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Principles of war are rules and guidelines that represent truths in the practice of war and military operations.
The earliest known principles of war were documented by Sun Tzu, c. 500 BCE, as well as Chanakya in his Arthashastra c. 350 BCE. Machiavelli published his "General Rules" in 1521 which were themselves modeled on Vegetius' Regulae bellorum generales (Epit. 3.26.1–33). Henri, Duke of Rohan established his "Guides" for war in 1644. Marquis de Silva presented his "Principles" for war in 1778. Henry Lloyd proffered his version of "Rules" for war in 1781 as well as his "Axioms" for war in 1781. Then in 1805, Antoine-Henri Jomini published his "Maxims" for war version 1, "Didactic Resume" and "Maxims" for war version 2. Carl von Clausewitz wrote his version in 1812 building on the work of earlier writers.
There are no universally agreed-upon principles of war. The principles of warfare are tied into military doctrine of the various military services. Doctrine, in turn, suggests but does not dictate strategy and tactics.
Arthaśāstra is an ancient Indian Sanskrit treatise on statecraft and military strategy among other things.
The Book of Deuteronomy prescribes how the Israelite army was to fight, including dealing with plunder, enslavement of the enemy women and children and forbidding the destruction of fruit-bearing trees.
Sun Tzu's The Art of War , written c. 400 BCE, listed five basic factors for a commander to consider:
However, Sun Tzu implied individual initiative as a principle of warfare, stating "According as circumstances are favorable, one should modify one's plans."
Since the first appearance in English of the military maxims of Napoleon in 1831, all English translations have relied upon the extremely incomplete French edition of General Burnod published in 1827.[ citation needed ] This has contributed to the erroneous belief that Napoléon Bonaparte had pioneered the "Principles of War". Napoléon was a keen follower of famous military generals of the past, who influenced his thoughts greatly. Albeit, "The armies of today are based on the organization created by Napoleon [sic] for his Grand Army and it has been used ever since." (Weider, par. 12). [1] Since the mid-19th century, due to the influence of the Prussian Army, they have become a guide for many military organizations to focus the thinking of military commanders and political leaders toward concepts and methods of successful prosecution of wars and smaller military operations. Although originally concerned with strategy, grand strategy and tactics, due to the changing nature of warfare and military technology, since the interwar period, the principles are largely applied to the strategic decision-making, and in some cases, to operational mobility of forces.
The principles of war identified by Carl von Clausewitz in his essay Principles of War, [2] and later enlarged in his book, On War have been influential in military thinking in the North Atlantic region.
The initial essay dealt with the tactics of combat, and suggested the following general principles:
Based on the above, Clausewitz went on to suggest principles for tactics, the scale of combat that dominated European warfare at the time:
Clausewitz also included in the essay general principles of strategy by saying that Warfare has three main objects:
Antoine Henri Jomini in his book, Precis de l'Art de Guerre , published in 1838, also developed theories of warfare based on the concepts and methods used during the Napoleonic Wars.
Colonel Ardant du Picq, a French infantry officer who was killed in the Franco-Prussian War, prepared drafts based on his observations of military history which became the book Battle Studies . In it two of Du Picq's observations stand out:
Applied to specific forms of warfare, such as naval warfare, Julian Corbett argued that maritime strategy should play a significant role in the principles of war. [4] Admiral William S. Sims, who commanded the U.S. Navy's contribution to the British Grand Fleet in World War I, wrote of the U.S. Naval War College:
The college aims to supply principles, not rules, and by training, develop the habit of applying these principles logically, correctly, and rapidly to each situation that may arise.
This habit can be acquired only through considerable practice, hence the numerous problems in strategy and tactics. [5]
Variations exist and differences are minor and semantic or reflect a cultural persuasion for a particular approach. A closer examination of the values and culture of origin reveals its war priorities.
The UK uses 10 principles of war, as taught to all officers of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force:
The British Army's principles of war were first published after the First World War and based on the work of the British general and military theorist, J. F. C. Fuller. The definition of each principle has been refined over the following decades and adopted throughout the British armed forces. The tenth principle, added later, was originally called Administration. The first principle has always been stated as pre-eminent and the second is usually considered more important than the remainder, which are not listed in any order of importance.
