Strategic military employment options: Theory and application

There is a need to establish a new sense of discipline within the field of military strategy: a discipline with its own lexicon and logic. Strategic military thinking is and must be a creative art. But, military strategists should begin with a firm understanding of the types of strategic military operations, forms of military strategy, and strategic methods of employment, before seeking to create imaginative new applications of basic military theory. The best strategic military thinking occurs after structured, conscious decisions have been made about the few fundamental options available to military strategiest. Only then should variations be pursued. A logically structured approach for either developing or critiquing a strategic military concept of operations is provided. The author also argues that the language and logic of that approach are valid for the strategic employment of military power anywhere on the spectrum of conflict and that they are based on the ideas of the great military theorists.