Strategy and grand tactics of Napoleon the Great for the 21st century
2023; Routledge; Volume: 42; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/01495933.2023.2182109
ISSN1521-0448
Autores Tópico(s)Military History and Strategy
ResumoAbstractWar technology, as it was tested in the War of Nagorno-Karabakh (2020), demonstrates that future large-scale ground combat in a symmetric theater of war will be planned and commanded in a centralized manner, while firing from modern weapon systems will play the role of force multiplier. Deception, flanking and envelopment tactics, as they were implemented by Napoleon the Great, are expected to reemerge in order to defeat a potential enemy in a world characterized by the Great Power competition. In this context, the necessity for leaderships which will simultaneously operate throughout the levels of warfare (strategic, operational and tactical) becomes apparent. At the same time, the protection and survival of the landpower in the areas of dispersion, the capacity for rapid advancement of the combative formations to the decisive point of engagement and their capability to apply flanking and envelopment tactics, will decide the victor of a potential war. Disclosure statementThe opinion expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect positions of the Greek Government, or the Hellenic Army, and Sxoli Euelpidon.Notes1 Carl von Clausewitz, Chapter 1, ‘What is War?’, in On War, eds. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 75-89.2 FM 3-94, Theater Army, Corps, and Division Operations, Headquarters Department of the Army Washington, D.C., 23 July 2021.3 William T. Johnsen, "Re-examining the Roles of Landpower in the 21st Century and Their Implications" (USAWC P(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 75-89. FM ress, November 2014).4 G. K. Cunningham, Chapter 12, “Land power in Traditional Theory and Contemporary Application,” in U.S. Army War College Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy, 3rd Edition, Vol. I, 107-128.5 Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), v.6 Lukas Milevski, “Fortissimus Inter Pares: The Utility of Landpower in Grand Strategy,” Parameters 42, no. 2 (Summer 2012): 6-16.7 Congressional Research Service, “Report to Congress on Great Power Competition,” 27 December 2021, https://news.usni.org/2021/12/27/report-to-congress-on-great-power-competition-2 (accessed January 27, 222).8 Emil Avdaliani, “Turkey Win-Win Strategy in the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict”, The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, November 13, 2020, https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/turkey-nagorno-karabakh-strategy/.9 Pavel Felgenhauer, “The Karabakh War Ends as Russian Troops Move In”, Eurasia Daily Monitor (17, Issue: 160), Jamestown Foundation, 12 November 2020, https://jamestown.org/program/the-karabakh-war-ends-as-russian-troops-move-in/.10 Dimitry Kuznets, “The battle for Shusha, Fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh has reached a turning point - Here are the most recent developments in the conflict zone”, Meduza, 5 November 2020, https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/11/07/the-battle-for-shusha.11 Felgenhauer, “The Karabakh War Ends as Russian Troops Move In”, Eurasia Daily Monitor.12 Russia maintains bases within the main Armenian territory and has signed a defence agreement with the Armenian state proper. The Russian position during the hostilities was that this defence agreement could not be activated, since the Azerbaijani offensive was not directed against Armenia proper. Russia supplies weapon systems to Armenia as well as Azerbaijan, including the Iskander mobile short range ballistic missile system (NATO SS-26 Stone) solely to Armenia.13 Ron, Synovitz, “Technology, Tactics, And Turkish Advice Lead Azerbaijan To Victory In Nagorno-Karabakh”, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, November 13, 2020, https://www.rferl.org/a/technology-tactics-and-turkish-advice-lead-azerbaijan-to-victory-in-nagorno-karabakh/30949158.html.14 Miko Vranic, “Shaky Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire faces collapse as Russia mulls its next move”, Janes’s Defence Weekly, 14 October 2020.15 Soviet biplanes from 1940. They are still used today for spraying or fire-fighting purposes. There are reports that the said aircraft were purchased from Ukraine.16 Rebecca Grant, “The Beqaa Valley War”, Air Force Magazine, June 1, 2002, https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0602bekaa/17 Ophelia Simonyan, “Geolocating The Location Of The Video Capturing Jalal Harutyunyan’s Injury,” Media.am, February 2, 2021, https://media.am/en/verified/2021/02/02/26180/ (accessed January 26, 2022).18 Samuel Cranny-Evans, “Analysis: fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh unlikely to change the wider situation in the region”, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 1 October 2020.19 There are reports that the Russian electronic warfare terrestrial mobile system Krasukha (“Belladona”) was responsible for the destruction of a number of Bayraktar TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicles of Turkish manufacture. See