armies lived off the land and when they were confronted by a line of fortifications
which they could not out flank, they were unable to continue the advance and were
forced to retreat once they had consumed all the provisions of the region in front
of the lines.
The Peninsular campaign was notable for the development of another method of
warfare which went largely unnoticed at the time, but would become far more common
in the 20th century. That was the aid and encouragement the British gave to the
Spanish to harass the French behind their lines which led them to squander most of
the assets of their Iberian army in protecting the army's line of communications.
This was a very cost effective move for the British, because it cost far less to
aid Spanish insurgents than it did to equip and pay regular British army units to
engage the same number of French troops.

As the British army could be correspondingly smaller it was able to supply its
troops by sea and land without having to live off the land as was the norm at the
time. Further, because they did not have to forage they did not antagonise the
locals and so did not have to garrison their lines of communications to the same
extent as the French did. So the strategy of aiding their Spanish civilian allies
in their guerrilla or 'small war' benefited the British in many ways, not all of
which were immediately obvious.

Clausewitz and Jomini

Clausewitz's On War has become the respected reference for strategy, dealing with
political, as well as military, leadership. His most famous assertion being:

"War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a
continuation of policy carried out by other means."
For Clausewitz, war was first and foremost a political act, and thus the purpose of
all strategy was to achieve the political goal that the state was seeking to
accomplish. As such, Clausewitz famously argued that war was the "continuation of
politics by other means", and as such, argued that the amount of force used by the
state would and should be proportional to whatever the political aim that the state
was seeking to achieve via war. Clausewitz further dismissed "geometry" as an
insignificant factor in strategy, believing instead that ideally all wars should
follow the Napoleonic concept of victory through a decisive battle of annihilation
and destruction of the opposing force, at any cost. However, he also recognized
that his ideal of how war should be fought was not always practical in reality and
that limited warfare could influence policy by wearing down the opposition through
a "strategy of attrition".

In contrast to Clausewitz, Antoine-Henri Jomini dealt mainly with operational

strategy, planning and intelligence, the conduct of the campaign, and "generalship"
rather than "statesmanship". He proposed that victory could be achieved by
occupying the enemy's territory rather than destroying his army.

As such, geometric considerations were prominent in his theory of strategy.

Jomini's two basic principles of strategy were to concentrate against fractions of
the enemy force at a time and to strike at the most decisive objective. Clausewitz
and Jomini are required reading for today's military professional officer.[27]

Industrial age

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The evolution of military strategy continued in the American Civil War (1861�65).
The practice of strategy was advanced by generals such as Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S.
Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, all of whom had been influenced by the feats of
Napoleon (Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was said to have carried a book of Napoleon's
maxims with him.)

However, the adherence to the Napoleonic principles in the face of technological

advances such as the long-range infantry breechloader rifles and minie ball guns
generally led to disastrous consequences for both the Union and Confederate forces
and populace. The time and space in which war was waged changed as well. Railroads
enabled swift movement of large forces but the manoeuvring was constrained to
narrow, vulnerable corridors. Steam power and ironclads changed transport and
combat at sea. Newly invented telegraph enabled more rapid communication between
armies and their headquarters capitals. Combat was still usually waged by opposing
divisions with skirmish lines on rural battlefields, violent naval engagements by
cannon-armed sailing or steam-powered vessels, and assault on military forces
defending a town.

There was still room for triumphs for the strategy of manoeuvre such as Sherman's
March to the Sea in 1864, but these depended upon an enemy's unwillingness to
entrench. Towards the end of the war, especially in defense of static targets as in
the battles of Cold Harbor and Vicksburg, trench networks foreshadowed World War I.
Many of the lessons of the American Civil War were forgotten, when in wars like the
Austro-Prussian War or the Franco-Prussian War, manoeuvre won the day.

In the period preceding World War I, two of the most influential strategists were
the Prussian generals, Helmuth von Moltke and Alfred von Schlieffen. Under Moltke
the Prussian army achieved victory in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and the
Franco-Prussian War (1870�71), the latter campaign being widely regarded as a
classic example of the conception and execution of military strategy.

In addition to exploiting railroads and highways for manoeuvre, Moltke also

exploited the telegraph for control of large armies. He recognised the need to
delegate control to subordinate commanders and to issue directives rather than
specific orders. Moltke is most remembered as a strategist for his belief in the
need for flexibility and that no plan, however well prepared, can be guaranteed to
survive beyond the first encounter with the enemy.

Field Marshal Schlieffen succeeded Moltke and directed German planning in the lead
up to World War I. He advocated the "strategy of annihilation" but was faced by a
war on two fronts against numerically superior opposition. The strategy he
formulated was the Schlieffen Plan, defending in the east while concentrating for a
decisive victory in the west, after which the Germans would go on to the offensive
in the east. Influenced by Hannibal's success at the Battle of Cannae, Schlieffen
planned for a single great battle of encirclement, thereby annihilating his enemy.

Another German strategist of the period was Hans Delbr�ck who expanded on
Clausewitz's concept of "limited warfare" to produce a theory on the "strategy of
exhaustion". His theory defied popular military thinking of the time, which was
strongly in favour of victory in battle, yet World War I would soon demonstrate the
flaws of a mindless "strategy of annihilation".

At a time when industrialisation was rapidly changing naval technology, one

American strategist, Alfred Thayer Mahan, almost single-handedly brought the field
of naval strategy up to date. Influenced by Jomini's principles of strategy, he saw
that in the coming wars, where economic strategy could be as important as military
strategy, control of the sea granted the power to control the trade and resources
needed to wage war. Mahan pushed the concept of the "big navy" and an expansionist
view where defence was achieved by controlling the sea approaches rather than
fortifying the coast. His theories contributed to the naval arms race between 1898
and 1914.

