These developments also meant that combat was no longer focused on a single point, as in Napoleon’s era rather, armies deployed into lines of ever increasing length. Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky, 1936. The battle and the march were parts of an organic whole, with the needs of the battle dictating the organization and conduct of the march. There was no interval between the Prussian approach march and their attack on the Austrians. An example of this can be seen in the Prussian defeat of the Austrians at Königgrätz in 1866. Commanders saw the disappearance of the pause between the approach march and the battle. As the range of weaponry increased to the point that the enemy could be engaged as soon as his forces became visible, a critical change in the pace of battle emerged. The massive growth in the size of armies that began with the French Revolution coupled with changes in the means of war-advances in transportation and in weaponry-led to changes in how armies fought. 2 The Effect of a More Lethal, Longer-Range Battlefield Army, and contemporary debates about the utility of operational art.
In this way, operational art serves as the “mediating, integrative synthesis standing between modern strategy and tactics” and “ensures that the arrangement of tactical actions is not random, but more importantly, that the device that always and everywhere unites the arrangement of tactical actions is the pursuit of the strategic objective, not some other factor.” 1 This article discusses the development of the concept of operational art in the Soviet Union, its eventual adoption by the U.S. Operational art ensures this harmony of effort by translating abstract strategic goals into mechanical terms that commanders can then accomplish.
The theoretical construct of operational art combines characteristics of the tactical and strategic levels of war while providing a linkage to make tactical actions serve strategic ends. Operational art emerged out of the Soviet Union during the interwar era, and by the end of the twentieth century was an integral component of the doctrine of the major military powers. (Graphic courtesy of Operational art is among the most noteworthy and controversial concepts in modern military thought. The Battle of Königgrätz on the morning of 3 July 1866.
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