Keywords

Introduction

Operational art is commonly understood as sitting within “the grey area between strategy and tactics” (Olsen and van Creveld 2011:1). It encompasses the planning and conduct of campaigns, sometimes called major operations, which link and sequence tactical actions to achieve strategic objectives within a theatre of war. Operational art emerged in response to military challenges of the mid-nineteenth century. Primarily, these were challenges of scale. They included substantial increases in the size of armies, new technologies that expanded the scope of command requirements, and the incorporation of new weapons and logistics systems. The sum of all this was the need to control military operations at much larger scale and over much longer durations than before. Operational art emerged to fulfill this requirement.

Scale is therefore central to the concept. Its early progenitors, the German military, practiced operational art at the Army and Army Group levels. Its consolidators, the Soviet military, did likewise, though they called the latter formation Fronts instead of Army Groups. Conceptual late-entrants, the American military reduced the scale to Armies and Divisions – the Division being the smallest of these organizational levels, averaging between 10,000 and 20,000 personnel. At the same time, the Americans broadened the concept from its land-centric roots to encompass the activities of joint forces as well.

Though operational art is well suited to coordinating the maneuver of forces at these large scales, most contemporary militaries do not employ such large forces. For example, 20 out of 30 NATO member states field land forces with maneuver elements that are one Division or less in size. Using another measure of military size that may be more suitable to joint conceptualizations of operational art, 21 out of NATO’s 30 member states have active military forces numbering less than 100,000 personnel, including members of all services (International Institute for Strategic Studies 2021:Chaps. 3–4). By both measures, operational art is ill-suited to the small scale of forces that these militaries can generate. Yet several of these smaller militaries have incorporated operational art into their doctrine and practice. Several non-NATO small militaries have done likewise, including Australia and New Zealand, as well as the small militaries of several former Soviet states.

This situation raises important conceptual and practical questions that this chapter seeks to address. Foremost, why have several militaries that are too small to employ operational art at the scale it is traditionally conceived adopted it into their own doctrine and practice? Second, how have they done so? Third, what have been the benefits and pitfalls of this practice? Before addressing these questions, this chapter summarizes three large military operational art traditions, to provide context and a point of departure for subsequent discussion. Next, an examination of why small militaries have adopted operational art unpacks the practical interoperability reasons as well as the more abstract cultural reasons for them having done so.

Three case studies – Australia, Canada, and the Nordic and Baltic militaries – give examples of how different small militaries have applied operational art. These case studies show that despite facing different strategic challenges, all of these small militaries have settled on very similar approaches to applying operational art. Each has de-linked the concept from its original intended scale by taking a “functional approach.” This has been accompanied by the establishment of operational level headquarters that apply this altered form of operational art jointly across services.

Three Large Military Operational Art Traditions

It is generally agreed that operational art’s predecessors date to either the French Enlightenment or to Napoleon. The former is said to be exemplified in Guibert’s 1772 Essai General de Tactique. This Essai posited that the “science of tactics” consists of two components, the first simple and limited in scope; the second sublime and complex. The first of these is today called “battlefield tactics.” The second component Guibert considered “the science of generals,” and the most decisive aspect of a campaign (McLeod 2013:55). It was primarily concerned with the march of armies before and between battles, though it also addressed logistics and orders of battle, particularly at Division level. Notably, Guibert coined the term “grand tactics” to describe the synchronization of these elements (Palmer 1986:105–12).

The latter of operational art’s generally agreed predecessors is Napoleon, who is often cited as its first practitioner. This is because he introduced then mastered maneuver in combined arms Corps within the post-Revolutionary French Army, and because of his supposed ability to intuitively grasp linkages between strategic considerations, campaigning and battlefield tactics. This distinction was initially attributed to him by mid-nineteenth century scholars, who were attempting to diagnose the causes of his success. Jomini was particularly notable in this regard, and it is due to him that Napoleon is now considered by many as the first operational artist (Gat 2001:123–4).

The German Tradition

Regardless of its conceptual predecessors, the first of three undisputed operational art “traditions” emerged in the mid-nineteenth century (this term has been borrowed from: English 2005:10–20). Although theorists such as Scharnhorst and Clausewitz influenced this tradition, it was not explicated until the 1860s, when Moltke the Elder reorganized the Prussian General Staff. This reorganization greatly contributed to Prussian victories over Austria in 1866 and France in 1871. Molke’s reforms, followed quickly by these two Prussian victories, heralded the emergence of the German tradition (Showalter 2011:38–44). This tradition evolved over the next 80 years, culminating in the successful “Blitzkrieg” operations of the early stages of the Second World War.

The German tradition was established in response to emergent mid-nineteenth century military problems. These included the impact of railways on the maneuver of forces, the incorporation of telegraph communications into command structures, and an increase in scale that necessitated not only the mobilization of armies in the field but also extensive supporting efforts in rear areas. The First World War added additional challenges, particularly due to increased firepower and the imbalance this caused in favor of defense over offense (Showalter 2011:44–8). Conceptual adjustment in response to these conditions continued through the interwar period, shaping the ultimate practice German operational art during the Second World War (Posen 1984:179–219).

