Strategy is the title of the book by Soviet military officer and theoretician Alexander Svechin, first published in 1923, in which he expanded notions and views on the subject of strategy in warfare. It is considered a seminal classic by military historians, academics, and officers worldwide.
Background In the early 1920s, major general Alexander Svechin, professor of military science at the Military Academy, then directed by Defense Commissar Mikhail Frunze himself who held Svechin in high esteem, gave a series of lectures, titled "Integral Understanding of Military Art." He contended that the division of the military art into strategy and tactics was "absurd" since the "general battle" that once served as the basis for the distinction no longer exists. Arguing that "strategy" and "tactics" are separated by the intermediate concept of "operational art," which organizes distinct tactical actions into operations, while the task of "grouping operations" for achieving the conflict's political objective falls on strategy, Svechin argued for the "internal integrity" of each part in which military art is divided. The main corpus of these lectures was published in condensed and appropriately organized form as a book titled Strategy that was published in two editions, first in 1923 and then in 1927, in the Soviet Union.
Contents Svechin wrote clearly. Despite the clarity of his text, Svechin's approach and positions, were, at the time of the book's publication up until our time often and widely misunderstood.
Preface Svechin, in the prefaces of the two editions, forewarns that the book shall “attack a large number of strategic prejudices”, since “a whole series of truths which were still valid in Moltke’s day” have become “outworn,” going on to assert that “new phenomena [in military reality]” compel him to even “make new definitions and establish new terminology.” Underlining the archetypal and without precedent nature of his work, he states that this “nature makes it impossible…to cite authorities to confirm [the] views” expressed therein, of which, moreover, he does not ask the reader’s acceptance “on blind faith”. His intention is not to write some “guidebook”, which, at best, he would consider useful as an “explanatory dictionary” of strategy, but to “broaden the reader’s view” rather than make him think in some particular direction. In sum, Svechin proclaims that “rules are inappropriate in strategy.”
Introduction Svechin denotes the "art of war, in the broad sense," as encompassing all aspects of the military profession, including the study of weapons and warfare equipment, of military geography, of resource availability and evaluation, of social tendencies, of possible theaters of military operations, of military administration, and of the conduct itself of military operations. It cannot be divided, strictly speaking, by any clear boundaries into completely independent and delineated sections, although, for its study, it would be reasonable to divide the art of conducting military operations into several individual parts "on the condition that we do not ignore the close relationship between them and do not forget the arbitrary nature of this division." Svechin can be considered a historicist. He points out that military history should be particularly pertinent to persons involved in the study of strategy, because, by its very methods, strategy is merely "a systematic contemplation of military history." A Clausewitzian historian, he asserts, after presenting a fact, proceeds to contemplate it (Betrachtung). A strategist will be successful if he correctly evaluates the nature of the war, which depends on various geographic, economic, administrative, technical, and social factors.
Strategy and Politics For the author, strategy is an extension of politics, a principle completely unacceptable to German strategists such as Moltke or Ludendorff. For Svechin, war is only a part of a political conflict. Strategists should not complain about political interference in the leadership of military operations because strategy itself is a projection of politics. The claim that politics is superior to strategy is universal in nature, so it follows that unsound politics are inevitably followed by unsound strategy. On the joint work of politicians and military men, we should not specify some ideal form of organization of the political leadership of a war; we should look instead for "some specific, optimal compromise" in every particular instance. "If you want peace, prepare for war", is the wisdom accepted by the author, who expands on the political goal of warfare, since war is not an end in itself but is waged for the purpose of concluding a peace on certain terms. Pursuing a positive goal in war, and in politics, is more expensive in terms of resources and human forces than pursuing the maintenance of the status quo or for its partial maintenance, provided the sides are stable enough and possess adequate defensive abilities. The author gives the Treaty of Versailles as a prime instigator of serious instability across Europe, precisely because the struggle to maintain the status quo proved to be by far the most costly choice: The whole of Central Europe, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and so forth, was placed in a situation that ruled out completely any possibility of defense and positional warfare. Svechin, writing in the 1920s, goes on to predict the operational outbreak of the next world war. The central importance of politics in the realm of military strategy promoted by Svechin is reflected in Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci's emphasis on politics per se as a vital, though largely neglected, aspect of the ideological struggle. Strategy "should be the projection of the general political line of conduct on a military front," argued Svechin. For Gramsci, the concept of the "operation" allows us the bridge the "insurmountable gap" between strategy and tactics at the higher levels of the political struggle, and should inform the actions of the left organizations that pursue the radical transformation of the prevalent social formation.
Preparing the Armed Front Svechin examines in depth the "initial principles" of preparation and militarizion, of the use of intelligence, and, most extensively, the preparation of the armed front: The building of armed forces, the military & general mobilization, the preparation of operating theatres, and the formulation of operation plans.
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