Strategic victory

A strategic victory in the science of war or the art of war is a victory or a sum of individual victories in battles or skirmishes or a sum of successes that lead to the achievement of the central war goal or several central war goals. The situation of a strategic defeat is accordingly reached when a war party can no longer achieve its central war goal or goals.

definition

The aggressor and his war aims

For the attacker , the ability to achieve the following typical war goals (with increasing hostility) defines a strategic victory:

• Extortion of a high contribution and / or a one-off pillage
• Extortion of permanent contributions, i.e. tributes (e.g. Attila against the Roman Empire , Mongol tribes against Imperial China)
• Implementation of political demands (e.g. opening ports for trade or even free drug trade: the two opium wars against China, right to settle, e.g. Germanic tribes in the Roman Empire)
• The cession of a city, colony or province (e.g. many colonial wars between Europeans, the battle for Alsace between German and French governments)
• The incorporation of the entire political entity under attack into the empire or colonial empire of the conqueror (e.g. the wars of conquest of the early empires in Mesopotamia , Alexander the Great , the Romans , King Zheng of Qin , Genghis Khan , the Ottomans , the Aztecs and Incas , the Spanish Colonial Empire , the Russian Empire and the British Empire , the largest so far).
• The violent enforcement of a religion or ideology in an attacked area. (e.g. the failed war of the Catholic Spanish King Philip II against Protestant England by means of the Spanish Armada )
• The complete expulsion of a population (e.g. the rebellious Jews by the Romans, of some Romanized Celts in southern Germany by Germanic tribes )
• The constant deportation and possibly enslavement of a population (e.g. the deportation of the Israelites by Babylon, the centuries of slavery that the Messenians had to endure by the Spartans .)
• The physical extermination of a population (e.g. the murder of entire city populations by Timur , Hitler's war aims in the east)

Depending on the hostility of the war objective and the balance of power as well as the morale and psychological strength of the executives, troops and populations involved, the degree of success required for a strategic victory varies greatly. In the case of manageable war goals and few martial defenders, manageable victories may be enough to overcome the moral resistance of the defenders. The more terrible the targets are or appear to the defenders, or the more determined the defenders are, the more likely a strategic victory will only be achieved when the opponent's armed forces have actually been crushed.

defender

Conversely, the (strategic) defender achieves a strategic victory if a defensive act, e.g. B. a defensive battle or the effective interruption of the supply of the attacker, the morale of the attacker breaks, so that he gives up his hostile intention, so his war goal, or if he loses the possibility of further attack, in particular by extensive destruction of the troops or loss of their morale to attack.

An example of a defender's strategic victory is the Battle of Britain in World War II . The attempt of Hitler-Germany to destroy the British Air Force by air raids and thus to gain air supremacy as a prerequisite for an invasion of Great Britain ( Operation Sea Lion ), failed due to the successful resistance of the Royal Air Force . The attacker had to give up his intention to invade, with the aim of permanently integrating the country into his empire, and suffered a corresponding strategic defeat.

If it is not possible to discourage the opponent through victories so that he gives in, it is necessary for the attacker and defender to make the opponent defenseless.

Basics and conditions of strategic victories

Battles won

Strategic victories are usually based on victories in tactical battles. In order for tactical victories to become strategic victories, these usually have to be of great importance, for example the destruction of the main army (e.g. victory of the Greeks in the battle of Marathon over the Persian invading army and Karl Martell's victory in the battle of Tours and Poitiers about the invading army of the Saracens). As long as the victors and the defeated suffer comparable losses and the defeated is able to retreat in an orderly manner, i.e. the defeated is not crushed and his will to resist does not weaken, a war can go on for a long time despite lost battles, such as the Seven Years' War that Prussian King Frederick II unleashed . See also Pyrrhus victory .

A large country like Russia at the time of Napoleon or the Soviet Union at the time of World War II can suffer many battles with devastating losses without the aggressor's great victories ever becoming a strategic victory.

A classic definition of Carl von Clausewitz is: "The strategy is not . Without the battle, because the battle is the stuff of which it uses, which means that it applies just as the tactics of the use of the armed forces in combat , so the strategy is the use of combat, that is, the connection of the individual combat to a whole , to the end goal of the war. "

There is a 2300 year old paragraph by the Chinese war theorist Sun Bin about the necessary weight of victories : ... There are five factors that lead to defeat. Only one of them is enough that you cannot win. In war it happens often: some can kill many enemy soldiers but cannot capture the enemy's officers; some can capture the enemy's officers, but cannot conquer the enemy's encampments; some can conquer the enemy's camps but cannot capture the general of the enemy army; some can both destroy the entire army of the enemy and kill the general of the enemy army. Therefore it is impossible for the enemy to avoid defeat as long as one masters the law of war. ...

care

But there are also examples, B. when warfare comes to a standstill, such as the siege of cities or fortresses, that starvation forced attackers or defenders to surrender. Also cutting off supplies, especially ammunition and fuel in modern armies. B. in the German Africa Corps in World War II - can be the basis of a strategic victory. A classic example of an attack that failed due to a lack of supplies is Napoleon's Russian campaign of 1812 .

Equipment and training

Even if the superiority of the equipment does not necessarily represent a prerequisite for achieving a strategic victory, as the Vietnam War proves, it can be decisive in the battle and thus ultimately also have an effect on a strategic level. Weapons and vehicles can also have a significant impact. The lack of fuel on the German side in the last months of the Second World War meant that planes that were actually ready for use had to remain on the ground and the Allies thus had unrestricted air sovereignty. Similarly, if this applies to large parts of the force, better training may play a role. This was most evident during the initial attack on the Soviet Union. There the Wehrmacht mostly faced untrained and poorly equipped soldiers of the Red Army, who were simply overrun by it.

