POTF 9 - Vote!
Dick Cheney. - Is there a difference between strategy and tactics?
Post 1 Was wondering if it might be possible to come up with valid definitions -or at least some better examples- for strategy and tactics. We often hear that strategy and tactics are not interchangeable, yet there are many instances in strategic planning -including historical instances- where they often appear to overlap.
Some definitions & perspectives:
Layman’s definitions (1):
- Strategy defines your long-term goals and how you’re planning to achieve them. In other words, your strategy gives you the path you need toward achieving your organization’s mission.
- Tactics are much more concrete and are often oriented toward smaller steps and a shorter time frame along the way. They involve best practices, specific plans, resources, etc. They’re also called “initiatives.”
Example: How to get to X on a map
Commentary:
Upon intense scrutiny, layman’s definitions really don’t help us distinguish strategy from tactics. Big picture view, macro goals, and long term principles and plans found in strategy are still means to an end, and do not exactly distinguish themselves from the micro principles found in tactics. Both strategy and tactics take place in the realm of time, space, and planning, both involve specific developments, resources, and arrangements of tools towards a common goal, and neither one can claim to be any more or less important than the other. While it is true – when using the above definitions- that tactics are often considered subordinate to strategy (because strategy claims to be the goal, and tactics a method), it is hardly true to say that best practices and so called “initiatives” are radically different than the steps and execution styles strategy proposes to achieve an organization’s goals. The result then are cases where tactics can be substituted for strategy, and vice versa, or it could also be that strategy and tactics are just synonyms for one another.
DoD definitions and military view(2):
Strategy — A prudent idea or set of ideas for employing the instruments of national power in a synchronized and integrated fashion to achieve theater, national, and/or multinational objectives. (JP 3-0)
Tactics — The employment and ordered arrangement of forces in relation to each other. See also procedures; techniques. (CJCSM 5120.01)
“Strategy is defined as the art of planning and directing overall military operations as opposed to tactics - the control of armies in battle.” – USAF, Presentation on Making Strategy.
Commentary:
A problem with the military definition -and view- is that the arrangement of forces is still an instrument of national power. Techniques and procedures of military forces are also not radically different than a set of ideas found in strategy, including doctrine. However, the DoD definition, to its credit, does try to separate tactics from strategy with command and control, whereas strategy would perhaps be more about operational art and creative policy, rather than the direct control and science of units in the field. Tactics then is not concerned with goals or objectives, or even planning as far as operations and resources go, rather it is strictly the movement and positioning of units in battle. To the DoD’s credit, modern military theory also usually divides war into strategic, operational, and tactical levels. The confusion, and overlap happens when strategy describes the specific movements and arrangements of units during operations planning. However, these plans (while also correctly conceived as means) are an envisioned end state, where as tactics, being in real-time, are not imaginary ends in themselves.
Opinions from Strategic Thinkers:
Strategy: “The art of waging war upon a map” – Jomini
Strategy: “the employment of battles to gain the end of war” – Clausewitz
Strategy: “the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy” – Liddell Hart
Strategy: “the art of making use of time and space” – Napoleon
Strategy = (Ends + Ways + Means) – Army War College
“Good tactics can save even the worst strategy. Bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy.” - George Patton
“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” – Sun Tzu
1)https://www.clearpointstrategy.com/s...s-tactics/amp/
2)https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Docum...dictionary.pdf
Genava - Is it Game Over on the climate front?
Post 2
You are referring to the work of Maslowski et al. which reviewed different projection from the literature. Actually they never said that. Al Gore said that based on their work, which he misunderstood. Al Gore is not a scientist.and the 2007 American Geophysical Society Fall conference it was also claimed that the ice cap would be gone in summer by now.
Here the explanation of Maslowski in a published paper:
We have investigated three approaches to predicting 21st century summer Arctic sea ice loss as represented by trendsetters, stochasters, and modelers [three quantitative approaches used to make predictions]. At present, it is not possible to completely choose one approach over another as all approaches have strengths and weaknesses. […]
Time horizons for summer sea ice loss of these three approaches turns out to be roughly 2020, 2030, and 2040 respectively for trendsetters, stochasters, and modelers. […]
It is reasonable to conclude that Arctic sea ice loss is very likely to occur in the first rather than the second half of the 21st century, with a possibility of loss within a decade or two.
Yes it is. Media, social networks and deniers cherry-picked the claims of a few people to discredit the entire scientific community.The claims were not an invention by the media
Here the ipcc models:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Does it look over-alarming? No.
They actually believed on the Sun revolved around the Earth because of religious writing and philosophical delirium, not scientific evidences. They were simply trying to save their belief at any cost. It is the exact opposite of the actual consensus on climate change, it was evidences that convinced the scientific community. Even skeptics (true skeptics at this time, not deniers).and at one time the majority of scientist believed the sun revolved around the earth.
