Levels of War

The levels of war are a particularly Western concept, or at least particularly the focus of Western military thinkers, and for most of Western military history until the modern age there were two levels of war: strategy and tactics. Both terms are derived from Greek words, but neither has ever achieved a universally agreed-on complete definition. In simple terms, strategy is a framework for the distribution and application of military means to fulfill the ends of policy for war. Tactics describes the activities in combat on the battlefield—the techniques used in fighting by military forces in contact with the enemy. This entry discusses the evolution of the levels of war and how their focus has changed.

Of the two initial levels, tactics was always the more concrete. In the most basic sense, tactics emerged with the realization that a group of armed combatants is more effective in combat if they are organized to work together in some fashion. As warfare grew in scale and more technologies came to be applied to war, the imperative to arrange the various arms, including artillery and cavalry, to work together in battle only grew. Tactics, whether on land or sea, required an individual or group of individuals to do the organization and arrangement of forces before and during battle, and therefore the practice of tactics was always tied to issues of leadership.

Likewise, the strategic level also required leadership, only the task for strategic leaders was always different in kind from tactics. Strategy serves policy, and therefore, a strategist must develop a clear understanding of the policy objectives for the war [Page 779]and set appropriate military objectives to meet that policy, all the while accounting for available resources, tactical and technological capabilities, and enemy intentions and abilities. In premodern terms, strategy primarily concerned the thinking and processes that got armies and navies to battle and was primarily the task of the heads of the armies or navies (who were often also the heads of state).

In the modern era, especially after the American and French Revolutions, both levels underwent significant changes. Tactics still focused on the techniques for using forces in battle, but as forces grew in size, the techniques needed to grow too. The advent of large units of command, especially corps, armies, and army groups, all of which could be engaged in battle but outside the overall commander’s vision and control, led to grand tactics for governing such forces. As the name implied, grand tactics were tactics on a larger scale and, thus, still focused on techniques to gain advantages in battle.

At the same time, strategy changed even more dramatically. Industrialization and nationalism allowed for the fuller mobilization of all of a society’s resources to support the war. Strategy, which had been focused almost exclusively on the application of military means—armies and navies—to war, now had to account for political, diplomatic, economic, moral, and psychological means and ways. As a result, what was once just strategy became known as military strategy, and the new task of applying all of a society’s resources to war took on the title grand or national strategy. Grand strategy became the responsibility of heads of state, while military strategy remained largely in the purview of generals and admirals. Due to the large size of forces and the increased scale of wars, military strategy could also be broken down into theater military strategy, the definition of ends and coordination of ways and means for a geographically distinct area, all in support of the grand and military strategies and overall policy objectives for the war.

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