War belongs not to the province of Arts and Sciences, but to the province of social life. It is a conflict of great interests. It would be better, instead of comparing it with any Art, to liken it to business competition, which is also a conflict of human interests and activities.

In developing a theory of War, Prussian military general Carl von Clausewitz identifies two branches of the art of war - tactics and strategy. Actions belonging to the realm of tactics (etymology: τακτική meaning art of arrangement, greek) take place on a smaller scale and are concerned with the formation and the conduct of a single combat, ie. the implementation details of the combat. Strategy consists of the combination and coordination of combats directed towards achieving the objective of war.

While it is generally the case that the use of tactics occurs on a smaller scale than strategy, it is not the scale of operations that distinguishes the two. Indeed, strategy defines when, where, and with what forces a battle is to be delivered, and the tactics serves as the means by which the strategic goal is carried out. It follows then, that the primary concern of tactics is the question of how, rather than the question of what. As a result, the tactician does not engage in decision making as often nor to the same degree as the strategist.

Now that we have sufficiently defined the two branches of war, let us investigate the difficulties and merits of both tactics and strategy.

In positions of lower rank there are fewer decisions to deliberate, and the circumstances influencing said decisions are visible – that is, they exist before us in the material world, and can be identified and grappled with. Further, the consequences of our actions are realized immediately, because they unfold before us. Due to these characteristics, officers of lower rank possess a greater familiarity and control over their domain. This is the realm of tactics.

In positions of higher rank, we are faced with an overwhelming number of courses of action, the results of which are to a degree determined by chance, and the information which drives our decision making is often incomplete. Additionally, for operations dealing with larger forces, much time passes before realizing the results of our decisions. For these reasons, officers of higher rank are confronted with greater uncertainty and less control over the outcomes of their decision making. This is the realm of strategy.

It is easier to determine the rules of tactics than it is the rules of strategy because courses of action in tactics are determined by the rules of the combat. In fact, von Clausewitz uses the metaphor of an architect to describe the work of the tactician:

If the architect takes up a pen to settle the strength of a pier by a complicated calculation, the truth found as a result is no emanation from his own mind. He had first to find the data with labor, and then submit these to an operation of the mind, the rule for which he did not discover, the necessity of which he is perhaps at the moment only partly conscious of, but which he applies, for the most part, as if by mechanical dexterity.

Unlike architecture tactics, in strategy there is no clear answer to how we ought to proceed, and the skills necessary to succeed in strategy cannot be taught, as they can in tactics. Strategic skills are developed through experience, and are more akin to art than science. We conclude then, that it is rare to find strategic skills well developed in Man, and that it is more difficult to play the role of the strategist than that of the tactician.

Note that although the skill sets required for tactics and strategy are disjoint, strategy may not be ignorant of tactics. A competent general must have a knowledge of tactics sufficient to understand how tactical results influence strategic decisions. However, any additional energy expended on the study of tactics is in vain. von Clausewitz has said:

The range and effect of different weapons is very important to tactics; their construction, although these effects result from it, is a matter of indifference; for the given quantities for the conduct of War are arms in a finished state… Strategy makes use of maps without troubling itself about triangulations… so often men have made their appearance with great success in War, and indeed in the higher ranks even in supreme Command, whose pursuits had been previously of a totally different nature… On that account those who have considered it necessary or even beneficial to commence the education of a future General by instruction in all details have always been ridiculed as absurd pedants.

Here, von Clausewitz’s thesis is that strategy is abstracted from tactics, and beyond a certain threshold becoming a better tactician does not aid in the development of the skillset required to become a competent strategist.

The question becomes then, where exactly does that threshold lie; to what extent should we pursue an understanding of tactics before transitioning to the strategic branch of War.

As stated in the beginning, War is akin to business competition. In the next article, we will use what we have concluded here to explore the application of von Clausewitz’s ideas to the world of business.

References
[1] On War, Carl von Clausewitz