I will use examples from World War II in order to level the playing field and convey these ideas in their most basic (and least confused) form.
These are the Political, Strategic, Operational, and Tactical levels of war. So down to brass tacks: There are four levels of warfare. Simply put, if a candidate mixes and matches these words in very non-specific ways, it is a pretty clear indicator that both his national security advisors and perhaps even his international relations advisors are either rank amateurs or are flatly ignored by the candidate. They are not and how they are used, both by reporters and the candidates themselves, appears to be a reliable way to separate the wheat from the chafe.īut why does this matter in reporting on-or in speaking/proclaiming about-news coming from the Middle East or any other conflict zone you might want to know about? Specifically, I am referring to what we know as the "Levels of War," and the way that terms like "tactics" and "strategy" and "campaign" (and several other related concepts) are thrown around as though they are synonyms.
In my sustained effort to help others understand the news, there is one important area that really must be addressed, both because this is an election period and because some of these words are so widely confused and conflated in modern journalistic usage they now have little to no meaning.