Throughout this period, the Germans never used the term “operational art.” Although they used “operation” and “operational” when referring to the movement of forces between battles, in theoretical writings, they either referred to “grand tactics,” or described what is now called operational art as a component of either strategy or tactics. Nomenclature notwithstanding, the approximately 80-year trajectory of the German tradition contained several thematic consistencies that adapted in light of changing circumstances. These included the size and scope of forces under discussion – Armies and Army Groups – and linkages between front and rear areas within a theatre of operations. Despite variations in specific operational approaches, efforts focusing on detailed physical and moral destruction of the enemy’s forces remained central to German operational art (Showalter 2011:38–56).

The German tradition also emerged in response to a geostrategic challenge faced first by Prussia, then by post-unification Germany. This challenge was that Germany’s position in central Europe combined with its domestic lack of strategic resources to necessitate quick wars and decisive victories, yet the technology and scale of warfare in this era made protracted and indecisive wars probable. German operational art sought to resolve this paradox by sequencing tactical actions to rapidly overwhelm then destroy enemy forces, the aim being to compel enemies to sue for peace before factors came into play that would generate an indecisive outcome. When executed well, as in 1866, 1870, and 1939–1941, this approach resulted in spectacular successes. When executed poorly, as in 1914–1918 and 1942–1945, the results were just as spectacular but abysmally so (Showalter 2011:38–56).

The key determinant of success or failure was the operational approach employed on each occasion. Yet successful operations, such as Moltke’s flanking maneuvers and Guderian’s and Rommel’s Blitzkrieg tactics, are likely to have been considered as coherent methods only in hindsight. At the time, they were largely ad hoc adaptations to dynamic situations (Frieser 2005). This indicates the importance of another aspect of German operational art: a military culture that emphasized speed, maneuverability, and flexibility; or, in a word, auftragstaktik. When comprehensive staff planning and war games led to development of sound operational approaches, these became springboards for German operational artists to achieve success by rapidly adapting to dynamic circumstances. When initial operational approaches were unsound, such as the Schlieffen Plan, initial successes could not be consolidated no matter how adaptive commanders were in the field (Showalter 2011:38–56).

Comprehensive prewar planning together with operational approaches enabling rapid adaption therefore formed the basis of the German operational art tradition, which focused on and enabled comprehensive destruction of enemy forces when successfully employed. Ultimately, this tradition fell into disuse following the Second World War. In West Germany, the nature of the Bundeswehr’s approach became highly defensive in nature (Showalter 2011:56–8). In East Germany, the Nationale Volksarmee came under the influence of the second operational art tradition: that of the Soviets .

The Soviet Tradition

It is the Soviet tradition that gave “operational art” its name. Specifically, Svechin is credited with having coined the term in 1922, describing it as a link between strategy and tactics (Kipp 2011:65). A century later, this intermediary position remains central to the concept. Svechin’s writings focused primarily on the strategic dimensions of war, however, and it was his main antagonists in the Soviet military debates of the 1920s that drove operational art’s detailed theoretical development.

This was in part due to each camp’s preferred strategic approach. Svechin posited the existence of two distinct strategic approaches, annihilation and attrition (Harrison 2013a:102–7). The first focused on destruction of the enemy’s forces. The second emphasized what is referred to in contemporary Western military theory as “an indirect approach,” involving the coordinated employment of economic, social, and military means to overwhelm all aspects of an enemy state. A longer-term strategy, it involved building up all three aspects of national power before decisive defeat of the enemy was possible. Svechin advocated an attritional approach on the grounds that the First World War had shown that annihilation was no longer a feasible means to achieve victory against fully mobilized industrialized states (Harrison 2013a:102–7).

Svechin’s theory was pitched in the mid-1920s, when the Soviet Union was surrounded by potentially hostile capitalist states, isolated, and economically backwards. His opponents, chiefly Tukhachevskii, advocated strategies of annihilation. While unrealistic in light of the Soviet Union’s situation, they were more aligned with its revolutionary vision. By the early 1930s, Svechin’s opponents had essentially “won” the strategic debate. Theoretical development shifted towards operational approaches to enable the strategy’s implementation. In 1929, Triandafillov proposed a concept for a mechanized “shock army” that could break through enemy lines into its rear areas (Harrison 2013b:319–25; 2013c:325–31). Heavily influenced by Triandafillov, Isserson further developed this idea into a comprehensive operational approach, publishing a “Deep Operations” concept in 1936 (Isserson 1936:53–74).

Deep Operations called for combined arms mechanized forces supported by close air support and airborne troops to break through enemy lines at multiple points, drive deep into rear areas, link up, and thereby encircle the enemy, making isolated pockets vulnerable to destruction (Kipp 2011:73). It was an operational approach that emphasized speed, shock, and scale. Like German operational art, Soviet theory was concerned with Armies or Fronts (the Soviet equivalent to Army Groups). Yet this level of discussion hides the scale that Soviet theorists had in mind. The scale of forces deployed during the Second World War is more telling. In contrast to the approximately 100 Divisions fielded by the Western allies and the 285 Divisions fielded by Germany, the Soviets fielded somewhere between 300 and 400 Divisions (English 2005:13). By mid-1944, they were routinely undertaking coordinated operations involving multiple Fronts (Kipp 2011:81–7).