World War I

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At the start of World War I strategy was dominated by the offensive thinking that
had been in vogue since 1870, despite the more recent experiences of the Second
Boer War (1899�1902) and Russo-Japanese War (1904�05), where the machine gun
demonstrated its defensive capabilities. By the end of 1914, the Western Front was
a stalemate and all ability to maneuver strategically was lost. The combatants
resorted to a "strategy of attrition". The German battle at Verdun, the British on
the Somme and at Passchendaele were among the first wide-scale battles intended to
wear down the enemy. Attrition was time-consuming so the duration of World War I
battles often stretched to weeks and months. The problem with attrition was that
the use of fortified defenses in depth generally required a ratio of ten attackers
to one defender, or a level of artillery support which was simply not feasible
until late 1917, for any reasonable chance of victory. The ability of the defender
to move troops using interior lines prevented the possibility of fully exploiting
any breakthrough with the level of technology then attainable.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of strategy in World War I was the difference
among the British between the "Western" viewpoint (held by Field Marshal Haig) and
the "Eastern"; the former being that all effort should be directed against the
German Army, the latter that more useful work could be done by attacking Germany's
allies. The term "Knocking away the props" was used, perhaps as an unfortunate
consequence of the fact that all of Germany's allies lay south of (i.e. 'beneath')
her on the map. Apologists and defenders of the Western viewpoint make the valid
point that Germany's allies were more than once rescued from disaster or rendered
capable of holding their own or making substantial gains by the provision of German
troops, arms or military advisers, whereas those allies did not at any time provide
a similar function for Germany. That is, it was Germany which was the prop, and her
allies (particularly Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary) did not suffer significant
reverses until Germany's ability to come to their aid was grossly impaired.

On other fronts, there was still room for the use of strategy of maneuver. The
Germans executed a perfect battle of annihilation against the Russians at the
Battle of Tannenberg. In 1915 Britain and France launched the well-intentioned but
poorly conceived and ultimately fruitless Dardanelles Campaign, combining naval
power and an amphibious landing, in an effort to aid their Russian ally and knock
the Ottoman Empire out of the war. The Palestine campaign was dominated by cavalry,
which flourished in the local terrain, and the British achieved two breakthrough
victories at Gaza (1917) and Megiddo (1918). Colonel T. E. Lawrence and other
British officers led Arab irregulars on a guerrilla campaign against the Ottomans,
using strategy and tactics developed during the Boer Wars.

World War I saw armies on a scale never before experienced. The British, who had
always relied on a strong navy and a small regular army, were forced to undertake a
rapid expansion of the army. This outpaced the rate of training of generals and
staff officers able to handle such a mammoth force, and overwhelmed the ability of
British industry to equip it with the necessary weapons and adequate high-quality
munitions until late in the war. Technological advances also had a huge influence
on strategy: aerial reconnaissance, artillery techniques, poison gas, the
automobile and tank (though the latter was, even at the end of the war, still in
its infancy), telephone and radio telegraphy.

More so than in previous wars, military strategy in World War I was directed by the
grand strategy of a coalition of nations; the Entente on one side and the Central
Powers on the other. Society and economy were mobilized for total war. Attacks on
the enemy's economy included Britain's use of a naval blockade and Germany
employing submarine warfare against merchant shipping.

Unity of command became a question when the various nation states began
coordinating assaults and defenses. Under the pressure of horrendously destructive
German attacks beginning on March 21, 1918, the Entente eventually settled under
Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch. The Germans generally led the Central Powers, though
German authority diminished and lines of command became confused at the end of the
war.

World War I strategy was dominated by the "Spirit of the Offensive", where generals
resorted almost to mysticism in terms of a soldier's personal "attitude" in order
to break the stalemate; this led to nothing but bloody slaughter as troops in close
ranks charged machine guns. Each side developed an alternate thesis. The British
under Winston Churchill developed tank warfare, with which they eventually won the
war. The Germans developed a "doctrine of autonomy", the forerunner of both
blitzkrieg and modern infantry tactics, using groups of stormtroopers, who would
advance in small mutually covering groups from cover to cover with "autonomy" to
exploit any weakness they discovered in enemy defenses. Almost all the blitzkrieg
commanders of World War II, particularly Erwin Rommel, were stormtroopers in World
War I. After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Germany launched and almost succeeded in
a final offensive. However, the new tactics of autonomy revealed a weakness in
terms of overall coordination and direction. The March offensive, intended to drive
a wedge between the French and British armies, turn on the latter and destroy it,
lost direction and became driven by its territorial gains, its original purpose
neglected.

World War I ended when the ability of the German army to fight became so diminished
that Germany asked for peace conditions. The German military, exhausted by the
efforts of the March offensives and dispirited by their failure, was first
seriously defeated during the Battle of Amiens (8�11 August 1918) and the German
homefront entered general revolt over a lack of food and destruction of the
economy. Victory for the Entente was almost assured by that point, and the fact of
Germany's military impotence was driven home in the following hundred days. In this
time, the Entente reversed the gains the Germans had made in the first part of the
year, and the British Army (spearheaded by the Canadians and Australians) finally
broke the Hindenburg defensive system.

Though his methods are questioned, Britain's Field Marshal Haig was ultimately
proved correct in his grand strategic vision: "We cannot hope to win until we have
defeated the German Army." By the end of the war, the best German troops were dead
and the remainder were under continuous pressure on all parts of the Western Front,
a consequence in part of an almost endless supply of fresh American reinforcements
(which the Germans were unable to match) and in part of industry at last supplying
the weakened Entente armies with the firepower to replace the men they lacked
(whilst Germany wanted for all sorts of materials thanks to the naval blockade).
Interior lines thus became meaningless as Germany had nothing more to offer its
allies. The props eventually fell, but only because they were themselves no longer
supported.

