Tactical and Strategic Interdependence
From Olivia Garard, Strategy Bridge: “Carl von Clausewitz’s On War is oft quoted, but rarely with a holistic understanding. Therefore, many Clausewitzian aphorisms take on a meaning based on context independent of the text. Conceptual confusion ensues and terms like tactics and strategy are thrown around without any real grasp of their theoretical underpinnings or their complex relationship. What, then, are tactics and strategy and what is the nature of their relationship?”
From Olivia Garard, Strategy Bridge: “Carl von Clausewitz’s On War is oft quoted, but rarely with a holistic understanding. Therefore, many Clausewitzian aphorisms take on a meaning based on context independent of the text. Conceptual confusion ensues and terms like tactics and strategy are thrown around without any real grasp of their theoretical underpinnings or their complex relationship. What, then, are tactics and strategy and what is the nature of their relationship?”
The Cultural Disconnect Over Airpower Application
From John Amble, Modern War Institute: "If the debacle over the Air Force’s proposed retirement of the A-10 proved anything, it demonstrated that there is a major cultural disconnect between the services. As the Air Force leadership tried to make a difficult case for retiring an aging attack aircraft, the A-10 was magically morphed into a proxy aircraft for a specific mission. No longer a multirole attack aircraft, it was now a single-mission close air support (CAS) airplane. Even Air Force officers made the mistake of referring to the Warthog as a “close air support (CAS) aircraft,” as if every other counter-land mission that the aircraft does is irrelevant to the fight. The Air Force foolishly accepted this utterly erroneous description of the A-10 and presumably all other aircraft with air-to-ground capability were now not “CAS aircraft,” despite thousands of CAS missions they flew over two decades. This aircraft-level discussion obscured the deeper issue with combat airpower—that the air and ground components have fundamentally different views of how victory is achieved, and the “proper” use of airpower in achieving victory."
From John Amble, Modern War Institute: "If the debacle over the Air Force’s proposed retirement of the A-10 proved anything, it demonstrated that there is a major cultural disconnect between the services. As the Air Force leadership tried to make a difficult case for retiring an aging attack aircraft, the A-10 was magically morphed into a proxy aircraft for a specific mission. No longer a multirole attack aircraft, it was now a single-mission close air support (CAS) airplane. Even Air Force officers made the mistake of referring to the Warthog as a “close air support (CAS) aircraft,” as if every other counter-land mission that the aircraft does is irrelevant to the fight. The Air Force foolishly accepted this utterly erroneous description of the A-10 and presumably all other aircraft with air-to-ground capability were now not “CAS aircraft,” despite thousands of CAS missions they flew over two decades. This aircraft-level discussion obscured the deeper issue with combat airpower—that the air and ground components have fundamentally different views of how victory is achieved, and the “proper” use of airpower in achieving victory."
Special Operations Forces in the Gray Zone
From Phillip Lohaus, AEI: "What do we mean by “gray zone”? To some, it is the zone between the identification of an imminent threat and the enemy’s attack, while others remove the requirement for an imminent threat and treat the term more broadly as “the area existing short of a formal state of war.” Still others question the value of the term and argue that so-called gray zone activities are identical to what we once called “international competition,” a timeless paradigm for understanding the nature of international relations."
From Phillip Lohaus, AEI: "What do we mean by “gray zone”? To some, it is the zone between the identification of an imminent threat and the enemy’s attack, while others remove the requirement for an imminent threat and treat the term more broadly as “the area existing short of a formal state of war.” Still others question the value of the term and argue that so-called gray zone activities are identical to what we once called “international competition,” a timeless paradigm for understanding the nature of international relations."
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