There were other differences between the Soviet and German traditions. Different styles of command were one of the most significant. In contrast to the German auftragstaktik, the Soviets issued detailed operational plans and expected subordinates to strictly adhere to them (English 2005:13–4). Another key difference, according to Naveh, was that the Soviet aim was not destruction of enemy forces as an end in itself. Rather, Soviet Deep Operations aimed to achieve systemic disruption of the enemy (Naveh 1997:14–6).

The Soviet tradition was not developed seamlessly. Stalin’s purge of the Red Army in 1937 led to the execution of several key personnel, including Svechin and Tukhachevskii. This contributed greatly to initial Soviet operational failures during World War Two, with Soviet operational art eventually yielding success only from late 1942. By then, the social and economic aspects of Svechin’s strategic approach had also been mobilized. This widened strategic approach enabled successful application of the Deep Operations concept (Kipp 2011:72–87).

Following the Second World War, Soviet operational art was consolidated in the late 1940s. From the 1950s, a strategic focus on nuclear war led to its conceptual ossification. This was partially reversed during the 1970s, when Soviet theorists began to examine the possibility of an initial conventional phase of a future war against NATO forces in Europe (Kipp 2011:87–90). During the 1980s, Western (particularly American) qualitative technological advances undermined the Soviet quantitative advantage that was central to its operational art. Before the Red Army could adapt to this new operational challenge, the Soviet Union collapsed, leading to the abrupt end of the Soviet operational art tradition. Yet it was not just new American technologies that challenged Soviet operational approaches during the 1980s. To orchestrate the application of its new technologies, the US Army also developed its own new operating concepts. These involved the US Army’s development of its own operational art tradition .

The American Tradition

The third major operational art tradition is American. Emerging in the early 1980s, this tradition is not only the most recent but also the most muddled. The term “operational art” entered the US Army vernacular as part of two linked efforts. First, the US Army sought to overcome its experience in Vietnam, where there was a perceived dissonance between tactical success and strategic failure. Operational art offered a way to ensure that in the future tactical actions would be sequenced and linked to strategic aims (Lock-Pullan 2005:685–7). (The effectiveness of this solution has since come under criticism, especially as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have seemed to repeat several of the USA’s failures in Vietnam (Crane 2002; Kelly and Brennan 2009).) Second, operational art presented a means for the US Army to counter the numerically superior Soviet threat in Europe (Spiller 1995:6–46).

The initial manifestation of US operational art was the AirLand Battle concept, which first appeared in doctrine in 1982. This concept involved close coordination by Army, Air Force, and Special Forces to simultaneously defeat Soviet first and subsequent echelons through a dual combined arms and air offensive that would blend actions against all echelons into a single battle (Romjue 1984). Though never used within Europe, AirLand Battle is often credited with underpinning the US (and allied) victory in the 1990–1991 Gulf War (Lock-Pullan 2005:694–5). The concept remained in US Army doctrine until the late 1990s, when it was superseded by Full Spectrum Operations, which incorporated additional domains such as electronic warfare and, more recently, cyber. Evident in both concepts, and characteristic of the American operational art tradition overall, is an emphasis on joint coordination between services. This “jointness” is also evident in US military organizations that practice operational art. Primarily, operational art is the remit of US Combatant Commands, which are joint headquarters (Jackson 2018:30–7).

The term “operational level of war” was introduced at the same time as AirLand Battle. This conceptualization of operations as a level has since been charged with expanding the role of operational art to include campaign design, which ought to have remained a strategic function. As a result, American operational art has been accused of becoming a strategy-devouring “Alien,” worsening the dissonance between US tactical success and strategic failure instead of overcoming it (Kelly and Brennan 2009:59–63). Institutional politics seems to have been responsible for this conceptual muddling, with the US Army having adopted “the operational level” either to give US Combatant Commands a better-defined jurisdiction, or to give the Command and General Staff College a better-defined teaching role (Kelly and Brennan 2009:59–63; Kelly 2012:9). Either way, the linking of operational art to specific levels within the US military’s organizational hierarchy has been problematic.

Not that US operational art has remained exclusively tethered to either of these organizations. American operational art has an expansive tendency, and it now includes distinct land, maritime, and air variants, in addition to its joint conceptualization having expanded into new domains. In its land variant, American operational art has most often been concerned with the maneuver of Divisions and Armies, and logistics have featured relatively (though not absolutely) prominently. This focus most likely reflects the smaller scale of the US Army historically (Echevarria 2011:137–65). Indeed, arguments have occasionally been made that operational art ought to be practiced by US brigades or even battalions (Wass de Czege 2009:2), both of which are exclusively tactical organizations within the German and Soviet traditions.