The role of the tank in World War I strategy is often poorly understood. Its
supporters saw it as the weapon of victory, and many observers since have accused
the high commands (especially the British) of shortsightedness in this matter,
particularly in view of what tanks have achieved since. Nevertheless, the World War
I tank's limitations, imposed by the limits of contemporary engineering technology,
have to be borne in mind. They were slow (men could run, and frequently walk,
faster); vulnerable (to artillery) due to their size, clumsiness and inability to
carry armour against anything but rifle and machine gun ammunition; extremely
uncomfortable (conditions inside them often incapacitating crews with engine fumes
and heat, and driving some mad with noise); and often despicably unreliable
(frequently failing to make it to their targets due to engine or track failures).
This was the factor behind the seemingly mindless retention of large bodies of
cavalry, which even in 1918, with armies incompletely mechanised, were still the
only armed force capable of moving significantly faster than an infantryman on
foot. It was not until the relevant technology (in engineering and communications)
matured between the wars that the tank and the airplane could be forged into the
co-ordinated force needed to truly restore manoeuvre to warfare.

Inter war
In the years following World War I, two of the technologies that had been
introduced during that conflict, the aircraft and the tank, became the subject of
strategic study.

The leading theorist of air power was Italian general Giulio Douhet, who believed
that future wars would be won or lost in the air. The air force would carry the
offensive, and the role of the ground forces would be defensive only. Douhet's
doctrine of strategic bombing meant striking at the enemy's heartland�his cities,
industry and communications. Air power would thereby reduce his willingness and
capacity to fight. At this time the idea of the aircraft carrier and its
capabilities also started to change thinking in those countries with large fleets,
but nowhere as much as in Japan. The UK and US seem to have seen the carrier as a
defensive weapon, and their designs mirrored this; the Japanese Imperial Navy seem
to have developed a new offensive strategy based on the power projection these made
possible.

British general J. F. C. Fuller, architect of the first great tank battle at

Cambrai, and his contemporary, B. H. Liddell Hart, were amongst the most prominent
advocates of mechanization and motorization of the army in Britain. In Germany,
study groups were set up by Hans von Seeckt, commander of the Reichswehr
Truppenamt, for 57 areas of strategy and tactics to learn from World War I and to
adapt strategy to avoid the stalemate and then defeat they had suffered. All seem
to have seen the strategic shock value of mobility and the new possibilities made
possible by motorised forces. Both saw that the armoured fighting vehicle
demonstrated firepower, mobility and protection. The Germans seem to have seen more
clearly the need to make all branches of the Army as mobile as possible to maximise
the results of this strategy. It would negate the static defences of the trench and
machine gun and restore the strategic principles of manoeuvre and offense.
Nevertheless, it was the British Army which was the only[citation needed] one truly
mechanised at the beginning of the Second World War, the Germans still relying on
horse traction for a large portion of their artillery.

The innovative German Major (later General) Heinz Guderian developed the motorised
part of this strategy as the head of one of the Truppenamt groups and may have
incorporated Fuller's and Liddell Hart's ideas to amplify the groundbreaking
Blitzkrieg effect that was seen used by Germany against Poland in 1939 and later
against France in 1940. France, still committed to stationary World War I
strategies, was completely surprised and summarily overwhelmed by Germany's mobile
combined arms doctrine and Guderian's Panzer Corps.

Technological change had an enormous effect on strategy, but little effect on

leadership. The use of telegraph and later radio, along with improved transport,
enabled the rapid movement of large numbers of men. One of Germany's key enablers
in mobile warfare was the use of radios, where these were put into every tank.
However, the number of men that one officer could effectively control had, if
anything, declined. The increases in the size of the armies led to an increase in
the number of officers. Although the officer ranks in the US Army did swell, in the
German army the ratio of officers to total men remained steady.[28]

World War II
German
Pre-war
Inter-war Germany had as its main strategic goals the re-establishment of Germany
as a European great power[29] and the complete annulment of the Versailles treaty
of 1919. After Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party took power in 1933, Germany's
political goals also included the accumulation of Lebensraum ("Living space") for
the Germanic "race" and the elimination of Communism as a political rival to
Nazism. The destruction of European Jewry, while not strictly a strategic
objective, was a political goal of the Nazi regime linked to the vision of a
German-dominated Europe, and especially to the Generalplan Ost for a depopulated
east[30] which Germany could colonize.

Until the mid-1930s, Germany's ability to realize these goals was limited by her
weakened military and economic position. Hitler's strategy involved building up
German military and economic strength through re-armament, while seeking to avoid
an early war by diplomatic engagement with France, Britain and (later) the Soviet
Union (Stalin-Hitler Pact of August 1939). One by one, Hitler successfully
repudiated the terms the Versailles treaty, using skilful diplomacy to avoid
triggering war. After starting open re-armament in 1935, he carried out the re-
occupation of the Rhineland in 1936, and then the diplomatic annexation of Austria
(Anschluss) and of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939 (Munich Agreement, September
1938). This risky political strategy proved initially successful, consolidating
internal support for the Nazi regime and greatly strengthening Germany's strategic
position.

But the March 1939 annexation of rump Czechoslovakia, in violation of the Munich
Agreement signed only months before, forced a change in Franco-British policy from
an emphasis on avoiding war (Appeasement) to an emphasis on war preparation, of
which an important feature was the declaration of Franco-British guarantees of
Polish independence. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Britain and
France declared war (3 September 1939).

