I would argue your historical analysis on this is wrong. The Soviets were absolutely not strategically inept or tactically bumbling other than during the first two years of the war. This kind of thinking is what got the Germans their butts handed to them from repeatedly underestimating the Soviets. Remember, the Soviets are who invented the operational level of war. They also became astute masters at military deception, and as a result continually kept the Germans guessing and clueless as to where exactly the next attack would occur. The Yom-Kippur War, in which Arab forces utilized Soviet tactics and weapons, shocked and significantly changed U.S. military doctrine, as it showed Soviet tactics to be effective and very lethal.
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Europe under extreme duress
- Thread starter Randy Daytona
- Start date
The operational art was born at the end of the 19th century before there was ever a Soviet Union. when the size of armies, made possible by the development of the nation-state, rendered tactics unable to bring about political results. Military history has moved on from such pedantic thinking. But, I’ll be happy to debate it at the next WWII history conference when you present your paper on Stalin’s army and the “invention” of the operational level of war.
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I’m picturing a lot of dudes with suspenders.
Tweed. All of the tweed. And clouds of pipe smoke.
You forget chubby….but otherwise pretty close.
I always found it odd that we “credited” the Soviet’s with creating or coining the operational level of war. Not sure how you distinguish 19th century campaigns from 20th century operations, but they seem eerily similar in design and intent. I have hard time believing that U.S. Grant didn’t understand the connection between strategy and tactics during the civil war.
Not sure I agree with that statement. Not really tactics but Soviet weapons were found to be superior to American. The Soviets maintained a vastly greater numerical advantage in the ETO and that is why nuclear weapons were so important at the time. It also drove more emphasis on the deep fight due to sheer force ratios at the front, Soviet reserve capability, and the initial genesis of relative combat power vice sheer numbers. Nothing the Arabs did was overly impressive by any means and they eventually got routed in Yom Kippur.
By the way… You guys are both giant nerds.
Your ignorance on this is a bit surprising. It was Alexander Svechin who first defined the operational level as a level of warfare, and there was a lot of development of this by a multitude of Soviet authors throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Prior to the Soviets, no one really gave any solid outline of the operational level. Soviet development of operational art was a result of experiences from the First World War, Russo-Japanese War, the Russian Civil War, and some other experiences, where they came to realize that due to Russia's enormous geography and with industrialization, that the old way of war emphasizing strategy and tactics and a major culminating final battle, was obsolete. It was from raw experience in fighting the Germans, and relearning from all the authors who gave definition and meaning to operational art, that the Soviets became a far more professional fighting force that was able to defeat the Germans.
The U.S. Army founded the School of Advanced Military Studies in 1983 specifically to teach the officer corps about the operational level, and a part of that was studying the works of Soviet military authors and the battles the Soviets fought.
It isn't that the connection between strategy and tactics was misunderstood, it is that given the increase in the sizes of forces being employed in modern warfare, and with increasing industrialization and mechanization, it came to be seen that just seeing war as strategy and tactics was too limiting.
It showed the U.S. though that the Soviets were likely not the bumbling force they had thought and that tactically and weapons-wise, they could be very dangerous. It also showed the importance of combined-arms warfare. The Israelis, who had focused on a more tank-based military, had to toss that and innovate in the moment utilizing combined-arms tactics. With the U.S., it led to the development of what would eventually become AirLand Battle Doctrine, where the U.S. formally acknowledged the operational level of war, and also the development of the "Big Five" army systems, i.e. the Abrams tank, the Bradley, the Apache, the Blackhawk, and the Patriot missile defense system.
. . . but being one is literally @Griz882's job.
Thanks for the PME refresh. I stand by my comments.
You guys can collocate with the Wilford Brimley lookalike convention.
I'll take a crack at it. But I'm gonna approach the subject from a 2023 perspective. Here's an abstract:
This paper presents a practice theoretical conception of gender in Soviet development of the operational level of war doctrine, emphasizing the potential of reflexivity and collective agency to reshape operational level of war doctrine norms. While the literature recognizes the fluidity of operational level of war doctrine and its intersectional nature, it often overlooks how operational level of war doctrines are produced and relate to each other. The main aim of this is to show, not just how, gendered norms of operational level of war doctrine practice inhibit practice (which has been extensively covered) but how identity and the individualized practice of operational level of war doctrine, can shift gendered norms of operational level of war doctrine is practiced. Drawing upon the theories of Joseph Stalin and Marshal Zukov, this paper proposes a more integrative approach to identity and gendered norms, embedded within a operational level of war doctrine approach. The author highlights the need for structural renegotiation in operational level of war doctrine through reflexivity. Given how norms self-naturalize, individual practice of diverse gendered practices in operational level of war doctrine is not enough to create long-term sustainable change and support for diverse gendered practices. Instead, this paper proposes an integrative approach to identity and gendered norms, emphasizing the potential of individuals to shift operational level of war doctrine norms, through collective action. This study suggests that a more balanced understanding of the interplay between context and identity can assist in the design of support for non-traditional gendered operational level of war doctrine and provide new insights into how gendered norms impact operational level of war doctrine activity.
Did you chatgpt this?