Journal of Defense Management
Open Access

An Overview on Military Strategy and Doctrines

Jessica Lorn^{* *}Correspondence: Jessica Lorn, Department of Defense Management, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, Email:

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Description

Military strategy is the epicentre of military science in many ways. It investigates the specifics of planning for and engaging in warfare, with the goal of distilling the myriad variables into a set of principles that govern all battlefields encounters. Clausewitz's Ideas of War were the first to outline these principles in Europe. As such, it is in charge of the overall planning and execution of battles, operations, and conflicts. Today, the globe is dominated by two primary systems. These are generally referred to as the "Western" and "Russian" systems, respectively. Each system reflects and supports the underlying society's strengths and weaknesses.

The majority of modern Western military art is made up of a mix of French, German, British, and American systems. The Russian system also borrows from previous systems, either through research or personal observation in the form of invasion (Napoleon's War of 1812 and The Great Patriotic War), to create a unique product suitable to the situations that practitioners of this system will face. Doctrine is the system that is created as a result of Military Art's examination.

To give a level of combat awareness that opponents cannot match, Western military doctrine mainly relies on technology, the use of a well-trained and empowered NCO cadre, and better information processing and distribution. Its advantages include tremendous flexibility, extreme lethality, and a concentration on paralysing and incapacitating an opponent's C3I (command, communications, control, and intelligence) rather than immediately destroying their combat power (hopefully saving lives in the process). Its disadvantages include expensive costs, a reliance on difficult-to-replace personnel, a massive logistic train, and the inability to operate without high-tech assets if they are exhausted or destroyed.

Military doctrine of the Soviet Union (and its heirs in the CIS) is largely reliant on massive amounts of machinery and personnel, a well-educated (though tiny) officer corps, and pre-planned missions. It has the advantages of not requiring well-educated personnel, not requiring a massive logistic train, being under tight central control, and not relying on a complex C3I system after a course of action has been initiated. Inflexibility, a reliance on the shock impact of mass (with a heavy cost in lives and material), and an overall inability to capitalize on unexpected success or adapt to unforeseen loss are among its drawbacks.

The People's Liberation Army is evaluating military developments that are relevant to China, hence Chinese military doctrine is currently in flux. Chinese military doctrine is impacted by a variety of factors, including an indigenous classical military heritage influenced by strategists like Sun Tzu, Western and Soviet influences, and indigenous modern strategists like Mao Zedong. One distinguishing feature of Chinese military science is its emphasis on the military-society interaction, as well as its view of military force as simply one component of a larger grand strategy.

Each system educates its officer corps in its military art philosophy. The substance and emphasis differences are instructive. The principles of war of the United States Army are specified in the US Army Field Manual FM 100-5. The Land Forces Doctrine and Training System (LFDTS) defines the Canadian Forces' principles of war/military science, which include principles of command, concepts of war, operational art and campaign planning, and scientific principles.

The armed forces of the Russian Federation derive its fighting concepts mostly from those created during the Soviet Union's existence. These have been dramatically modified with the advent of nuclear weapons into strategic considerations, despite being heavily based on conventional war combat experience from the Second World War. The First and Second Chechen Wars, as well as the Soviet-Afghan War, altered the ideas that Soviet theorists had split into operational art and tactics. The Soviet Union's highly scientific approach to military science thought was viewed as unduly strict at the tactical level, affecting training in the Russian Federation's greatly diminished troops in order to instill greater professionalism and initiative.

Until the 1980s, when a substantial transition began, the People's Liberation Army's basic concepts of war were loosely based on those of the Soviet Union. The PLA is currently influenced by three ideological schools that both conflict and complement each other-the People's War, the Regional War, and the Military Revolution.