These conceptual issues notwithstanding, the American operational art tradition has been both useful and important. During the 1980s, AirLand Battle gave the US Army a focal point for institutional recovery following the Vietnam War. At the turn of the 1990s, it contributed to victory during the Gulf War. In the early 2000s, joint operational art enabled the US military to rapidly defeat both the Taliban and Saddam’s regime during the early, conventional stages of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Finally, operational art has provided a conceptual framework for the progressive integration of joint forces. Recently, there have been calls for it to take on the same role in an interagency context (Rayburn and Sobchak 2019:633). Operational art has now become so ubiquitous within American military theory that one cannot comprehensively nor accurately discuss American military thought over the past half-century without reference to it .

Reflections

Reflecting on these operational art traditions, three key themes can be observed. First, operational art as understood by the Germans and the Soviets, and to a lesser extent by the Americans, deals primarily with forces at a very large scale: Divisions and Armies or equivalent-scale joint forces in the American tradition; and Armies or Army Groups/Fronts in the German and Soviet traditions. Second, operational art is about the sequencing of tactical actions within a theatre to achieve strategic objectives. To enable this, each tradition has developed different operational approaches, the most prominent being Blitzkrieg in the German tradition, Deep Operations in the Soviet tradition, and AirLand Battle in the American tradition. Third, within the American tradition, operational art has tended to be linked to a certain level of headquarters, which sits between superior strategic level and subordinate tactical level headquarters.

Why Did Small Militaries Adopt Operational Art?

Several small militaries today include operational art within their own doctrine and professional military education (PME) programs. For many of these militaries, this incorporation began following the American adoption of the concept in the 1980s. For several others, particularly Eastern European militaries, their first exposure to operational art occurred when their parent states were incorporated into the Soviet Union following the Second World War. Both of these origins indicate that the relationship these militaries have with their larger ally was a primary factor in their adoption of the concept. This relationship tends to be driven by two major aspects: practical interoperability requirements; and more abstract cultural affinities.

Interoperability Requirements

The first reason for small militaries to adopt operational art is interoperability. This is an important consideration for allied militaries, because it enables multinational coalitions to overcome barriers to effective cooperation when working towards common goals. These barriers may include incompatible technologies, equipment, doctrines, rules of engagement, and training and readiness levels (Middlemiss and Stairs 2002:12).

The importance of achieving interoperability increases for smaller militaries, which are more likely to need to operate in coalition with others. They are also more likely to have to rely on allies to provide support such as logistics or strategic lift, which they may not themselves possess in sufficient quantity. Working in coalitions allows small militaries to “place a flag on the map” in the larger ally’s headquarters. Such visibility may result in strategic benefits for the small military’s parent state, such as enhanced information sharing arrangements, or political benefits such as enhanced national prestige or even limited opportunities to shape their larger ally’s strategic objectives (Palazzo 2012:27–30).

Achieving interoperability comes at a cost, however, which is the sacrifice of some degree of national sovereignty in decision-making. Small militaries optimized for interoperability are often suboptimal for pursuing independent national interests on occasions when these diverge from those of their larger allies (Langvad 2014:13–5). Achieving interoperability can also be expensive, especially where technology and equipment are concerned. “It should be clear that, in any military alliance, interoperability is primarily an issue for the lesser powers,” noted Middlemiss and Stairs (2002:14):

This is because it is the lesser powers that must deal with the military equivalent of ‘keeping up with the Joneses.’ Nowhere has this been more starkly revealed than in NATO, where all the members, save in some degree the United Kingdom and France, have found it a perennially daunting challenge to maintain military forces that can operate effectively with the vastly superior military establishment of the United States.

A significant indicator that the need for interoperability with larger allies, the USA in particular, has driven small Western militaries to adopt operational art is the time at which each has done so relative to the US military. This is explored further in the case studies below.

Cultural Affinities

The second reason for small militaries to adopt operational art is culture, specifically military organizational culture. This has a more subtle influence than interoperability needs, and is more abstract and subjective in nature. Organizational culture in general is “the assumptions, ideas, norms, and beliefs, expressed or reflected in the symbols, rituals, myths, and practices, that shape how an organization functions and adapts to external stimuli and that give meaning to its members” (Mansoor and Murray 2019:1). In the case of military organizational culture specifically, it is institutionally tied to joint military organizations and to individual services such as armies, navies, and air forces. Military organizational culture therefore differs from similar concepts such as national or strategic culture (Sondhaus 2006:1–14), though it relates to them because militaries tend to reflect the societies from which they recruit (English 2004:41–60). Operationally, a military’s organizational culture is paramount because it underlies the way a military learns, organizes, equips, trains, and, ultimately, fights (Mansoor and Murray 2019:1–14). A military’s organizational culture determines the operational approaches it takes, including whether or not it develops or adopts operational art.