War strategy
Hitler's strategy for war is usually thought[by whom?] to be that laid out in Mein
Kampf (1926/1926), although historiographers debate whether Hitler intended global
or merely European conquest, or whether he even had a plan for war in advance - see
Nazi foreign policy (historiographic debate). In Mein Kampf, Hitler had imagined a
short war against France, and then the conquest of the USSR. He had wrongly assumed
that Britain would be a German ally in the west against France, and so he did not
foresee an enduring war in the west.

Once the Second World War had begun with France and Britain as allies, German
strategy aimed to win a short war in France and to force Britain to the negotiating
table. After the conquest of France in May-June 1940, Churchill's refusal to
surrender or to negotiate on terms favorable for Germany put the German gamble in
jeopardy. Germany could not match Britain on the open sea and had not prepared its
army for operations across the Channel. Instead, the Wehrmacht hoped to strangle
Britain's economy through success in the Battle of the Atlantic (1939-1945) and the
Battle of Britain (1940).

In June 1941 Germany invaded the USSR (Operation Barbarossa) to carry out the
second part of Hitler's strategy. The campaign plan envisaged defeating the USSR in
a single summer / fall campaign, but Barbarossa failed to achieve any of its major
objectives. In December 1941 Japan attacked the USA and Germany declared war on the
USA shortly afterwards. Through the summer and fall of 1942, German strategy to win
the war remained based on defeating the USSR.

British
Since the Entente Cordiale which had won the First World War, Britain's strategy
for continental war was based on alliance with France and later unsuccessful
efforts to engage Fascist Italy and the USSR in an effort to contain Germany.
Confronted with the rise of Hitler's power on the continent in 1933, and weakened
economically by the Great Depression, Great Britain sought initially to avoid or
delay war through diplomacy (Appeasement), while at the same time re-arming
(Neville Chamberlain's European Policy). Emphasis for re-armament was given to air
forces with the view that these would be most useful in any future war with
Germany.

By 1939, Allied efforts to avert war had failed, and Germany had signed alliances
with both Italy (Pact of Steel) and the USSR (Molotov�Ribbentrop Pact). In August
1939, in a final effort to contain Germany, Britain and France guaranteed Polish
independence (Anglo-Polish military alliance).

Upon the outbreak of war in September 1939, British rearmament was not yet
complete, although the Royal Air Force had been greatly expanded and programmes for
new aircraft and equipment such as radar defences were just coming to fruition.
Britain remained incapable of offensive operations except for strategic bombing,
and this was relatively ineffective in the early war.

After the fall of France in mid 1940 and Italian entry into the war on the Axis
side, Britain and her commonwealth allies found themselves alone against most of
Europe. British strategy was one of survival, defending the British isles directly
in the Battle of Britain and indirectly by defeating Germany in the Battle of the
Atlantic and the combined Axis powers in the North African Campaign. Through this
period, and until the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941, there was no
possibility of Britain winning the war alone, and so British Grand Strategy aimed
to bring the USA into the war on the allied side. Prime Minister Churchill devoted
much of his diplomatic efforts to this goal. In August 1941, at the Atlantic
Conference he met US President Roosevelt in the first of many wartime meetings
wherein allied war strategy was jointly decided.

In December 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States
entered the war. Britain was now also at war with imperial Japan, whose forces
inflicted rapid defeats on British forces in Asia, capturing Hong Kong, Malaya,
Singapore and Burma. Nevertheless, Churchill expressed the view that with the entry
of the USA into the war, ultimate victory was assured for the Allies. "All the rest
was merely the proper application of overwhelming force". From this point onward,
the strategy of the Allies, other than the USSR, is better addressed as joint
Allied Strategy

European Allies
In the December 1941, at the Arcadia Conference, the Allied leaders agreed to the
"Germany first" principle whereby Germany was to be defeated first, and then Japan.
However, Allied land forces would not be capable of invading the mainland of Europe
for years, even as Joseph Stalin pressed for the western allies to alleviate
pressure on the Eastern front. Supporting the Soviet war effort was a significant
element of Allied strategy, and significant aid was shipped to the USSR through the
Lend-Lease programme.

Strategic warfare, and especially strategic bombing, was a supporting component of

Allied strategy. Through 1942 and 1943, the Allies gradually won the war at sea and
in the air, blockading Germany and subjecting her to a strategic bombing campaign
of increasing effectiveness Strategic bombing during World War II.

In January 1943, at the Casablanca Conference, the Allies agreed to demand Axis
unconditional surrender, a war aim which implied the physical occupation of Germany
with land forces. While building up strength for an invasion of continental Europe,
the Allies pursued an indirect strategy by invading Europe from the South. After
defeating Axis forces in North Africa (the invasion of French North-Africa), Sicily
and southern Italy were invaded, leading to the defeat of Fascist Italy. Churchill
especially favoured a Southern strategy, aiming to attack the "soft underbelly" of
Axis Europe through Italy, Greece and the Balkans in a strategy similar to the
First World War idea of "knocking out the supports". Roosevelt favoured a more
direct approach through northern Europe, and with the Invasion of Normandy in June
1944, the weight of Allied effort shifted to the direct conquest of Germany.

From 1944, as German defeat became more and more inevitable, the shape of post-war
Europe assumed greater importance in Allied strategy. At the Second Quebec
Conference in September 1944, the Allies agreed to partition and de-industrialize a
defeated Germany so as to render her permanently unable to wage war Morgenthau
Plan. After the war, this plan was abandoned as unworkable. At the Tehran
Conference Allied strategy adopted its final major component with the acceptance of
Soviet conditions for a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, to include eastern
Germany and Berlin.