Morality, will to fight, ruthlessness, stratagems

The willingness of those involved to fight also plays a decisive role. The US won almost all battles in the Vietnam War , but the loss of around 60,000 soldiers shook the US will to surrender, while the North Vietnamese leadership continued to fight despite the deaths of around 1 million soldiers and 4.5 million civilians.

During the use of the British Army in the Northern Ireland conflict , high casualties occurred. To illustrate a very cool and unimpressed attitude towards such losses, I quote a 1984 assessment by the Northern Ireland Department to MI5 director Patrick Walker: " Statistics show a significant decrease in violence in the province over the past decade. For example In 1972, nearly 500 people were killed in more than 10,000 incidents, compared to less than 80 people killed in a few hundred incidents last year, less than half the number of people dying on the roads of Northern Ireland each year the situation, however unacceptable it may be at the moment, is not nearly as bad as some media or the terrorists themselves want to persuade the world . " Despite decades of terror, Northern Ireland is still part of Great Britain today. A peace treaty was later signed with the IRA .

The Chinese general and military strategist Sun Bin wrote on the subject of ruthlessness: The general must treat the soldiers like dear children, look after them like spoiled children, respect them like honored teachers and use them relentlessly like earth and grass.

Far more than in the West, the importance of influencing the will of the enemy has always been anchored in the consciousness of Chinese culture. The means include intimidation, the use of agents of influence, propaganda, alliances with groups in the opponent's camp and fifth columns, which are also known in the West, but as a special feature the systematic use of cunning and surprise, above all the centuries-old doctrine of the 36 stratagems . China's most famous military strategist Sun Zi provided the classic lesson in his chapter Attack with a Stratagem :

Sun Zi said: The best tactic in war is to conquer the enemy's land as a whole; destroying it is of minor importance. Subjugating the enemy's army as a whole is better than destroying it. ... Therefore, those who know how to wage war are able to conquer the enemy without a fight, to conquer their fortresses without a rush, and to seize their state without lengthy operations. Your goal is to defeat everyone under the sky through strategic superiority. So your troops can win victories without being exhausted. This is the art of stratagem attack.

Allies

Even severe defeats with extensive loss of the armed forces can under certain circumstances be survivable, i.e. not end in a strategic defeat, if it is possible to survive the time until allies arrive or win.

Further applications of the term in the field of the art of war

During wars in many theaters of war, e.g. B. Colonial wars, one speaks of strategic victories also in the case of victories that enable the local war objective to be achieved in an area. Nevertheless, z. B. a complete victory over a colonial army, if the war is lost on the main theater of war, become worthless in the overall peace.

Non-Martial Applications

Like many terms from military language, the term strategic victory is also used in non-warlike contexts. Strategic victory usually means victories that also enable the achievement of main objectives, but sometimes only particularly important or skillfully prepared victories.

Castro's memoir

In 2010 Fidel Castro chose the term Strategic Victory as the title for the first volume of his memoir , in which he describes his experiences as a guerrilla and his victorious struggle against the government of Cuba's former dictator Fulgencio Batista , whom Castro later replaced.

swell

• Carl von Clausewitz : About the war . Eighth book: war plan. Ullstein edition, Frankfurt / Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-548-34799-1 , pp. 640-689.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cf. Carl von Clausewitz: Vom Kriege. First book: On the nature of war. First chapter: what is the war. Ullstein edition, Frankfurt / Berlin 1991, p. 17 ff.
2. ↑ Carl von Clausewitz: Remarks on the pure and applied strategy of Herr von Bülow; or criticism of the views contained therein. In: New Bellona . 9, 1805 from p. 3 (reprint EA Nohn (Hrsg.): The untimely Clausewitz. In: Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau . Supplement 5, 1956).
3. ↑ Wu Rosong, Wu Xianlin, Zhen Tian, ​​Zhang He (editor), Zhong, Yingjie (translator): Sun Zi on the art of war. Sun Bin on the art of war. Volkschina Verlag , Beijing 1994, ISBN 7-80065-508-3 , p. 96.
4. ↑ For example, the Kampfgeschwader 53 "Legion Condor" had its last international flight (to London) in January 1945, the personnel were then deployed infantry at Darchau on the Elbe in April . Cf. Saft, Ulrich: The bitter end of the air force . Walsrode: Saft, 1997, pp. 141f., ISBN 3-9801789-7-8 .
5. ↑ Christopher Andrew : MI 5. The True Story of British Secret Service. Ullstein, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-548-61028-3 , p. 616.
6. ↑ Wu Rosong, Wu Xianlin, Zhen Tian, ​​Zhang He (editor), Zhong, Yingjie (translator): Sun Zi on the art of war. Sun Bin on the art of war. in the chapter The Virtues of the General. Volkschina Publishing House, Beijing 1994, ISBN 7-80065-508-3 , p. 138.
7. ↑ Wu Rosong, Wu Xianlin, Zhen Tian, ​​Zhang He (editor), Zhong, Yingjie (translator): Sun Zi on the art of war. Sun Bin on the art of war. Volkschina Publishing House, Beijing 1994, ISBN 7-80065-508-3 , pp. 30, 31.
8. ↑ Fidel Castro presents “The Strategic Victory”. on: latina-press.com , August 3, 2010.
9. ^ Reflections by Comrade Fidel: The Strategic Victory. ( Memento of the original from February 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on: granma.cu , July 2010.