The distinction of military art
War in its essence is struggle. In the complex activities called war in a broad sense, only struggle is the element that produces real results. Struggle is a contest between the spiritual power and the material power of the two sides through material power. The spiritual power cannot be ignored here. Sometimes the mental state has a decisive influence on the military power.
Due to the needs of struggle, people have made special creations and inventions very early to enable them to occupy an advantageous position in the struggle. As a result, the struggle has undergone great changes. However, no matter how the struggle changes, its essential concept will not change as a result. It is still the most essential thing that constitutes a war.
Among the above-mentioned inventions, weapons and equipment are the first to bear the brunt. Weapons and equipment must be manufactured before the start of the war, and they must be familiar and mastered by the soldiers. Weapons and equipment must also be suitable for the nature of the struggle. The act of manufacturing, familiarizing, and mastering weapons and equipment and the struggle itself are two separate things. One is the preparation stage for the struggle and the other is the implementation stage of the struggle. Equipping with weapons and equipment does not belong to the scope of struggle in essence, because fighting with bare hands is also a struggle.
Struggle determines weapons and equipment, and weapons and equipment can change the form of struggle. The two are interrelated and interact with each other.
However, the struggle itself is a very unique activity, because it is carried out under very unique conditions, that is, in danger, so it is even more unique.
It is necessary to distinguish between these two activities of different nature. We often encounter this situation. People who are very talented in one field of activity often show incompetence in other fields of activity. Pointing out this is enough to explain the difference between these two activities. It has practical significance.
If a well-equipped army is regarded as a ready-made method, and it can be used effectively as long as its main function is clear, then there is no difficulty in distinguishing these two activities during research.
It can be seen that military art in a narrow sense is the art of using ready-made means in war, and it is more appropriate to call it a method of warfare. In a broad sense, military art also includes all activities that exist for the sake of war, including the entire process of establishing an army-recruiting soldiers, equipping the army, and training the army.
From the perspective of whether the theory has practical significance, it is very important to distinguish the above two activities. If military art must start with the establishment of an army, and formulate tactics in accordance with its stipulated army, then this kind of military art is only in the existing army, and it is exactly the same as the army stipulated by this military art. It can only be applied to the occasion. If what we need is a theory that can be applied in most situations and will not completely lose its guiding role in any situation, then this theory must be based on general combat methods and can only be based on them. Based on the effectiveness of
As can be seen from the above, the method of warfare is deployment and implementation of struggle. If the struggle is an individual action, there is no need to distinguish it further. However, the struggle is a whole composed of a number of individual actions that are integral in themselves. Here, we call these actions combat, and they are the units of struggle. Therefore, there are two completely different activities of battle and war, namely, the deployment and implementation of battle itself, and the use of these battles in order to achieve the purpose of war. The former is tactics, the latter is strategy.
Now, people have actually distinguished the method of warfare between tactics and strategy. Even if the reasons for this distinction are not very clear, they can know very clearly which phenomena should be included in tactics and which should be included in strategies. Now that this method of distinction has been widely used, it must be reasonable. The reason why we have explored this truth is precisely because most people adopt this method of distinction, which enables us to find this truth. On the contrary, those concepts that individual writers do not arbitrarily determine based on the nature of things, we do not need to consider them, because they will not be used in practice at all.
According to the general principle of distinction, tactics refers to the knowledge of using the army in specific battles, and strategy refers to the knowledge of using combat for war purposes.
As for how to further determine the concept of a single or separate combat, and under what conditions to determine this unit, it needs to be further elaborated in later chapters. What we want to explain now is: the so-called space is for several battles that are carried out at the same time, the range of a battle is exactly the range that can be reached by individual commands; the so-called time is for several consecutive battles, a battle. The duration should be based on the complete elimination of the crisis that occurs in every battle.
There may be some situations that are difficult to determine. For example, sometimes a number of battles are regarded as one battle, but we must not deny the reason for our distinction because of this, because the categories of all real things are always formed through gradual transition, and we are like this. The distinction is no exception. Therefore, even if the viewpoint remains the same, there must be certain activities that can be included in both strategic and tactical categories. Evacuate the army like a cordon, or the design of certain river crossing policies.
