Editing Military doctrine (section)

==Relationship between doctrine and strategy==
{{See also|Military strategy}}
Military doctrine is a key component of grand strategy.<ref name=":0" /> 

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."{{Sfn|NSA|2013|p=136}} The official definition of strategy by the United States Department of Defense is: "Strategy is a prudent idea or set of ideas for employing the instruments of national power in a synchronized and integrated fashion to achieve national or multinational objectives."<ref>United States Southern Command Command Strategy 2016. www.southcom.mil/AppsSC/files/0UI0I1177092386.pdf, accessed 1-29-2008</ref>

Military strategy provides the rationale for military operations. Field Marshal Viscount [[Alan Brooke]], [[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 pre-conditions 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>

Instead, doctrine seeks to provide a common conceptual framework for a military service:
* what the service perceives itself to be ("Who are we?")
* what its mission is ("What do we do?")
* how the mission is to be carried out ("How do we do that?")
* how the mission has been carried out in history ("How did we do that in the past?")
* other questions.<ref>Grint and Jackson, 'Toward "Socially Constructive" Social Constructions of Leadership', ''Management Communication Quarterly'', Vol. 24, No. 2, 2010.</ref>

In the same way, doctrine is neither operations nor tactics. It serves as a conceptual framework uniting all three levels of warfare.

Doctrine reflects the judgments of professional military officers, and to a lesser but important extent [[Civilian control of the military|civilian leaders]], about what is and is not militarily possible and necessary.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Soul of Armies: Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Military Culture in the US and UK|last=Long|first=Austin|publisher=Cornell University Press|year=2016|isbn=9780801453793|location=Ithaca: NY|pages=20}}</ref>

Factors to consider include:
* military technology
* national geography
* the capabilities of adversaries
* the capability of one's own organization<ref>[[Barry Posen|Posen, Barry]]. ''The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars''. 1984, Cornell University Press. {{ISBN|0-8014-9427-3}}, p. 13</ref>
<!-->Warfare is conducted on three levels: [[strategic]], [[operational]], and [[tactical]]. <br />
The strategic level of war is that which a nation or group of nations determine national or multinational [[strategic security]] objectives and guidance, and develops and uses national resources to achieve these objectives. National leaders translate [[national interests]] and [[policy]] into national strategic objectives. Military commanders base their theater or campaign [[planning]] on these objective.<br />
At the operational level of war a campaign is a series of related [[military operations]] aimed at accomplishing a strategic or operational objective within a given time and space. Operational art determines when, where, and for what purposes commanders employ major forces. Actions at the operational level usually involve broader dimensions of time and space than those of tactical actions.<br />
Tactics is the employment and ordered arrangement of forces in relation to each other. It includes the ordered arrangement and maneuver of units in relation to each other, the terrain, civil considerations, and the enemy to translate potential [[military power]] into successful operations.<-->