"TRULY" LEARNING THE OPERATIONAL ART

Abstract : If operational art is as important to successful war fighting as our leaders and schools say it is, and if operational art is to be learned in the manner that it is now being taught, then I believe, as the saying goes, You can't get there from here. There is no criticism intended. On the contrary, the reintroduction, after many years in the closet, of operational art and the concept of an operational level of war points to a renaissance in the Army's attention to warfighting doctrine. Nowhere is the renaissance more pronounced than in the curricula of our staff and war colleges and in the pages of our professional journals. One has only to look at the tables of contents of recent journals to see the proliferation of thoughtful, challenging, and in some cases visionary articles on the subjects of military strategy and doctrine.