Our distinction is limited to the use of the army, and only for the use of the army. However, there are many activities in the war that also serve the use of the army, but they are different from the use of the army. Some of them are more closely related to the use of the army, and some are more distant from the use of the army. All these activities are related to the maintenance of the army. The use of the army cannot be separated from the maintenance of the army. The maintenance of the army is a necessary condition for the use of the army. This is like establishing and training the army as a prerequisite for the use of the army. But thinking about it carefully, all these activities related to maintaining the army can only be regarded as preparations for struggle. Therefore, we have reason to exclude these activities together with other preparation activities from the narrowly defined military art, that is, the real method of warfare. In addition, since the primary task of theory is to distinguish different kinds of things, we must do the same. Who would put a series of trivial matters such as provision and management into the real battle plan? Although they are closely related to the use of the military, their nature is still different from the use of the military.
We have said here that if we regard struggle or fighting as the only direct and effective activity, we can grasp the clues of all activities, because these clues will ultimately come down to the battle. We want to show that it is precisely because of fighting that all other activities have clear goals. Of course, they achieve their goals in accordance with their own laws. We will discuss this issue in more detail below.
Activities other than combat are very different in nature.
On the one hand, some activities belong to the struggle itself, which is the same as the nature of the struggle. On the other hand, they are not of the nature of the struggle, but serve to maintain the army; while some activities are only of the nature of the maintenance of the army, and the struggle takes place as a result. A certain role and influence.
On the one hand, it belongs to the struggle itself, and on the other hand, the activities that serve to maintain the army include marching, camping, and camping. These three activities belong to the three different states of the army. However, no matter which state the army is in, where the army exists, there must be a concept of combat.
The activities of maintaining the army generally refer to the provision of supplies, the treatment of the wounded and the sick, and the supplementation of weapons and equipment.
Marching and the use of the army are exactly the same. Marching within a battle, which is commonly referred to as an unfolding, is closely related to the actual use of weapons even though weapons have not been actually used, and is an inseparable part of the military activities that we call combat. The march outside the battle is only for the realization of strategic decisions. This kind of decision points out when and where to fight with what force, and marching is the only means to concretely realize this kind of decision.
March outside the battle is a strategic means, but it is not just a strategy because of this. The army may be engaged in combat at any time during the march. Therefore, the march must obey both strategic principles and tactical rules. When we instruct a column to march on this side of a river or mountain, it is a strategic decision. Here is an intention: if battle is unavoidable during the march, then we would rather fight the enemy on this side of the river or mountain. Fight on the side, and try to avoid fighting on that side.
When a column is not advancing along the road at the bottom of the valley, but on the high ground beside the valley, or is divided into several small columns for the purpose of marching, it is a tactical decision, because these decisions are closely related to how the army is used in a battle. .
The internal deployment of the march is always related to battle preparations. It is the pre-deployment of possible battles, so it has a tactical nature.
Since marching is a strategic means to deploy battles, and since only the results of the battle need to be considered strategically, instead of the actual process of the battle, people have found in research that some people often use marching means to replace the effective element of combat. Not surprisingly. For example, it is often said that a decisive and clever march refers to the battle caused by the march. The replacement of this kind of concept is natural, and the simplification of the expression is also desirable, so there is no need to exclude it. However, this is only a replacement of the concept after all, we must remember its original meaning, otherwise errors will occur.
It is such a mistake to think that strategic actions can not depend on tactical results. Someone achieved their goals only by marching and maneuvering without fighting, so they asserted that there is a means by which the enemy can be defeated without fighting. All serious consequences caused by this error will be stated later.
Although marching can be regarded as an integral part of the whole war, certain activities in the marching are not combat, so such marching is neither tactic nor strategy. Building bridges, building roads, and other advantageous measures to facilitate military operations belong to this type of activity. They are only used as conditions for combat. Under special circumstances, they may be very close to the use of the army, almost the same as it, such as building a bridge in front of the enemy, but they are not equivalent to the use of the army, so theories about them are not included in the theory of warfare.
Compared with camping, camping is a more concentrated and combat-ready army configuration. Camping is a static state of the army, that is, a resting state. At the same time, it may also be a strategic decision to fight in the area. Through the method of camping, it also contains the outline of the battle, that is, the conditions for preparing for a defensive battle. Therefore, camping is an important part of strategy and tactics.
