Military Strategy VSI

“[M]ilitary strategy is much more than pushing steel across a battle area to destroy enemy forces.“

Military Strategy VSI, p. 112

Order

This is one of the most straightforward introduction in the VSI series that I have read so far. An introduction followed by a list of 10 strategies, which are paired into chapters of two, finished by musings on cyber power and sources of failure of military strategies.

The strategies are annihilation and dislocation, attrition and exhaustion, deterrence and coercion, terror and terrorism, decapitation and targeted killing

Adversary

To see the world through military strategies means to think in adversarial groups, and which means can be deployed to achieve the ends and resources your group desires. At the level of military strategy, the opponents are collectives of humans, often nations.How a nation defines its borders is part of its architecture (see Geopolitics VSI).

Honesty

The author speaks with a refreshing honesty. It‘s often difficult to asses whether a military strategy was successful or not. It can be difficult to assess the strength of an enemy, or what damage they have suffered. It can be difficult to assess whether the reason for a win was a certain strategy.