For small militaries that frequently operate alongside larger allies, organizational culture seems to be more susceptible to incorporating transnational self-identities. This tendency in turn shapes their operations, and the concepts and approaches that underlie them. Coombs (2010:19–27), for instance, discussed the Canadian Armed Forces’ (CAF’s) reasons for adopting operational art. Applying Fleck’s concept of “thought collectives,” Coombs’ explained why this “paradigm shift,” which generated intense intellectual debate in the USA, was virtually unquestioned in Canada. Describing a thought collective as “participants in a definable and collective structure of thought generated by an esoteric circle of authorities, or experts,” Coombs (2010:25) observed that:

One must situate the paradigm shift within the context of a single group of military professionals defined by a common purpose rather than locating it in two distinct groups separated by nationality…The experts within the larger collective were the doctrine writers and then the practitioners of the United States Army…None of the hallmarks of the paradigm shift [that could be] attributed to professional discourse took place in Canada because it had already occurred in the United States; the Canadian military implicitly viewed itself as part of a single community of practice that extended across the continent and followed the paradigm shift that had taken place. [Original emphasis]

In other words, the two militaries shared an organizational cultural bond that resulted in members of the small military perceiving themselves as being in the same professional community as their larger ally. When the US military changed the content of its doctrine, the CAF followed suit by default.

In another study, Farrell observed similar transnational military cultural linkages when applying a hybrid constructivist/sociological analytical framework. Specifically, he identified international “norm transplantation” of professional military identity in a case study of another small military, the post-Independence Irish Army of the 1920s–1930s, which adopted a conventional force structure and accepted control by civilian government despite strong incentives to the contrary. Farrell determined that this was because of officers’ self-perceptions that military professionalism required them to do so. These perceptions resulted from the transnational spread of professional military norms and identity among European, and gradually global, militaries from the sixteenth century onwards (Farrell 2001:63–102). Extending Farrell’s analysis, adoption of operational art by small militaries may be important to their officers’ self-perceptions as military professionals, with the need to generate this professional identity being important enough that it overrides countervailing arguments that operational art may be conceptually suboptimal for their use. Coincidentally, like many other small militaries, the Irish Defence Force today includes the operational level in its doctrine and PME programs (Irish Defence Force 2016; Irish Defence Force, Undated).

Similar observations could also be made about the militaries of several former Soviet states, which adopted operational art under the influence of the Soviet tradition and have since kept its core tenets within their own doctrine and practice. For example, an analysis of the 2020 Nagano-Karabakh War emphasized that “senior Azerbaijani officers [are] a product of the Soviet military education system, and a solid grasp of operational art is evident throughout” their military planning. Their campaign applied a downscaled version of Soviet Deep Operations doctrine, using a force consisting of 18 brigades enhanced by new technologies, most notably the unmanned aerial vehicles and loitering munitions that drew significant media attention during the war (Anglim 2021:10–7). Although adapted to incorporate recent technologies, at its core, Azerbaijani operational art remained Soviet in character.

These cultural links should come as no surprise to students of military history. Gat, for example, examined military thought over a 400-year period and determined that “the centre of military thought has normally tended to follow the centre of military power” (Gat 2001:107). Reinforcing the practical interoperability concerns driving small militaries to adopt operational art has been a cultural affinity with the larger allies alongside which they have frequently operated. Both factors have played significant roles in small militaries’ decisions to adopt operational art .

How Have Small Militaries Applied Operational Art?

Having decided to adopt operational art, small militaries immediately face a significant conceptual issue. Operational art is explicitly intended to enable the maneuver of forces that are much larger in scale than those small militaries are ever likely to deploy. Three case studies are included in this section to provide examples of the different ways that small militaries have addressed this issue. These case studies are: Australia, Canada, and the Nordic and Baltic militaries.

The Australian Defence Force

Historically, Australia’s sense of remoteness from Europe combined with its small population has led it to seek major allies that can act as security guarantors. It has found such allies first in Britain and, since World War Two, in the USA (Cheeseman 1999:273–98). As a result, its military history has been one of expeditionary operations conducted alongside these allies. Australia has been consistent in this practice, although it has also been willing to lead military coalitions within its own region (Blaxland 2014:141–207).

Given this strategic context and military history, it is unsurprising that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) adopted operational art shortly after the US military did so. The Australian Army was the first service to do this, incorporating “the operational level” into doctrine in 1985 (Jackson 2013:63). The concept then spread to the other services and joint doctrine. “Operational art” was adopted in 1988, shortly after the USA promulgated the term in its own doctrine. For the next decade, the ADF employed operational art in relation to the dominant Australian strategy of the period, which focused on defending the Australian continent against an ill-defined threat. According to Evans, viewing operational art through the lens of this single strategic scenario meant that “segmented and restrictive thinking dominated the inaugural attempt at developing Australian operational art.” The key operational approach developed in this era, Decisive Manoeuvre, “did not seek to address the spectrum of conflict that was evolving in the 1990s” (Evans 2008:117–8).

Global events rendered this approach outdated by the end of the 1990s. In the early twenty-first century, the ADF’s operational approach bifurcated. First, Australia led multinational peace enforcement and peacekeeping missions in its own region, in East Timor from 1999 to 2013, and in Solomon Islands from 2003 to 2013. Here, the ADF’s practice of operational art moved out of alignment with its declared operational approaches. Officially, its operational approach remained similar to that of the 1990s. In practice, it was somewhat more flexible as operations were sequenced to transition from peace enforcement to peacekeeping. In East Timor, this sequencing involved the conduct of eight separate named operations. In Solomon Islands, the ADF operation was progressively eclipsed by an Australian Federal Police-led mission that eventually took primacy (Blaxland 2014:185–97).

