9 minutes
Perhaps no four words are more vaguely understood than the four words that head this page. Strategy comes from two Greek words: stratos, an army, and agein, to lead. These two words were combined in the Greek language to form the word strategos, which we translate by the word “general.” Among the many definitions of strategy which are given, the one that preserves best the original meaning is “the art of the general”; that is, the art of leading armies. By giving a slight extension to the meaning of this definition, we may say that strategy is the art of handling large warlike forces; military strategy being the art of handling armies, and naval strategy the art of handling navies.
No single word has the same meaning as applied to any civil vocation that strategy has, as applied to the military and naval vocations. A man at the head of a large business organization must handle that organization, both as a whole and as a number of parts, according to certain principles of business management; but no single word names the art he exercises. The same remark applies to a politician in handling his political forces in a political campaign; no single word names the art he exercises. A like statement may be made concerning the handling of any large organization whatever, be it social, educational or religious; no single word names the art that is exercised. In order to indicate any one of the arts that is exercised, the word “strategy” is used with some appropriate adjective; for instance, we read of “political strategy,” “business strategy,” “ecclesiastical strategy,” etc.
One thing which has clouded the meaning of the word strategy is the word stratagem, which is a word also derived from stratos and agein and expresses one of the efforts of strategy; the effort to mislead or confuse the enemy by the use of some ruse, trick or novel method or procedure.
Another thing which has clouded the meaning of the word strategy is the line of distinction between strategy and tactics which some writers have drawn with such sharpness as to suggest the idea that the two arts have nothing in common. The accepted idea is that strategy is concerned with the preparation of armed forces until they come within sight of each other; and that tactics steps in then and takes the armed forces away from strategy and handles them itself.
It is, of course, essential that a distinction be made between the handling of forces in actual battle and their preparation beforehand; but it does not seem quite clear why tactics should be supposed to operate in battle only, when we know that it is not only in battle, but also before battle, that fleets and armies are tactically maneuvered. Neither is it clear why strategy should not operate during a battle as well as before it. Certainly, a battle should be fought according to the principles of strategy; unless we divorce strategy altogether from its original meaning, the art of leading armies, and forget that armies are led in battle as well as before.
Surely tactics cannot be so conducted as to further the aims of strategy, unless it is in consonance with its principles. Surely strategy and tactics cannot co-operate in sympathy, if too sharp a line of division is drawn between them.
Another thing which has clouded the meaning of the word strategy is the word logistics. It is not very many years ago that nearly all the effort of logistics was to provide the food, ammunition and fuel for an army or a fleet. But the enormous advance of the engineering arts during the last 50 years has so increased the number of things to be provided, especially in the way of complicated mechanisms, that logistics has assumed an importance far greater than it had before. When Alexander took his 35,000 men to Asia, and when Cæsar took his legions into Gaul, the logistic problems were of a simple character. But when Napoleon took his army into Russia, the logistic problems were of such enormous difficulty that even Napoleon failed to master them; and his failure to master them caused his failure to invade Russia, and his consequent failure to keep his throne.
The same reasons which suggest that tactics is not separate from strategy but rather included in it seem to indicate that logistics is not separate from strategy but rather included in it. No strategos can exercise the art of strategy successfully if he does not consider simultaneously the requirements and limitations of tactics and logistics; his strategy cannot be complete, his conclusions cannot be safe, if he does not include tactics and logistics in his study.
The art of war and, equally, the science of war, are usually regarded as comprised under three heads, strategy, tactics and logistics; but have we not omitted in this analysis one factor which is not only important, but distinct, the factor of invention? The word invention is usually applied to mechanism; we speak, for instance, of the invention of a machine or instrument. But this is using the word invention in a limited sense, and is applying the idea of invention to one line only of its activities. Shakespeare said, “Oh, for a muse that would ascend the highest heaven of invention”; and we frequently hear it said of a novel, poem, or piece of music, that it shows little or no invention, meaning that there is a paucity of new ideas in it. This shows that, although we ordinarily use the word invention in a restricted sense, we are subconscious of the fact that we do use it in a restricted sense and know that invention is continually being applied to things other than mechanical.
Now a man may write a very good book and not put any invention into it; for instance, he may write a dictionary. A man may design an excellent engine, may construct an excellent ship, may even paint an excellent painting, and put almost no invention into his work. Similarly, a man may maneuver a fleet or an army, and may even fight a battle, with very little exercise of invention. Furthermore, he may plan a campaign on land or sea, or lay out a scheme of strategy covering both peace and war, and not use much invention.
But if a man does any of these things without using invention, no matter how good his work may be, he does only things that have been done before; and if his work comes into competition with another man’s work that is equally thorough, but is characterized by invention, he is sure to be surpassed. No matter how good a book a man may write, no matter how fine a poem or opera he may compose, no matter how complete a war plan he may devise, it cannot possibly be as effective as another which is made with equal care, but vivified by invention’s spark.
We, of the United States, are deeply impressed with the great work invention has done in advancing the mechanic arts, during the 50 years gone by. We, of the navy, keenly appreciate what invention has done in giving us (and our possible enemies) weapons with which to fight. But do we quite appreciate the fact that it has been some new invention which has caused most of the surprising triumphs of war? Such invention may have been in mechanics, like the Monitor; may have been in method, like von Moltke’s conception of organized preparation for war; may have been in flashes of seeming inspiration like Napoleon’s, which enabled him to start his armies along new lines almost instantaneously; may have been in a genius-given insight into the possibilities of some existing but underestimated weapon, like that of von Tirpitz as to the submarine.
Autore: Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske
militartis.com 
Lascia un commento