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TACTICAL THOUGHT
2014 September 29 th
Here, this means tactical approach which is to be expected of one’s own units. Not least,
in order to be able to identify preconditions which realistically connect to strategy. Such
knowledge should be sought at the operational level, in order to be able to produce
practical operational art, making strategic sense in Irregular or Hybrid Warfare
scenarios.
Today, a commonly viewed role of operational art is to transform strategic needs to
tactical missions, which are realistic to accomplish. From the tactical perspective, a task
is to understand and transform tactical realities at hand, back to the strategic thinking,
thus making the relational aspect of strategy and tactics alive, real and matching. Such a
consequence for operational art could create a developmental need, when it comes to
education of officers in Joint Warfare in Irregular or Hybrid Warfare scenarios. A
combination of traditionally limited interest for Irregular Warfare in general, a limited
interest in tactics in the Armed Forces, and rather dispersed tactical thinking in the
officer corps, seem to be a warning sign for a strategy chosen, which requires
capabilities in both Regular and Irregular Warfare. Particularly, it has to be noted that
Irregular Warfare is also distinct from Regular Warfare as a way of thinking about
violence in society. In Irregular Warfare, violence is not clearly separated from
everyday life.
This threatens as well as challenges the legal, structural, organizational structures that
constitute social order. To handle challenges of this order may require further analysis
by the politicians, the military and law enforcement structures, regarding rules of
engagement, in order to defend social order. Seen from a military theoretical
perspective, the results indicate a certain breadth and scope of tactics in land operations
against an irregular opponent that currently is seldom found in normative texts or more
experience-based literature. Nor has officer education equally prioritized the four
relatively different tactical types presented. This construction might be the result of
generations of national defence thinking, a long period of extensive operations in the
Balkans and later in Afghanistan and a certain military social and cultural inheritance. If
so, a question arises if it is an appropriate and wanted heritage and, if there are reasons
to discuss the results relative to the education in War Studies regarding tactics-strategy
in particular.
This study has indicated that the ideal of Regular Warfare tactics lives on and is still
thought to be the most important to be skilled in, also to such a degree that about half of
the field commanders in 2011 (with rather an extensive space of experiences in Irregular
Warfare tactics in the Balkans and Afghanistan during the last 20 years) position
themselves mostly in thinking in Regular Warfare terms, even when the discussed
scenario is quite the opposite. Still, the other half of the population clearly states tactical
preference with a wider battle-environment contextualization, involving the civil
dimension and non-kinetic effects. This is an example which directly knits strategy with
the needs of tactical competences and resources together. If being tasked to act with
military force in some sort of Irregular Warfare context that will particularly alter the
environment of the civil dimension, such competences (e.g. a military police function
and adapted intelligence apparatus down to low-level unit structures) might be suitable
to be included earlier in conceptual thinking, education and training.
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