The 2011 edition of British Defence Doctrine (BDD) [6] states and explains the principles with the following preface: "Principles of War guide commanders and their staffs in the planning and conduct of warfare. They are enduring, but not immutable, absolute or prescriptive, and provide an appropriate foundation for all military activity. The relative importance of each may vary according to context; their application requires judgement, common sense and intelligent interpretation. Commanders also need to take into account the legitimacy of their actions, based on the legal, moral, political, diplomatic and ethical propriety of the conduct of military forces, once committed."
The ten principles as listed and defined in the 2011 edition, unchanged from the 2008 edition, of BDD (which also provides explanation) are:
These principles of war are commonly used by the armed forces of Commonwealth countries such as Australia.
Soviet adoption of the principles of war is considered a part of military art, and is therefore a system of knowledge that is
the theory and practice of preparing and conducting military operations on the land, at sea, and in the air. [7]
As such it includes the following principles [8]
The Soviet principles of military science, from Soviet AirLand Battle Tactics ISBN 0-89141-160-7. Similar principles continue to be followed in CIS countries.
Thus it can be seen that in Military art, the Soviet and Western systems are similar, but place their emphasis in wildly differing places. Western systems allow more control and decision-making at lower levels of command, and with this empowerment comes a consistent emphasis. Offensive, mass, and maneuver principles for the western commander all place a sense of personal responsibility and authority to ensure these principles are followed by appropriate action. In contrast the Soviet system stresses preparedness, initiative, and obedience. This places more responsibility at the better prepared and informed centers of command, and provide more overall control of the battle.
(Refer to US Army Field Manual FM 3–0)
The United States Armed Forces use the following nine principles of war:
Officers in the U.S. Military sometimes use the acronyms "MOSS MOUSE", "MOOSE MUSS", "MOUSE MOSS", "MOM USE SOS", and "SUMO MOSES" to remember the first letters of these nine principles.
MOSSMOUSE | Equivalent Nine Principles |
---|---|
Mass | Concentration & Distribution |
Objective | Direction |
Simplicity | Not applicable. Simplicity was never listed as a principle by Fuller in his final draft. |
Security | Security |
Maneuver | Mobility |
Offensive | Offensive Action (Disorganisation of Force) |
Unity of Command | Determination & Endurance |
Surprise | Surprise (Demoralisation of Force) |
Economy of Force | Not applicable. Economy of Force was seen by Fuller as the goal of the Nine Principles, rather than a Principle in itself. |
According to a United States Government document from 2010, the rule governing targeting in a non-international armed conflict is the international humanitarian law which is commonly known as the laws of war. [9] The United States government stated in an undated Department of Justice White paper entitled "Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qa’ida or An Associated Force" that the four fundamental law-of-war principles governing the use of force are necessity, distinction, proportionality and humanity i.e. the avoidance of unnecessary suffering. [10] [11]
There is a debate within the American military establishment to adopt flexibility as the tenth principle of war. Frost argues that the concept of flexibility should be integrated with America's warfighting doctrine. [12] Americans[ who? ] soundly retort that flexibility is a given that pervades all aspects of each principle.
Many,[ who? ] however, hold that the principle of simplicity implicitly includes flexibility. One of the oldest dicta states that the simple plan is the flexible plan.
In 2007, Armed Forces Journal published a proposal by LCDR Chris van Avery, USN, 12 New Principles of War, [13] to completely overhaul and expand the U.S. principles of war from nine to thirteen. The article was subsequently forwarded to the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Air Force Chief of Staff General Moseley and an effort to overhaul current U.S. doctrine was initiated using Van Avery's framework.
In 2011, three new "principles of joint operations" were added to the cited nine principles of war. These principles are:
Together, these 12 concepts form the Principles of Joint Operations. [14]
The Canadian Armed Forces principles of war/military science are defined by the Royal Military College of Canada or Canadian Forces College website to focus on principles of command, principles of war, operational art and campaign planning, and scientific principles.
The French Army recognizes three principles to be applied to operation of land forces at the tactical level: [15]
According to French doctrine, new principles should be observed, primarily to protect the principle of "Freedom of Action":
The principles of war according to Israeli doctrine are: [16]
The military principles of war of the People's Liberation Army were loosely based on those of the Soviet Union until the 1980s when a significant shift begun to be seen in a more regionally-aware, and geographically-specific strategic, operational and tactical thinking in all services. The PLA is currently influenced by three doctrinal schools which both conflict and complement each other: the People's war, the Regional war, and the Revolution in military affairs that led to substantial increase in the defence spending and rate of technological modernisation of the forces.
