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TACTICAL THOUGHT
2014 September 29 th
1.3 Background to the research focus
The following part describes my thoughts, articulations and motives for the research
focus. It is a reflection of biases habituated during over 30 years in military service. The
text describes an ambition to take on what is considered a classic military problem,
experienced in practice, and outlines a narrative sketch covering the time period 1980 to
2008. An ambition to elucidate the dangers and possibilities of Small Wars during this
period has, in general, been experienced as an up-hill road to travel.
Then suddenly, after 2007, the phenomenon of Irregular Warfare emerged unexpectedly
and was unavoidable to relate to, from strategy to tactics, in practice and theory. The
time had come for an attempt to gain a new and deeper knowledge approach in order to
contribute to the military thought on war fighting. To characterize the researcher’s
perspective of the research object, poses certain challenges and whatever result, the
question of truth becomes hard to measure. Human thinking, in particular one’s own
summaries of events and thinking from the past to now, is a question of memory, will
and intentions. My first intention is however, to describe my view of the inner meaning
of being an officer. Such a meaning is argued to be that tactical knowledge,
understandings and thought are the cornerstones in the officer profession.
However, this meaning does not convey anything if not communicated and put into
practice. The other way around, if practices are not reflected upon and returned to
military theory, tactical thought will hardly develop. Risk for disruption of the
connection to strategy is also thought to be imminent. Depending on internal and
external political and strategic circumstances, different requirements as consequences
emerge in relation to existing military tactics. Life and the world are not static, nor are
thoughts of the same. Doxa and paradigms on the other hand are long-lived. The
officer’s mastery of tactics, and even more importantly, of mental and practical adaption
to other needs than what has been predicted, prioritized and selected to be current
tactical principles, is argued to be a trademark of an officer’s skill. Recurrent situations
occur that fall outside what articulated military tactics can handle and that obviously
applies to the strategy domains to an equal extent.
During my time as an officer, I learned about tactics according to the doctrine of
national invasion defence. Subsequently, I had to think totally differently about tactics
during the submarine violations of Swedish territorial waters in the 1980-90s. That
experience fundamentally challenged my and several other officer colleagues’ mental
picture of what an opponent could do, and what we could or could not do to defend
ourselves. The image and idea that previous knowledge had obvious limitations
mentally and practically, meant that the meaning of a duel was given a new character
when the enemy was hard to be found. However, this insight was for some, of a more
temporary character, such as a strategically-tactical anomaly, probably not to be
encountered again and therefore of a more limited interest. The duel with an enemy that
was hard to find, or acting in a way contemporary tactical paradigms had not described,
gave insights of the need for further tactical thought.
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