Camping is an alternative to camping for the army to rest better. Therefore, like camping, it is a strategic issue in terms of the location and scope of the camp, and a tactical issue in terms of internal deployment to prepare for battle.
In addition to restoring the army, camping and dormitory camps also have other purposes, such as covering a certain area or holding a position. Of course, sometimes it may be just for rest. As we all know, the goals pursued by strategy are likely to be diverse, and everything that is conducive to strategy can become the goal of combat, including maintaining combat tools, and often becomes the goal of certain strategic actions.
In this case, although the strategy is only to maintain the army, we have not left the subject, and we are still talking about the use of the army. Any deployment of the army anywhere in the theater is a question of the use of the army.
However, during camping and camping, activities such as building huts, erecting tents, and engaging in provision and sanitation work to maintain the army cannot be counted as activities using the army, so it is neither a strategy nor a tactic.
The location of fortifications should be selected and arranged as part of the combat deployment, which is a tactical issue; but just as far as the construction of the fortifications is concerned, it cannot be included in the theory of operations. The knowledge and skills in this area must be the capabilities that the trained army has already possessed. Combat theory is based on these knowledge and skills.
Among the activities that simply belong to the maintenance of the army and have nothing in common with the battle, only the supply of the army has the closest relationship with the battle, because for every soldier, the supply is a necessary condition for guaranteeing energy and physical strength. Therefore, rations have a very large impact on military operations within the strategic scope. The reason why we say that the supply has a great influence within the strategic scope is because in a specific battle, the influence of the supply of the army is large enough to change the combat plan, although it may exist, but it is very rare. Military supplies generally only interact with strategy. How the problem of military supplies is resolved has a very large impact on the outcome of a battle or war. However, no matter how common or decisive this influence is, rations, in their essence, are still different from the activities of using the army. It only affects the use of the army as a result.
The other management activities of the army mentioned earlier have much more to do with the use of the army. Although the rescue of the wounded and sick is very important to the combat effectiveness of the army, it involves only a small group of people after all, and can only have a small indirect impact on the use of most people. Weapons and equipment, in addition to the regular supplementation of the military itself, only require regular inspections; it is rarely noticed when the strategic plan is drawn up.
Here, we must not have such a misunderstanding that the above activities are dispensable. In fact, these activities may be of decisive importance in individual cases. The proximity of hospitals and ammunition depots is likely to be the only basis for strategically important decisions. We cannot deny this, but there is no need to hide it. However, we will not talk about individual specific situations here, but only talk about them in abstract terms. Of course, the above-mentioned decisive influence is rare. Therefore, the theory of the rescue of the wounded and the sick and the supplement of weapons and ammunition cannot be compared with the theory of combat, that is, it is not necessary to use the various methods and methods derived from this theory. Together with their conclusions, they are included in the combat theory like the issue of supply.
Now, we once again clarify the conclusions of our research. War activities are divided into two categories: one is the activities of the pre-war preparations, and the other is the activities of the war itself after the war begins.
The knowledge and skills of war preparation are for the establishment, training and maintenance of the army. Here, we are not going to discuss what general name should be given to these knowledge and skills, but we know that artillery, fortification, as well as the so-called basic tactics, army organization and management, etc., are all included in this category. within. The theory of war is to study what methods are used to achieve the purpose of war. All it needs is the conclusion of the above-mentioned knowledge and skills, that is, it only needs to understand its main results. We call this theory the art of military in a narrow sense, or the theory of war, or the theory of using the army. Although the names are different, they are actually the same thing.
Therefore, war theory regards combat as the real object of war research, and studies marching, camping, and sheltering as the state of the army more or less consistent with the war. However, the theory of war did not study the issue of the supply of the army as an activity within the scope of the war, but, like other existing conditions, only studied the impact of its results on the war.
The narrow sense of military art is divided into tactics and strategy. Tactics studies the way of combat, strategy studies the use of combat. Marching, camping, and camping refer to the state of the army. They originate from the relationship between combat and strategy and tactics. Whether they are a tactical issue or a strategic issue depends on whether they are related to the specific way of fighting or to the meaning of the battle.