Soviet
Early Soviet strategy aimed to avoid or delay war, while developing the central
government's hold over the state and expanding the industrial base. Soviet economy
and military was weak, but rapidly expanding in an intense industrialization
process. The USSR had been overtly hostile to Nazi Germany for most of the pre-war
period, but the failure of appeasement convinced Stalin that the Allies were
actively seeking a Nazi�Soviet war. The Soviet government doubted that a war
against Germany could be avoided. However, negotiations were continued in order to,
at the very least, buy time and permit the Soviets to secure the Soviet�German
border through expansion and pressure on strategically important states perceived
as possible German allies in a future war. The signing of the Molotov�Ribbentrop
pact gave the USSR freedom to, in its view, preempt hostile action from nations
along its Western border.

The invasion in the Barbarossa campaign of 1941 came earlier than expected to the
Soviet leadership, resulting in the catastrophic loss of over 4 million Soviet
soldiers killed or captured. Nevertheless, the USSR managed to halt the German
advance at the outskirts of Moscow and Leningrad. With spies providing the certain
knowledge that Japanese forces in the far east would not attack Siberia, the
Soviets were able to transfer large numbers of experienced forces from the far
east, and in the Winter of 1941/1942 they used them to counter-attack the German
Army Group Centre in front of Moscow.

As the army was being defeated and giving up ground in the initial assault, a
gigantic operation was staged to move economic capacity from the Western areas that
were about to be overrun, to Eastern regions in the Urals and central Asia that
were out of reach of the Germans. Entire factories, including their labour force,
were simply moved, and what couldn't be taken was destroyed ("scorched earth"). As
a result, even though huge territories were captured by the Germans, the production
potential of the Soviet economy was not correspondingly harmed, and the factories
shifted to mass production of military equipment quickly. Even before the war,
Soviet industrialization had brought Soviet GDP to a level roughly equivalent to
Germany. Although a significant part of the urban population had been captured by
Germany in the 1941 campaign, the Soviet economy immediately went to a total war
footing and was soon outproducing the German economy in war materiel.

It quickly became apparent that the war in the east would be pitiless and total.
Soviet strategy was therefore aimed at preserving the state, at whatever cost, and
then the ultimate defeat and conquest of Germany. This strategy was successful. By
1943, the USSR was confident in final victory and new aim of Soviet strategy became
securing a favourable post-war Europe. At the Tehran Conference of 1943, Stalin
secured acquiescence to a Soviet sphere in influence from his western allies.

Japanese
Japanese World War II strategy was driven by two factors: the desire to expand
their territories on the mainland of Asia (China and Manchuria), and the need to
secure the supply of raw resources they didn't have themselves, particularly oil.
Since their quest after the former (conquest of Chinese provinces) endangered the
latter (an oil boycott by the USA and its allies),[citation needed] the Japanese
government saw no other option than to conquer the oil sources in South-East Asia.
Since these were controlled by American allies, war with the USA was seen as
inevitable; thus, Japanese leaders decided it would be best to deal a severe blow
to the U.S. first. This was executed in the Pearl Harbor strike, crippling the
American battle fleet.

Japan hoped it would take America so long to rebuild, by the time she was able to
return in force in the Pacific, she would consider the new balance of power a "fait
accompli", and negotiate a peace. However, the attack on Pearl Harbor failed to
destroy the crucial targets (aircraft carriers and, most crucially for Japan's
ability to hold island bases,[31] submarines) and ignored others (oil tank farms,
power station), thus the U.S. Navy was not weakened enough to force withdrawal. The
psychological effect also caused the U.S. population and armed forces to fully
mobilize for war. South-East Asia was quickly conquered (Philippines, Indochina,
Malaysia and the Dutch East Indies). After Japan's vital aircraft carrier force was
destroyed in the Battle of Midway, the Japanese had to revert to a stiff defense
they kept up for the remainder of the war.

American
With both Japan and the US fighting two-front wars (against each other in the
Pacific, and additionally the USA in Europe and the Japanese in China) the far
greater American economic power enabled the US forces to replace battle losses
considerably faster and to eventually outgun the Japanese. In several aircraft
carrier battles, the initiative was taken from the Japanese, and after the Battle
of Midway, the Japanese navy was rendered helpless, effectively giving the
Americans vast naval superiority.

After the Japanese were forced into the defensive in the second half of 1942, the
Americans were confronted with heavily fortified garrisons on small islands. They
decided on a strategy of "island hopping", leaving the strongest garrisons alone,
just cutting their supply, and securing bases of operation on the lightly defended
isles instead. The most notable of these island battles was the Battle of Iwo Jima,
where the American victory facilitated the aerial bombing of the Japanese mainland,
which culminated in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Bombing
of Tokyo that forced Japan to surrender.

Australian
Australia's historical ties with Britain meant that with the commencement of World
War II her armies were sent overseas to contribute to battles in Europe. Fear from
the north was so understated that at the outbreak of open warfare with Japan,
Australia itself was extremely vulnerable to invasion (possible invasion plans were
considered by the Japanese high command, though there was strong opposition).
Australia's policy became based entirely on domestic defense following the attacks
on Pearl Harbor and British assets in the South Pacific. Defying strong British
opposition, Australian Prime Minister John Curtin recalled most troops from the
European conflict for the defense of the nation.

Australia's defensive doctrine saw a fierce campaign fought along the Kokoda track
in New Guinea. This campaign sought to further stretch Japanese supply lines,
preventing the invasion of the Australian mainland until the arrival of fresh
American troops and the return of seasoned Australian soldiers from Europe. This
can be seen as a variant of the war of attrition strategy, where the defender�out
of necessity�had to hold the aggressor at a semi-static defensive line, rather than
falling back in the face of superior numbers. This method is in stark contrast to
the Russian scorched earth policy against Napoleon in 1812, where the defenders
yielded home territory in favour of avoiding open battle. In both cases the lack of
supplies was successful in blunting the assaults, following exhaustive defensive
efforts.

