wars of the French Revolution and noted that the conduct of military operations
had become ‘more complex and profound’ and that contemporary commanders
could not count on success in any operation, unless they undertook preparations
to solve the problems which they would confront in the course of the operation.
Strategic foresight (predvidenie) was necessary for the conduct of successful
operations. Foresight involved a commander’s assessment or ‘working hypothe-
sis’ against which he evaluated the phenomena of war. 5 Under these circum-
stances, he noted: ‘...we consider the conduct of military operations to be the
art of war in the narrow sense of the word.’ 6 He defined operational art by
referencing its relationship to tactics and strategy. If tactics solve immediate
problems and strategy pursues goals defined by the political leadership, then
operational art governs tactical creativity and links together tactical actions into a
campaign to achieve the strategic goal. ‘We call an operation an act of war if the
efforts of the troops are directed towards the achievement of a certain intermedi-
ary goal in a certain theater of military operations without any interruptions.’ 7
Svechin’s starting point was Clausewitz’s observation on war as a continuation
of politics by other means. Since Napoleon, chancellery war had given way to
mass industrial war, driving the evolution of military art. Economic transforma-
tions associated with the Industrial Revolution recast the geostrategic balance
among states to the advantage of some and the disadvantage of others. Such
economic changes also affected class relations within states and internationally.
These circumstances dictated specific strategic choices with regard to national
preparations for war. They affected the political goals of war, the plans for
maintaining domestic stability in time of war, the economic plan of war, diplo-
macy, and the impact of domestic politics on the conduct of the war. It followed
that the conduct of strategy, as the highest level of war, was to be the province not
of the military commander but of ‘integral military leadership’, which would
combine the political, military, and economic leadership under the head of state.
Coming under strategy, and limited to military problems, was operational art. 8 If
tactics solve immediate problems and strategy pursues goals defined by the
political leadership, then operational art governs tactical creativity and links
together tactical actions into a campaign to achieve the strategic goal; 9 from
this, it immediately followed that no amount of operational proficiency could
overcome strategic miscalculation regarding the nature of the war embarked
upon and the economic and political preparations undertaken. 10
The core of Svechin’sStrategyand ultimately its most controversial element to
both his contemporaries and present-day analysts was a dualistic strategic para-
digm, which he borrowed from Hans Delbrueck, the eminent German military
historian and theorist. The poles of this paradigm, attrition (Delbrueck’sErmat-
tungsstrategie, or Svechin’sizmor [‘starvation’] in Russian) and destruction
(Delbrueck’sNiederwerfungsstrategie, or Svechin’ssokrusheniein Russian), were
conditioned by the circumstances of war itself. A belligerent power, depending on
its war aims, the military potential of its society and economy, and its military
capabilities, could employ either model. Like Delbrueck, Svechin thought soldiers
were all too eager to take the strategy of destruction as the only appropriate
66 The Evolution of Operational Art