Second, the ADF contributed to US-led coalition operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Here, ADF operational art encountered a paradoxical situation. On one hand, formed bodies of troops deployed in tactical roles that linked directly to Australia’s desired strategic effects, which were primarily to enhance its alliance relationship with the USA (Palazzo 2012:27–30). On the other hand, a few senior officers embedded in US headquarters regularly practiced operational art on the scale for which it was originally intended (for example, see: Molan 2008). This too was vital to achieving Australian strategic objectives through the visibility it created. The resulting situation was that ADF officers needed an understanding of operational art to integrate with their US counterparts, yet the ADF itself often failed to apply operational art in its own deployments (Palazzo circa 2011:458–71).

A revised ADF’s conceptualization of operational art was promulgated in 2015. At this time, the ADF explicitly developed a “functional approach,” in which operational art is “the linking of strategic aims with tactical actions, the synchronisation of operations in depth and the linking of multiple tactical engagements to form an operation, regardless of scale” (Jackson 2017:68, original emphasis). The last three words of this description encapsulate the major difference between the ADF’s conceptualization and the three major power traditions summarized above. Like the American tradition, the ADF’s operational art is joint and has a relatively prominent focus on logistics. It is also primarily though not exclusively linked to a specific headquarters. Today, this is Headquarters Joint Operations Command, the ADF’s equivalent to a US Combatant Command but with a global rather than regional jurisdiction (Horner 2007:143–61). Unlike the American tradition, which focuses on Division and Army level, ADF operational art is no longer linked to scale. Whether an Australian Army brigade or battalion is applying tactics or operational art is therefore entirely contextual. If it sequences tactical actions over time to achieve strategic goals, it is practicing operational art.

Applying this conceptualization with hindsight, ADF operations in the Middle East since 2001 can be seen as forming a single campaign, linked to the strategic goals of enhancing Australia’s US alliance relationship and maintaining a “rules-based global order.” Actions as disparate as warfighting in Afghanistan, building partner capacity in Iraq and maritime interdictions in the Arabian Sea all link to these same strategic goals. It is likely, however, that this is a convenient historical coincidence. The limited evidence available suggests that such clearly developed campaign planning did not occur at the time (Palazzo circa 2011:458–71; Shearman 2017:27–35) .

The Canadian Armed Forces

Canada maintains a similarly sized military to Australia, yet it faces very different strategic circumstances. Its location immediately north of the USA has isolated it from most potential security threats, while ensuring that its larger southern ally has an enduring self-interest in aiding it in the rare event that its security is threatened. As a result of this situation, Canada was once described as “a fireproof house, far from the sources of conflagration” (Dandurand, quoted in: Morton 1999:176), and its government has been able to pursue a highly discretionary defense policy. This has often led to limited defense budgets and regular changes in declared strategy. Despite this, Canada frequently deploys its military as part of either UN- or US-led multinational forces (Morton 1999:225–94).

In light of its strategic context, the CAF differs from the ADF in that its adoption of operational art was more closely linked to perceived cultural affinities with the US military than it was to interoperability considerations, despite the benefits yielded by the latter. In making this observation, it must be noted that interoperability considerations were not dismissed. On the contrary, they seem to have been taken for granted to the extent that they were assumed rather than being explicitly discussed in the CAF decision-making process leading to its adoption of operational art (Coombs 2010:19–27).

The CAF also differed from both the ADF and the US military by incorporating operational art into its PME programs before its doctrine. The CAF’s decision to include operational art in its PME programs occurred in 1987. A protracted debate followed regarding which part of the CAF ought to develop the doctrine to accompany these programs, and what the doctrine’s content ought to be. Regarding content, interoperability with the US military was always a point of consensus, to the extent that one of the options considered was using American doctrine in lieu of developing a Canadian equivalent. In the end, Canadian joint operational doctrine was promulgated in 1995 and land force operational doctrine in 1996. Both were very similar to their American equivalents (Coombs 2010:20–25).

Much more than their ADF counterparts (with the notable exception of: Evans 2008:105–31), Canadian military personnel have been willing to criticize operational art’s suitability in the Canadian (and, by extension, small military) context. These criticisms broadly fit into two categories. The first claims that operational art does not suit the CAF as Canada’s small contributions to allied operations generate a direct strategic/tactical interface, in which tactical presence is more important in achieving strategic objectives than are tactical actions (Vance 2005:271–91). A variant of this argument is that peacekeeping operations specifically require a highly centralized degree of decision-making, creating a version of this direct strategic/tactical interface (Coombs 2004:6; Dickson 2004:32). The second category claims that the introduction of operational art within the CAF has not led to the sequencing of tactical actions to achieve strategic goals, but instead to the “tactification” of operational art concepts, wherein new terminology associated with operational art is applied to describe preexisting tactical actions. The adoption of a “manoeuvrist approach” during the 1990s has been cited as an example, with this approach being applied on a sufficiently small scale that it described combined arms tactics, rather than prompting the practice of operational art (Dickson 2004:12–5).