In recent years, 'Local war under high-tech conditions' has been promoted.
These principles can be applied to non-military uses when Unity of command is separated into coordination and reality, Economy of Force is redefined as use of resources, Mass is separated into renewable and non-renewable resources, and relationships are separated from unity of command.
In 1913 Harrington Emerson proposed 12 principles of efficiency, [17] the first three of which could be related to principles of war: Clearly defined ideals – Objective, Common sense – Simplicity, Competent counsel – Unity of Command.
Some of the twelve non-military principles of efficiency were formulated by Henry Ford at the turn of the 20th century, [18] and are suggested to be[ citation needed ]: objective, coordination, action, reality, knowledge, locations (space and time),things, obtaining, using, protecting, and losing. Nine, ten, or twelve principles all provide a framework for efficient development of any objective.
Principles of War was also a book published in 1969 for the Japan Self-Defense Forces. [19] It outlines the basic military principles and strategies by which the Japanese army was to operate. The book was used for most military exams in Japan. The book backs up all military principles with historical examples.
A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force commitment. An engagement with only limited commitment between the forces and without decisive results is sometimes called a skirmish.
Blitzkrieg is a word used to describe a combined arms surprise attack using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations; together with artillery, air assault, and close air support; with intent to break through the opponent's lines of defense, dislocate the defenders, unbalance the enemies by making it difficult to respond to the continuously changing front, and defeat them in a decisive Vernichtungsschlacht: a battle of annihilation.
Military science is the study of military processes, institutions, and behavior, along with the study of warfare, and the theory and application of organized coercive force. It is mainly focused on theory, method, and practice of producing military capability in a manner consistent with national defense policy. Military science serves to identify the strategic, political, economic, psychological, social, operational, technological, and tactical elements necessary to sustain relative advantage of military force; and to increase the likelihood and favorable outcomes of victory in peace or during a war. Military scientists include theorists, researchers, experimental scientists, applied scientists, designers, engineers, test technicians, and other military personnel.
Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. Derived from the Greek word strategos, the term strategy, when first used during the 18th century, was seen in its narrow sense as the "art of the general", or "the art of arrangement" of troops. and deals with the planning and conduct of campaigns, the movement and disposition of forces, and the deception of the enemy.
Military doctrine is the expression of how military forces contribute to campaigns, major operations, battles, and engagements. A military doctrine outlines what military means should be used, how forces should be structured, where forces should be deployed, and the modes of cooperation between types of forces. "Joint doctrine" refers to the doctrines shared and aligned by multinational forces or joint service operations.
In modern use, the order of battle of an armed force participating in a military operation or campaign shows the hierarchical organization, command structure, strength, disposition of personnel, and equipment of units and formations of the armed force. Various abbreviations are in use, including OOB, O/B, or OB, while ORBAT remains the most common in the United Kingdom. An order of battle is distinct from a table of organisation, which is the intended composition of a given unit or formation according to the military doctrine of its armed force. Historically, an order of battle was the order in which troops were positioned relative to the position of the army commander or the chronological order in which ships were deployed in naval situations.
In warfare, infiltration tactics involve small independent light infantry forces advancing into enemy rear areas, bypassing enemy frontline strongpoints, possibly isolating them for attack by follow-up troops with heavier weapons. Soldiers take the initiative to identify enemy weak points and choose their own routes, targets, moments and methods of attack; this requires a high degree of skill and training, and can be supplemented by special equipment and weaponry to give them more local combat options.
Maneuver warfare, or manoeuvre warfare, is a military strategy which emphasizes movement, initiative and surprise to achieve a position of advantage. Maneuver seeks to inflict losses indirectly by envelopment, encirclement and disruption, while minimizing the need to engage in frontal combat. In contrast to attrition warfare where strength tends to be applied against strength, maneuver warfare attempts to apply strength against weakness in order to accomplish the mission.