When the evidences were not clearly available the geologists were skepticals, when the evidences has been made in the 1960s they changed their mind in the huge majority. Because scientists want to know the truth, to better understand the world. Nothing else.The majority of scientist initially rejected continental drift,
And this is clearly the same for climate science and global warming. Scientists were skepticals from the work of Callendar and Arrhenius and it was Gilbert Norman Plass that made the final demonstration in the 1950s. Since his work, the scientific community agrees on the idea of the CO2 influencing the global temperature.
https://www.americanscientist.org/ar...nd-the-climate
Why American physicists are saying this then?Sorry, but the science is never settledd. And despite claim.s.which I have seen made, the scence of Global Warming is not as well.established as the eath being a sphere, yet I have seen Climate Change proponents make it that cl
Why American geologists are saying this then?Originally Posted by American Physical Society
Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.
The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. [...]
The first sentence of the APS statement is broadly supported by observational data, physical principles, and global climate models. Greenhouse gas emissions are changing the Earth's energy balance on a planetary scale in ways that affect the climate over long periods of time (~100 years). Historical records indicate that the Earth’s climate is sensitive to energy changes, both external (the sun’s radiative output, changes in Earth’s orbit, etc.) and internal. Internal to our global system, it is not just the atmosphere, but also the oceans and land that are involved in the complex dynamics that result in global climate. Aerosols and particulates resulting from human and natural sources also play roles that can either offset or reinforce greenhouse gas effects. While there are factors driving the natural variability of climate (e.g., volcanoes, solar variability, oceanic oscillations), no known natural mechanisms have been proposed that explain all of the observed warming in the past century. Warming is observed in land-surface temperatures, sea-surface temperatures, and for the last 30 years, lower-atmosphere temperatures measured by satellite. The second sentence is a definition that should explicitly include water vapor. The third sentence notes various examples of human contributions to greenhouses gases. There are, of course, natural sources as well.
Decades of scientific research have shown that climate can change from both natural and anthropogenic causes. The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2011), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2013) and the U.S. Global Change Research Program (Melillo et al., 2014) that global climate has warmed in response to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases. The concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are now higher than they have been for many thousands of years. Human activities (mainly greenhouse-gas emissions) are the dominant cause of the rapid warming since the middle 1900s (IPCC, 2013). If the upward trend in greenhouse-gas concentrations continues, the projected global climate change by the end of the twenty-first century will result in significant impacts on humans and other species. The tangible effects of climate change are already occurring. Addressing the challenges posed by climate change will require a combination of adaptation to the changes that are likely to occur and global reductions of CO2 emissions from anthropogenic sources.
Cyclops - Is there a difference between strategy and tactics?
Post 3 A worthwhile discussion.
Further to OP's definitions the OED says (i have picked out the relevant entries):
Strategy:
1. The office or command of a strategos
and
4.a The art or practice of planning or directing the larger movements or long-term objectives of a battle, military campaign, etc. Often distinguished from tactics, considered as the art of directing forces engaged in action or in the immediate presence of the enemy.
Tactics:
1.The art or science of deploying military or naval forces in order of battle, and of performing warlike evolutions and manœuvres.
The etymology for both is classical Greek, with strategy meaning "general's (or top level military leader's) work" and tactics meaning "putting things in order". The meanings do shade into one another but its still a reasonable distinction to be made between "macro" and micro", as well as "comprehensive" vs "applied".
I think we can all keep using these terms usefully: its even useful to distinguish further (I like the terms "Grand Strategy" (the overall military posture and planning) vs "Strategy" (the specific plan of campaign for a war), and "Grand Tactics" (the overall ordering of a battle) vs "Tactics" (the ordering of individuals, units and subsets of an army within a battle).
So we can discuss Alexander III's quite insane Grand Strategy ("Conquer. Everything.") along with his sound strategy ("take the land route though Asia Minor and carefully befriend Persian satraps on the way so the Phoenician fleet can't cut supply line until we take Phoencia to remove the threat to the homeland, then reduce the Persians one province at a time, to force a decisive battle where the Persian Shah-in-Shah can be personally defeated"-10/10 would murder Parmenion again).
We can discuss Wellington's Grand tactics and Tactics at Waterloo (let's not talk about his strategic showing in 1815, its embarrassing), with his GT being "hold...steady...hold...steady..." and his tactics being a wonderful dance juggling squares, lines and skirmishers, mixing frail and robust regiments and balancing his generally solid infantry with his harebrained cavalry and precisely sited arty.
We an meaningfully discuss the tension between Hitler's truly insane Grand Strategy (and pretty dodgy strategy) and the Wehrmacht's quite awesome tactical showing (and how the latter made up for the many failings of the former).
The terms have different derivations and different applications and while there is overlap, the "heart" of each word is located in a different sphere. Strategy is more about high level planing, tactics is more about applied training.
