Editing Military strategy (section)

==Fundamentals==
{{Strategy}}
Military strategy is the planning and execution of the contest between groups of armed adversaries. It is a subdiscipline of [[warfare]] and of [[foreign policy]], and a principal tool to secure [[national interest]]s. Its perspective is larger than [[military tactics]], which involve the disposition and maneuver of units on a particular sea or battlefield,<ref>{{cite book |author=Headquarters, Department of the Army |author-link=United States Department of the Army#Headquarters, Department of the Army |title=FM&nbsp;3–0, Operations |date=27 February 2008 |place=Washington, DC |publisher=[[United States Government Printing Office|GPO]] |isbn=9781437901290 |oclc=780900309 |url=http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/repository/materials/FM3-0(FEB%202008).pdf |access-date=31 August 2013 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20121202210635/http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/Repository/Materials/FM3-0(FEB%202008).pdf |archive-date=2 December 2012 |url-status= dead}}</ref> but less broad than [[grand strategy]] (or "national strategy"), which is the overarching strategy of the largest of organizations such as the [[nation state]], [[confederation]], or international [[Military alliance|alliance]] and involves using diplomatic, informational, military and economic resources. Military strategy involves using military resources such as people, equipment, and information against the opponent's resources to gain supremacy or reduce the opponent's will to fight, developed through the precepts of [[military science]].<ref>School of Advanced Air and Space Studies.{{full citation needed|date=August 2022}}</ref>

[[NATO]]'s definition of strategy is "presenting the manner in which military power should be developed and applied to achieve national objectives or those of a group of nations."<ref>AAP-6(V) NATO Glossary of Terms and Definitions</ref> Field Marshal [[Viscount Alanbrooke]], Chief of the Imperial General Staff and co-chairman of the Anglo-US Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee for most of the Second World War, described the art of military strategy as: "to derive from the [policy] aim a series of military objectives to be achieved: to assess these objectives as to the military requirements they create, and the preconditions which the achievement of each is likely to necessitate: to measure available and potential resources against the requirements and to chart from this process a coherent pattern of priorities and a rational course of action."<ref>''British Defence Doctrine'', Edition 3, 2008</ref> [[Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein|Field-Marshal Montgomery]] summed it up thus "Strategy is the art of distributing and applying military means, such as armed forces and supplies, to fulfill the ends of policy. Tactics means the dispositions for, and control of, military forces and techniques in actual fighting. Put more shortly: strategy is the art of the conduct of war, tactics the art of fighting."<ref>Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, ''A History of Warfare'', Collins. London, 1968</ref>

===Background===
Military strategy in the 19th century was still viewed as one of a [[trivium]] of "arts" or "sciences" that govern the conduct of warfare; the others being [[military tactics|tactics]], the execution of plans and maneuvering of forces in battle, and [[logistics]], the maintenance of an army. The view had prevailed since the Roman times, and the borderline between strategy and tactics at this time was blurred, and sometimes categorization of a decision is a matter of almost personal opinion. [[Lazare Carnot|Carnot]], during the [[French Revolutionary Wars]] thought it simply involved [[Force concentration|concentration of troops]].<ref>Chaliand (1994), p. 638.</ref>

As French statesman [[Georges Clemenceau]] said, "War is too important a business to be left to soldiers." This gave rise to the concept of the ''[[grand strategy]]''<ref>[[B. H. Liddell Hart|Liddell Hart, B. H.]] ''Strategy'' London: Faber & Faber, 1967. 2nd rev. ed. p.322</ref> which encompasses the management of the resources of an entire nation in the conduct of warfare. On this issue Clausewitz stated that a successful military strategy may be a means to an end, but it is not an end in itself.<ref>{{cite book|last=Strachan|first=Hew|title=Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century|year=2007|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-923202-4|page=319|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5NLFM6NmdvIC&q=clausewitz+%22means+to+an+end%22&pg=PA22|access-date=2012-07-31}}</ref>