Encouragingly, these criticisms seem to have been a catalyst for further development of operational art concepts in the Canadian context (for example, see: English et al. 2005). This development has independently yielded a similar outcome to the ADF’s conceptual development: the CAF has embraced a functional approach to operational art, though it has not been explicitly labelled it as such. Instead, CAF doctrinal divergence from the US military has been subtle. Perhaps due to the dominance of multinational operations in the CAF’s experience, the CAF’s doctrinal definition of “the strategic level” is “that level at which a nation or group of nations determines national or alliance security objectives” (Vance 2014:19, emphasis added). Canadian operational art may therefore contribute to achieving multinational rather than Canadian strategic objectives. Put another way, CAF operational art can be divorced from Canada’s supposed direct tactical/strategic interface, providing that the CAF’s tactical presence contributes to achieving the strategic objectives of its allies.

Delineation between “operational art” and “the operational level” has also caused conceptual issues within the CAF, in a similar way that it has within the US military and ADF (Vance 2014:9–11). This confusion has been mitigated to an extent by the standing-up of explicitly operational level headquarters, most recently Canadian Joint Operations Command, which has the same global scope of responsibility as its ADF equivalent (Johnston et al. 2014:6–17).

The Canadian campaign in southern Afghanistan from 2006 to 2014 was a watershed for the CAF’s development of its own conceptualization of operational art. Over the course of this campaign, the CAF not only refined its operational art but also the accompanying command structures and organizational processes. In addition to developing a campaign planning process, the CAF developed systems for conducting assessments and for issuing strategic and operational orders. These were developed in such a way as to enable multiagency participation (Coombs and Gauthier circa 2011). At its height, the CAF’s campaign in southern Afghanistan involved a force of only 2500 personnel. CAF reforms undertaken in relation to this campaign highlight applicability of a functional approach to operational art within a small military context.

The Nordic and Baltic Militaries

Although Australia and Canada face different strategic circumstances, their military histories are nevertheless similar (Blaxland 2006). But what about other small militaries that have different histories or which face radically different strategic situations? To address this, the final case study examines a group of small militaries: those of the Nordic and Baltic countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). (The other Nordic state, Iceland, is not included in this analysis as it does not maintain military forces at all.) To cover this scope, only a brief account of each military is presented, and some nuances are overlooked. The resulting generalizations are acceptable in light of this chapter’s narrow focus on operational art.

Before 1991, the Nordic and Baltic countries were on opposite sides of the Cold War’s front line. The Baltics, which were incorporated into the Soviet Union, came under the influence of its military thinking and their own conceptual development cannot be separated from the Soviet operational art tradition until after their independence (Kipp 2011:87–90). The Nordic states were divided as they are today between Norway and Denmark, which were founding members of NATO, and Sweden and Finland, which are not NATO members. While all four focused on territorial defense against the Soviet Union, this divide resulted in subtly different approaches. While the need for collective security was acknowledged by all, Norway and Denmark prepared to achieve it within NATO’s broader alliance framework, while Sweden and Finland did so locally (Forss and Holopainen 2015:6–19).

During the early 1990s, participation in UN peacekeeping operations increased in prominence for all of the Nordic militaries. Following the NATO takeover from the UN in the Balkans in 1995, their focus switched to participation in NATO operations, something that continued in Afghanistan and then other places after 2001. Like Australia, enhancing their alliance relationships with the USA has been a major strategic objective for this participation (Wilkens 2016). Although Sweden and Finland are outside of NATO, both have participated in several NATO operations. A point of divergence exists, however, with Sweden participating in a greater number of NATO missions and to a greater extent. Doeser has explained this difference in terms of strategic culture, arguing that Sweden places more emphasis on collective defense and less on territorial defense than Finland (Doeser 2016:284–97). Resulting high levels of Swedish participation in NATO operations have led to speculation that Sweden and NATO are coalescing into a single security community (Wagnsson 2011:585–603), while Finland maintains a more independent approach. Nevertheless, both militaries have needed to operate with NATO despite their nonmember status.

Regaining their independence after the Cold War, the Baltic states underwent several military reforms in the lead-up to being granted NATO membership in 2004. These included establishment of civilian-run defense ministries, adoption of legal frameworks to ensure democratic control of the military, and implementing military professionalization programs that met NATO standards (Trapans 2005:51–70). This latter reform included adoption of NATO doctrine and the establishment of a Baltic Defense College to deliver PME programs, including courses on operational art that align with the American tradition (Trapans 2005:58).

These actions, combined with general societal rejection of previous Soviet influences within the Baltic states, have pulled the Baltic militaries completely away from the Soviet operational art tradition. This starkly contrasts with the small militaries of some other post-Soviet states, which remain within the Russian sphere of influence and continue to apply conceptualizations of operational art influenced by the Soviet tradition. Instead, the Baltic militaries today have more in common with their Nordic neighbors. Like these neighbors, the Baltic militaries participated in NATO operations in Afghanistan and now focus on interoperability within the NATO context (Socor 2005; Latvian Ministry of Defence circa 2012).

