On 15 May, in the Des Vallières amphitheatre at the École Militaire, military historians Benoist Bihan and Jean Lopez presented their book Leading the war: interviews on the'operative art. In this long exchange of letters, the two historians decipher this 'art', which was taught to Soviet officers (both Russian and Ukrainian) until the 1960s.
This book is essential for understanding how this 'art' has influenced various military cultures, and also for providing food for thought on the conduct of war, at a time when high-intensity warfare, such as the war in Ukraine, is prompting us to rethink command and the way in which it relates to political objectives.
A CONCEPT RARELY TAUGHT IN FRANCE
Operative art is a concept devised by Alexander Svetchin, a former Tsar general who went over to the Bolshevik side but was eliminated by the Stalinist purges in 1936. As a soldier in the terrible war between the Russian and Japanese empires (1904-1905), he thought about strategy. In his book Strategiia (published in 1927), he highlighted the dysfunctions of the Tsarist military system, and recommended a "course of action" to make tactics and strategy more effective. Little taught in France, this mysterious concept was first discovered "by the Americans, who imported it under the name ofOperational art", explains strategist Benoist Bihan, who has studied its genesis.
" According to the Americans, there are several strata in the conduct of war: the highest is the political stratum, followed by the strategic, operational and tactical strata. Realising that the boundaries between these strata were porous, they questioned the relevance of the operational level. We need to go back to Svetchine to understand that the operative art is not a level, it is in fact an instrument by which strategy will set goals, which will be obtained through combat, tactics".explains Benoist Bihan, who discovered Strategiia in 2010.
"Combat has its own logic: you're in an environment that is extremely dynamic and changing, and above all, you're up against an opponent who is intelligent and unpredictable. Strategy often has trouble steering the fight in the direction it wants. The operative art is the instrument by which strategy organises military activity so that combat serves the aims pursued. This is what Svetchine calls the strategic course of action "continues Benoist Bihan. The purpose of operative art is to provide strategy with the means to"to use combat favourably in war"..
THE OPERATIVE ART IS TO STRATEGY WHAT HARNESSING IS TO HORSEMANSHIP
In their book, the two historians use an equestrian metaphor to define the operative art: "Think of combat as a horse. This one can jump the'obstacle, moving from walk to trot to canter, etc. : c'is tactics. On the other hand, his rider - c'is the strategy - riding bareback, it is very difficult to get him to take the desired direction, jump this or that obstacle, adopt the right pace, and so on. Sometimes he succeeds, but it's'is often difficult, and he regularly falls off, being forced to take a thousand detours... He lacks the reins, stirrups and, if necessary, spurs to steer his mount properly: c'is the'operative art. It is to strategy what harnessing is to horsemanship. And combat is a difficult, wild mount that can't be ridden bareback... or not for very long."
Jean Lopez discovered this concept of operative art in the course of his research into the Red Army's major operations between 1939 (Khalkhin Gol) and 1945 (Manchuria): " L'analysis of the orders given (from the Stavka, the general staff, to the officers at the front) showed the'existence of'a diagram, a'a method and'a very specific vocabularyhe explains. From these orders of'operation, I went back to the doctrines of the 1930s: the'operation in depth and the battle in depth. But I'For a long time, I took these two doctrines to mean the same thing.'operative art itself, which was a mistake (quite widely shared, incidentally). I had to read Strategiiain 2016, to return to a fair assessment. Svetchine, who was a professor at the Frounzé military academy, trained the whole generation of Red Army officers who, from a catastrophic situation, managed to turn the tide and lead Russia and the allied coalition to final victory.
RUSSIAN CHIEF OF STAFF STILL QUOTES SVETCHIN'S STRATEGIIA
Strategiia will remain the reference work for Russian officers ("and Ukrainians!" adds Jean Lopez) until 1962, when the famous manual written by Marshal Sokolovski was published. "Svetchine will not disappear for all that; it will remain in the pantheon of recommended reading for Soviet, and then Russian, officers. The proof: Guerassimov, the current Chief of Staff of the Russian army, recently quoted it "notes Benoist Bihan.
Is operational art still a concept for the future? Is it relevant to warfare in new theatres of operations such as the seabed or space, for example? "The tool was conceptualised by a continental power, but it can be used in all theatres of operation. Beyond the domain, the central question for the art of operations remains: how to conduct the war to achieve the desired goals? An objective can be achieved with a missile fired from an aircraft, a ground battery, a submarine or even from space. According to the art of warfare, it is always on the basis of the goals to be achieved that we design the way in which we use the means at our disposal to use the fighting in a way that is favourable to war".concludes Benoist Bihan.
A historian and strategist, Benoist Bihan is editorial adviser to Wars & History. A researcher in strategic studies, he is editor-in-chief of Space International magazine. Director of Research at'Observatoire sur les stratégies spatiales (CAPRI, France) and is a regular contributor to the French and European armed forces.
A former officer in the Merchant Navy, military historian and journalist, Jean Lopez is managing editor of Wars & History. The author of numerous works on the 2nd World War, he is one of France's leading specialists on the German-Soviet conflict.