Mission-type tactics is a method of command and delegation where the military commander gives subordinate leaders a clearly-defined objective, high-level details such as a timeframe, and the forces needed to accomplish that objective. The subordinate leaders are given the planning initiative and freedom of execution: they decide on the methods to achieve the objective independently. This allows a high degree of flexibility at the operational and tactical levels of command, which allows for faster decision-making on the ground and frees the higher leadership from managing the tactical details to concentrate on the strategic picture. This may be contrasted with "Befehlstaktik" or command-type tactics.
Annihilation is a military strategy in which an attacking army seeks to entirely destroy the military capacity of the opposing army. This strategy can be executed in a single planned pivotal battle, called a "battle of annihilation". A successful battle of annihilation is accomplished through the use of tactical surprise, application of overwhelming force at a key point, or other tactics performed immediately before or during the battle.
Deep operation, also known as Soviet deep battle, was a military theory developed by the Soviet Union for its armed forces during the 1920s and 1930s. It was a tenet that emphasized destroying, suppressing or disorganizing enemy forces not only at the line of contact but also throughout the depth of the battlefield.
Economy of force is one of the nine Principles of War, based upon Carl von Clausewitz's approach to warfare. It is the principle of employing all available combat power in the most effective way possible, in an attempt to allocate a minimum of essential combat power to any secondary efforts. It is the judicious employment and distribution of forces towards the primary objective of any person's conflict. Economy of force is the reciprocal of mass.
Effects-based operations (EBO) is a United States military concept that emerged during the Persian Gulf War for the planning and conduct of operations combining military and non-military methods to achieve a particular effect. An effects-based approach to operations was first applied in modern times in the design and execution of the Desert Storm air campaign of 1991. The principal author of the daily attack plans—then Lt Colonel, now retired Lt General David A. Deptula—used an effects-based approach in building the actual Desert Storm air campaign targeting plan. Deptula describes the background, rationale, and provides an example of how an effects-based approach to targeting was conducted in Desert Storm in the publication, "Effects-Based Operations: Change in the Nature of Warfare." The doctrine was developed with an aim of putting desired strategic effects first and then planning from the desired strategic objective back to the possible tactical level actions that could be taken to achieve the desired effect. Contrary to conventional military approaches of force-on-force application that focused on attrition and annihilation, EBO focused on desired outcomes attempting to use a minimum of force. The approach was enabled by advancements in weaponry—particularly stealth and precision weapons—in conjunction with a planning approach based on specific effects rather than absolute destruction. Deptula, speaking at the Gulf War Air Campaign Tenth Anniversary Retrospective, on 17 January 2001 on One Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, defined the goal of EBO; "If we focus on effects, the end of strategy, rather than force-on-force the traditional means to achieve it militarily, that enables us to consider different and perhaps more effective ways to accomplish the same goal quicker than in the past, with fewer resources and most importantly with fewer casualties." Others have postulated that EBO could be interpreted as an emerging understanding that attacking a second-order target may have first order consequences for a variety of objectives, wherein the Commander's intent can be satisfied with a minimum of collateral damage or risk to his own forces.
Russian military deception, sometimes known as maskirovka, is a military doctrine developed from the start of the 20th century. The doctrine covers a broad range of measures for military deception, from camouflage to denial and deception.
Truppenführung was a German Army field-manual published in two parts as Heeresdienstvorschrift 300: Part 1, promulgated in 1933, and Part 2 in 1934.
In US military doctrine, unconventional warfare is one of the core activities of irregular warfare. Unconventional warfare is essentially support provided by the military to a foreign insurgency or resistance. The legal definition of UW is:
Unconventional Warfare consists of activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow an occupying power or government by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary or guerrilla force in a denied area.
American military operations other than war (MOOTW) focus on deterring war, resolving conflict, promoting peace, and supporting civil authorities in response to domestic crises.
The concept of networked swarming warfare was first proposed by HUO Dajun in 2003. The key feature of the Information Age is the networking of organizational structure. The rising networked organization will overcome the limitation of traditional geography and link the operational resources distributed widely to form a military action network which combine strike range, speed and lethality, three elements of originally different developing, fundamentally transforming our idea of battle space. With the trend of decentralization of forces, we need to develop more small units with independent combat functions; meanwhile we can join these small units into a whole network as the technology's development. The warfare based on this network is called networked swarming warfare.