The fifth trend is that we fight to preserve the force. No commander wants to
suffer any more casualties to his men and equipment than he has to. But in
industrial war, it was in the main possible to replace his losses. We developed the
production lines to do this: conscription, the training depots, reserve formations,
as well as those in industry for the equipment. In large measure, these production
lines exist no longer. We are unable to replace our losses. We fight to preserve the
force for other reasons. We have to sustain the operation, because it is not
strategically decisive we have to maintain the condition, and to do that needs a
continuous presence. And politicians at home, uncertain of the people’s support
for the multinational venture, wish to keep the costs to men and materiel within
bounds that are politically sustainable in the circumstances.
The sixth and final trend is that new uses are being found for weapons and
organizations acquired and developed for different purposes. NATO is not being
used for its founding purpose and weapons and organizations are not being used
for purposes or in the way originally intended. This is not to argue that com-
manders should not adapt their forces to the circumstances—they should—but if
these changes are necessary, then something has changed to make them necessary.
The original concept was of industrial war, it is war amongst the people that is
demanding the change; if this was not the case, why is it necessary for the title
‘operations other than war’?
These trends act on each other and fall into a different balance with each case.
But whatever their particular combination, they have consequences for the
exercise of operational art.
We have seen how the operational art links strategy to tactics. For any linkage to
occur, there must be a strategy. There is ample historical evidence to show how
difficult it is for states in an alliance or coalition to form and direct a strategy. As a
rule, the more immediate and existential the threat, and the more dominant one ally,
the simpler the problem, but it is always difficult to resolve. Complexity is a
consequence of multinational endeavours—and it is increased when the objectives
for the use of force are conditional, and the desired strategic outcome of the
confrontation is to be achieved by other means that are not under the same hand
as that using military force. For the non-state actor, matters are simpler; there is a
single source of strategic direction largely free of the responsibilities and burdens of
statehood that does not have to come from some hierarchical structured body. By
adopting any strategy, particularly ones like the propaganda of the deed, and
avoiding giving the opponent opportunities to use his strength, he has an immediate
advantage over those unable or slow to form a strategy. This advantage is even more
evident when it comes to providing strategic direction as the operation unfolds.
When one party has a strategy and the other does not, the tactical acts of
whatever side, being common to both, are linked inevitably to the side with the
strategy—regardless of outcome. The side with the strategy is able to exercise the
operational art and, not least for want of opposition at that level, even turn its
tactical failures to its advantage. It is this that gives rise to the observable
phenomenon of ‘winning every fight and losing the war’.
236 The Evolution of Operational Art