For the Nordic and Baltic militaries, interoperability concerns are more nuanced than they are for the ADF and CAF. For Australia and Canada, geography and history have rendered interoperability with the US military of paramount importance. For the Nordic and Baltic militaries, interoperability with their US ally is vital, but interoperability within NATO and with one another is also important (Møller 2019:235–56; Lundqvist and Widen 2016:346–73). This multiplicity of interoperability concerns is a pragmatic response to their geographical position next to both each other and a potentially hostile larger neighbor (Russia). Their geography has therefore had the opposite effect to Canada’s geography. For Nordic and Baltic militaries, interoperability concerns outweigh the cultural reasons that primarily drove the CAF to adopt operational art.

Motivations aside, the manner in which the Nordic and Baltic militaries adopted operational art has much in parallel with both the CAF and ADF. Similarities include: dual adoption of “operational art” and “the operational level,” and the resolution of resulting conceptual tensions through the establishment of operational level headquarters such as Norway’s Joint Operations Headquarters and Sweden’s Joint Forces Command; an emphasis on jointness and the promulgation of joint operational doctrine (Slensvik and Ydstebø 2016:297–314; Finlan et al. 2021:356–74); and development of a functional approach to operational art that de-links it from its originally intended scale. For example, Slensvik and Ydstebø observed that “operational art became a functional tool for strategy” within Norwegian joint doctrine. Although derivatives of the American operational art tradition are dominant within all Nordic and Baltic militaries, Slensvik and Ydstebø (2016:303) noted some minor points of alignment with the Soviet tradition in Norwegian doctrine.

In addition to maintaining professional (read: volunteer) militaries that contribute to collective defense and participate in NATO and other multinational operations, all Nordic and Baltic states except Latvia also maintain conscript forces and national reserves as a contingency for territorial defense in the event of a major war (Veebel and Ploom 2019:415). This situation has resulted in operational art being viewed as more applicable in certain situations, a position that differs from both the ADF and CAF, which view it as universally applicable. For the Nordic and Baltic militaries, interoperability is their key reason for adopting operational art. If operating in direct defense of their own territory in a situation where they had to rely on their conscripted and reserve forces, it is unknown whether they would seek to apply operational art or not. Instead, it is possible that they may have to resort to conducting protracted insurgencies against much larger invading forces (Langvad 2014:13–5; McKew 2018).

This highlights an additional consideration for small militaries that adopt operational art. Ultimately, their size will always be a limitation, even if their conceptual rigor far exceeds that of their larger adversaries. Theoretically, there is likely to be a threshold of relative size beyond which more effective application of operational art no longer matters. As Stalin (in)famously put it, “quantity has a quality of its own.” Even if their practice of operational art is brilliant, small militaries facing much larger adversaries will ultimately have to choose between annihilation, surrender, or resorting to unconventional means such as waging an insurgency. Unlike the ADF and CAF, the Nordic and Baltic militaries have had to actively consider these possibilities, particularly in light of the recent Russian resurgence (McKew 2018) .

Summary

This chapter has investigated why and how several militaries that are too small to employ operational art at the scale it is traditionally conceived have nevertheless adopted it. Regarding the reasons for this, two are apparent. Foremost are interoperability concerns. While this is unsurprising, the second reason is less obvious: small militaries see themselves as part of transnational “communities of practice” that also include their larger allies. When their larger allies embrace new concepts such as operational art, smaller militaries follow suit due to perceived cultural connections as well as due to practical interoperability concerns. The relative weighting of these factors varies, with the case studies examined indicating that it is influenced by national strategic circumstances, particularly the relative proximity of both larger allies and potential adversaries.

Regarding how small militaries have applied operational art, several consistencies are evident in the case studies examined, regardless of their different military histories and national strategic circumstances. The most significant similarity is that small militaries have developed functional approaches to operational art, which de-link the concept from the scale for which it was originally intended. These functional approaches have been accompanied by other commonalities, most of them derivatives of the American operational art tradition. First, the idea of an “operational level” has also been adopted. This has subsequently been linked to newly established operational level headquarters, which are similar in function to US Combatant Commands but which usually differ by having a global rather than regional focus. Second, small military operational art tends to be joint rather than single-service in nature. Differences between the case studies examined have tended to be minor, for example, whether operational art was first incorporated into PME programs or into doctrine. These differences, while historically interesting, have not substantially altered the manner in which operational art has been applied.

In closing, one question remains to be answered: has the small military adoption of operational art been worthwhile? To answer this, one must return to the strategic objectives of their parent states. In each of the case studies examined, contributions to multinational operations have been a means for establishing closer relationships with larger allies, the USA in particular. This is a key strategic objective for the countries examined because of the potential benefits that come with such a relationship, including enhanced information sharing arrangements, potential political benefits such as enhanced national prestige, and perhaps most importantly, enhancing the prospects that their larger ally will come to their aid should their own national security be threatened. The interoperability enabled by adopting operational art has contributed to achieving this strategic objective. For this reason, adopting and adapting it has been worthwhile.

Cross-References