Communist China's strategy

The Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong developed a military strategy called
people's war. It aimed at creating and maintaining support of the local population,
and draw the enemy deep into the interior where the force adopting the strategy
would exhaust them through a mix of guerrilla and conventional warfare.

The strategy was first used by the Communists against the forces of the Nationalist
Government led by Chiang Kai-shek in the Chinese Civil War in the 1930s. During and
after the arduous Long March, the Communist forces, who were dramatically reduced
by physical exhaustion, disease and warfare, were in danger of destruction by the
pursuing Nationalist forces. Mao then convinced other high-ranking political
officers in the party to acquire the support of the local population whilst
fighting their way northwards from the Nationalist forces. Shortly thereafter he
formulated the concept of people's war, promising land reform programs to the local
populace and execution of the local landlords in the areas the Communists control.
Using this strategy not only prevented the Communist leadership from collapsing,
but also raised popular support across China, which eventually allowed them to take
total control over the Chinese mainland.

The people's war is not only a military strategy but also a political one. In its
original formulation by Mao Zedong, people's war exploits the few advantages that a
small revolutionary movement has against a government's power including a large and
well-equipped army. People's war strategically avoids decisive battles, since their
tiny military force would easily be routed in an all-out confrontation with the
government�s army. Instead, it favours a three-stage strategy of protracted
warfare, engaging only in carefully chosen battles that can realistically be won.
Relying on the local population and using small military units, ensures that there
are few problems concerning logistics and supplies.

In stage one, the revolutionary force sets up in a remote area with mountainous or
otherwise difficult terrain where its enemy is weak, and attempts to establish a
local stronghold known as a revolutionary base area. As it grows in power, it
enters stage two, establishes other revolutionary base areas, where it may exercise
governing power and gain popular support through political programmes, such as land
reform. Eventually in stage three, the movement has enough strength to encircle and
capture cities of increasing size, until finally it seizes power in the entire
country.

Within the Chinese Red Army, later to be called as the People's Liberation Army,
the concept of People's War was the basis of strategy against the Japanese and
Nationalist forces, and also against a hypothetical Russian invasion of China. The
concept of people's war became less important with the collapse of the Soviet Union
and the increasing possibility of conflict with the United States over Taiwan.

The strategy was utilized in the early 1950s by the hastily formed People's
Volunteer Army during the Korean War, to garner support from the local Korean
populace to win the war by driving the United Nations forces from the peninsula. At
the battles of Chongchon river valley and Lake Changjin, the army employed
guerrilla tactics in full scale, following the people's war doctrine. However, as
they marched towards the South under Mao's stern orders after their decisive
victories in northern Korea, they were met by an indifferent and sometimes hostile
Southern population[32] who, despite intimidation, were not willing to help them.
This prevented them from defeating the UN forces in Korea and, after their hard-
fought victory at the Third Battle of Seoul, they were beaten in the open by UN
forces in the conclusion of their Third Phase Campaign. Later on the war turned
into a stalemated two-year confrontation between the opposing forces. Thus, years
after the war, the Chinese government began a series of army modernization and
professionalization that would radically change the concept of the strategy, and in
the 1980s and 1990s the concept of people's war was changed to include more high-
technology weaponry.

The people's war strategy was also employed in countries around the world such as
Cuba, Nicaragua, Nepal, Philippines, the United Kingdom (where the IRA was in
rebellion in Northern Ireland and applied this strategy to urban warfare) and
elsewhere. The people's war in the first three countries mentioned have been
spectacularly successful, marking government transitions in these countries, while
elsewhere such as in Peru it has been unsuccessful. The people's war in the
Philippines that was long since employed by the insurgent New People's Army,
however, made the Communist insurgency there the longest in world history,.[33] In
India and Turkey there are still ongoing insurgencies where the rebels use this
strategy.

Cold War
The strategy of the Cold War was that of containment, and it was a generation
dominated by the threat of total world annihilation through the use of nuclear
weapons. Deterrence was a part of containment via retributive intimidation from the
risk of mutually assured destruction. As a consequence, it was also a war in which
attacks were not exchanged between the two main rivals, the United States and the
Soviet Union. Instead, the war was fought through proxies. Instead of mainly being
confined to Europe or the Pacific, the entire world was the battlefield, with
countries rather than armies acting as main players. The only constant rule was
that troops of the Soviet Union and the United States could not overtly fight with
each other. Military strategy involved bipolar powers with global actors who could
strike an opponent with nationally debilitating destruction in a matter of minutes
from land, air, and sea.

With the advent of weapons of mass destruction that could decide a war by
themselves, strategies shifted away from a focus on the application of conventional
weaponry to a greater focus on espionage and intelligence assessment, especially
after the exposure of the Atomic spies.

The difference between tactics, strategy and grand strategy began to melt during
the Cold War as command and communication technologies improved to a greater
extent, in first world armed forces. The third world armed forces controlled by the
two superpowers found that grand strategy, strategy and tactics, if anything, moved
further apart as the command of the armies fell under the control of super power
leaders.

American cold warriors like Dean Acheson and George C. Marshall quickly recognized
that the key to victory was the economic defeat of the Soviet Union. The Soviet
Union had adopted an aggressive posture of Communist expansionism following the end
of World War II, with the United States and its strong navy quickly finding that it
had to aggressively defend much of the world from the Soviet Union and the spread
of communism.

Strategies during the Cold War also dealt with nuclear attack and retaliation. The
United States maintained a policy of limited first strike throughout the Cold War.
In the event of a Soviet attack on the Western Front, resulting in a breakthrough,
the United States would use tactical nuclear weapons to stop the attack.
So, if the Warsaw Pact attacked using conventional weapons, the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) would use tactical nukes. The Soviet Union would respond
with an all-out nuclear attack, resulting in a similar attack from the United
States, with all the consequences the exchange would entail.

By contrast, Soviet strategy in the Cold War was dominated by the desire to
prevent, at all costs, the recurrence of an invasion of Russian soil. The Soviet
Union nominally adopted a policy of no first use, which in fact was a posture of
launch on warning.[34] Other than that, the USSR adapted to some degree to the
prevailing changes in the NATO strategic policies that are divided by periods as:
[35]

Strategy of massive retaliation (1950s)

(Russian: ????????? ?????????????? ?????????)
Strategy of flexible reaction (1960s) (Russian: ????????? ??????? ????????????)
Strategies of realistic threat and containment (1970s)
(Russian: ????????? ??????????????? ?????????? ??? ???????????)
Strategy of direct confrontation (1980s)
(Russian: ????????? ??????? ??????????????) one of the elements of which became the
new highly effective high-precision targeting weapons.
Strategic Defense Initiative (also known as "Star Wars") during its 1980s
development (Russian: ?????????????? ????????? ?????????? � ???) which became a
core part of the strategic doctrine based on Defense containment.
Fortunately for all sides, the all-out nuclear World War III between NATO and the
Warsaw Pact did not take place. The United States recently (April 2010)
acknowledged a new approach to its nuclear policy which describes the weapons'
purpose as "primarily" or "fundamentally" to deter or respond to a nuclear attack.
[36]

Current major security alliances:

NATO, ESDP SCO, CSTO

PSC SADC
Post Cold War
See also: Asymmetric warfare and Network-centric warfare
Strategy in the post Cold War is characterized by a number of potent powers in a
multipolar array and has come to be defined by the hyperpower status of the United
States,[37] which is increasingly relying on advanced technology to minimize
casualties and improve efficiency.[citation needed] The technological leaps brought
by the Digital Revolution are essential for this strategy.

The gap in strategy today (from a Western viewpoint) is in what the Americans call
"asymmetric warfare": the battle against guerrilla forces by conventional national
armed forces. The classical strategic triumvirate of politics/military/populace is
very weak against protracted warfare of paramilitary forces such as the Provisional
Irish Republican Army, Hezbollah, ETA, PKK, and Al-Qaeda. The ability of
conventional forces to deliver utility (effect) from their hugely powerful forces
is largely nullified by the difficulties of distinguishing and separating
combatants from the civilian populace in whose company they hide. The use of the
military by the politicians to police areas seen as bases for these guerrillas
leads to them becoming targets themselves which eventually undermines the support
of the populace from whom they come and whose values they represent.

The primary effect of insurgent elements upon conventional force strategy is

realized in the twofold exploitation of the inherent violence of military
operations. Conventional armies face political attrition for each action they take.
Insurgent forces can cause harm and create chaos, whereby the conventional army
suffers a loss of confidence and esteem; or they can drive the conventional
elements into an attack which further exacerbates the civilian condition.

The militaries of today are largely set up to fight the 'last war' and hence have
huge armoured and conventionally configured infantry formations backed up by air-
forces and navies designed to support or prepare for these forces.[38] Many are
today deployed against guerrilla-style opponents where their strengths cannot be
used to effect. The mass formations of Industrial War are often seen as much less
effective than the unconventional forces that these organisations also possess. The
new opponents operate at a local level whereas Industrial armed forces work at a
much higher 'theatre' level. The nervous system of these new opponents is largely
political rather than military hierarchical and adapted to the local supporting
populace who hide them. The centre provides the political idea and driving logic
perhaps with overall direction and some funding. Local groups decide their own
plans, raise much of their own funds and may be more or less aligned to the
centre's aims. Defeat of forces when revealed does not disable this type of
organisation, many modern attack strategies will tend to increase the power of the
group they are intended to weaken. A new more political strategy is perhaps more
appropriate here with military backing. Such a strategy has been illustrated in the
war between the IRA, though an adoption and codification are unclear.

Netwar
A main point in asymmetric warfare is the nature of paramilitary organizations such
as Al-Qaeda which are involved in guerrilla military actions but which are not
traditional organizations with a central authority defining their military and
political strategies. Organizations such as Al-Qaeda may exist as a sparse network
of groups lacking central coordination, making them more difficult to confront
following standard strategic approaches. This new field of strategic thinking is
tackled by what is now defined as netwar.[citation needed]

See also
War portal
General
Strategy
Grand strategy
Naval strategy
Operational mobility
Military doctrine
Principles of war
Military tactics
List of military tactics
List of military strategies and concepts
List of military writers
List of military strategy books
Roerich Pact
Examples of military strategies
Schlieffen Plan
Mutual assured destruction
Blitzkrieg
Shock and awe
Fabian strategy
Progressive war
Related topics
Asymmetric warfare
Battleplan (documentary TV series)
Force multiplication
Strategic bombing
Strategic depth
War termination
References
Notes
Gartner (1999), p. 163,
Carpenter (2005), p. 25
Matloff (1996), p. 11
Wilden (1987), p. 235
Liddell Hart, B. H. Strategy London:Faber, 1967 (2nd rev ed.) p. 321
 Matti Nojonen, Jym�ytt�misen taito. Strategiaoppeja muinaisesta Kiinasta.
[Transl.: The Art of Deception. Strategy lessons from Ancient China.] Gaudeamus,
Finland. Helsinki 2009. ISBN 978-952-495-089-3.
Scott, Wilson (7 March 2013), "Obama meets privately with Jewish leaders", The
Washington Post, Washington, DC, archived from the original on 24 July 2013,
retrieved 22 May 2013
"Obama to challenge Israelis on peace", United Press International, 8 March 2013,
retrieved 22 May 2013
Garner, Rochelle (16 October 2006), "Oracle's Ellison Uses 'Art of War' in
Software Battle With SAP", Bloomberg, archived from the original on 11 April 2012,
retrieved 18 May 2013
"Strategy vs. Tactic". diffen.com. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
Headquarters, Department of the Army (27 February 2008). FM 3�0, Operations (PDF).
Washington, DC: GPO. ISBN 9781437901290. OCLC 780900309. Retrieved 31 August 2013.
School of Advanced Air and Space Studies.
AAP-6(V) NATO Glossary of Terms and Definitions
British Defence Doctrine, Edition 3, 2008
Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, A History of Warfare, Collins.
London, 1968
Chaliand (1994), p. 638,
Strachan, Hew (2007). Clausewitz in the twenty-first century. Oxford University
Press. p. 319. ISBN 978-0-19-923202-4. Retrieved 2012-07-31.
Catton. Bruce (1971). The Civil War. American Heritage Press, New York. Library of
Congress Number: 77-119671.
Headquarters, Department of the Army (27 February 2008). FM 3�0, Operations (PDF).
Washington, DC: GPO. pp. A-1�A-3. ISBN 9781437901290. OCLC 780900309. Retrieved 12
December 2017.
Kesten C. Greene and J. Scott Armstrong (2011). "Role thinking: Standing in other
people's shoes to forecast decisions in conflicts" (PDF). International Journal of
Forecasting. doi:10.1016/j.ijforecast.2010.05.001.
st?at???a, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
Digital Library
st?at????, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
Digital Library
????, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
Digital Library
???, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
Digital Library
May (2007), pp. 115ff.
Heuser (2010), pp. 4ff.
See U.S. Army War College http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ and Royal Military Academy
Sandhurst, U.K.
See Martin Van Creveld's Fighting Power for more on this topic.
Die Errichtung der Hegemonie auf dem europ�ischen Kontinent [Constructing hegemony
on the European continent]. Beitr�ge zur Milit�r- und Kriegsgeschichte: Das
Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg (in German). 2. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt.
1979. ISBN 9783421019356. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
Snyder, Timothy (2010). Bloodlands � Europe between Hitler and Stalin. London:
Vintage Books. pp. preface page ix�x. ISBN 978-0-09-955179-9. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
Hitler wanted not only to eradicate the Jews; he wanted also to destroy Poland and
the Soviet Union as states, eliminate their ruling classes, and kill tens of
millions of Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles). If the German war
against the USSR had gone as planned, thirty million civilians would have been
starved in the first winter, and tens of millions more expelled, killed,
assimilated or enslaved thereafter.
Parillo; Blair
Shrader 1995, pp. 174�175.
Joey Baking. "LITTLE Manila Confidential: Philippines has the Longest Communist
Insurgency". Archived from the original on 2011-03-06. Retrieved 2014-07-22.
 Beatrice Heuser, �Warsaw Pact Military Doctrines in the 70s and 80s: Findings in
the East German Archives�, Comparative Strategy Vol. 12 No. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1993), pp.
437-457. [1]
Pupkov, et al. Weapons of anti-missile defense of Russia
"2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) Fact Sheet" (PDF). U.S. Department of Defense
Office of Public Affairs. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 27, 2010.
Retrieved April 13, 2010.
The term was coined by French politician Hubert V�rdine. See:International Herald
Tribune, "To Paris, U.S. Looks Like a 'Hyperpower'," February 5, 1999.
The Utility of Force, General Sir Rupert Smith, Allen Lane, London, 2005, ISBN 0-
7139-9836-9
Bibliography
Carpenter, Stanley D. M., Military Leadership in the British Civil Wars, 1642-1651:
The Genius of This Age, Routledge, 2005.
Chaliand, G�rard, The Art of War in World History: From Antiquity to the Nuclear
Age, University of California Press, 1994.
Gartner, Scott Sigmund, Strategic Assessment in War, Yale University Press, 1999.
Heuser, Beatrice, The Evolution of Strategy: Thinking War from Antiquity to the
Present (Cambridge University Press, 2010), ISBN 978-0-521-19968-1.
Matloff, Maurice, (ed.), American Military History: 1775-1902, volume 1, Combined
Books, 1996.
May, Timothy. The Mongol Art of War: Chinggis Khan and the Mongol Military System.
Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 2007. ISBN 978-1844154760.
Wilden, Anthony, Man and Woman, War and Peace: The Strategist's Companion,
Routledge, 1987.
Further reading
The US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute publishes several dozen papers
and books yearly focusing on current and future military strategy and policy,
national security, and global and regional strategic issues. Most publications are
relevant to the International strategic community, both academically and
militarily. All are freely available to the public in PDF format. The organization
was founded by General Dwight D. Eisenhower after World War II.
Black, Jeremy, Introduction to Global Military History: 1775 to the present day,
Routledge Press, 2005.
D'Aguilar, G.C., Napoleon's Military Maxims, free ebook, Napoleon's Military
Maxims.
Freedman, Lawrence. Strategy: A History (2013) excerpt
Holt, Thaddeus, The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War,
Simon and Schuster, June, 2004, hardcover, 1184 pages, ISBN 0-7432-5042-7.
Tomes, Robert R., US Defense Strategy from Vietnam to Operation Iraqi Freedom:
Military Innovation and the New American Way of War, 1973�2003, Routledge Press,
2007.
Categories: Military strategy
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