Bryen, “Russia knocking Turkish Drones from Armenian skies,” Asia Times.20 See Michail Ploumis, “Ο Δεύτερος Πόλεμος του Ναγκόρνο-Καραμπάχ”, at Πολεμική Τέχνη: Η Τέχνη του Πολέμου στη Διαδρομή της Ιστορίας (Athens: Eurasia, 2020), 318-327.21 Sky News, “British Army ‘could drop tanks in favour of cyber capabilities', says report”, 25 August 2020, https://news.sky.com/story/british-army-could-drop-tanks-in-favour-of-cyber-capabilities-says-report-12056160.22 General Stanley Mc Chrystal, “From Complicated to Complex,” in Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World (New York, NY: Penguin Publishing Group, 2015), 53-74; James L. Terry, “Curtains Always Rising for Theater Army,” Army, February 2016, pp. 49–51; John A. Bonin, “Unified and Joint Land Operations: Doctrine for Landpower,” AUSA Land Warfare Paper #102, August 2014.23 Burwell B. Bell and Thomas P. Galvin, “In Defense of Service Component Commands,” Joint Force Quarterly 37 (2nd Quarter 2005): 96–104.24 Sun Tzu, On the Art of War, Lionel Giles Translation, 1910, 6.13-14.25 Michail Ploumis, “Strategy, Sun Tzu and the Battle of Marathon,” Defence Studies (21, no.1 2021), 107-121.26 William T. Allison, The Gulf War, 1990-91 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 95-103.27 Robert Coram, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (New York: Back Bay Books, Little, Brown and Company, 2002), 424; Charles Chao Rong Phua, “From the Gulf War to Global War on Terror—A Distorted Sun Tzu in US Strategic Thinking?”, RUSI Journal (152, no. 6, December 2007), 46-53.28 Michail Ploumis, “Comprehending and Countering Hybrid Warfare Strategies by Utilizing the Principles of Sun Tzu,” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, DOI: 10.1080/19448953.2021.2006005 .29 Autulio J. Echevarria, “Interdependent Maneuver for the 21st Century,” Joint Force Quarterly, no. 26 (Autumn 2000), 11-19.30 Coram, Boyd, 425.31 Steven T. Ross, “The Development of the Combat Division in Eighteenth-Century French Armies”, French Historical Studies (4, no. 1, Spring, 1965), 84-94.32 Cyril Falls, The Art of War: From the Age of Napoleon to the Present Day (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961), 30.33 J.J Schneider, “The loose marble – and the origins of operational art,” Parameters (March 1989), http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/1989/1989%20schneider. pdf [Accessed 13 October 2015].34 Carl Von Clausewitz, “Book Eight: Scale of the Military Objective and of the Effort to be Made”, at On War, eds. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 591-592.35 Michail Ploumis, “Strategy, Sun Tzu and the Battle of Marathon,” Defence Studies (21, no.1 2021), 107-121.36 Jonathan Abel, “The Prophet Cuibert”, at Napoleon and the Operational Art of War: Essays in Honor of Donald D. Horward, eds Michael V. Leggiere (Leiden: Brill, 1969), 8-39.37 John R. Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict”, PP presentation, 34, https://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Boyd-Papers.html.38 David G. Chandler, Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars (Hertfordshire UK: Wordsworth Editions, 2001), 18.39 John R. Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict”, PP presentation, 37-38, https://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Boyd-Papers.html.40 Paddy Griffith, Peter Dennis, French Napoleonic Infantry Tactics 1792-1815 (Northants, UK: Osprey, 2008), 59-60. The Voltigeurs battalions were select light infantry units, skillful in riding, marksmanship and other fields. They deployed as the vanguard, flankers or rearguard to establish the favourable conditions for the attack of the main body or to protect the flanks and the rear correspondingly.41 The squares constituted a tactical infantry formation, with each man standing right by the side of the next, so as to face the assault of the cavalry formations as a wall. For more information, see Griffith, Dennis, French Napoleonic Infantry Tactics, 16-19.42 Andre Beaufre, “The Strategy of the Battle,” in Introduction to Strategy, HNDGS 2015, 51-54.43 Michail Ploumis, “AI Weapon Systems in Future War Operations; Strategy, Operations and Tactics,” Comparative Strategy (41, no. 1, 2022).44 Guy Hubin, Perspectives Tactiques, Economica, March 9, 2009, as mentioned in Michael Shurkin, “Kill the Homothetic Army: Gen. Guy Hubin’s vision of the Future Battlefield,” War on the Rocks, February 4, 2021.45 TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-1, The U.S. Army in Multi-domain Operations 2028, 23.46 Michail Ploumis, “Mission Command and Philosophy for the 21st Century,” Comparative Strategy (39, no. 2, March 2020), 209-218.Additional informationNotes on contributorsMichail PloumisMichail Ploumis (michailploumis@gmail.com) is an officer on active duty with the Greek Army. He graduated from the Hellenic Army Academy in 1990. He holds a PhD in the area of national Defense economics in Greece from the University of Peloponnese, Department of Economics (2017). He also holds a LL.B (1997), a LL.M (2005) from the Faculty of Law of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and a M.S.S. (2016) from the U.S. Army War College (USAWC), Class of 2016 (Distinguished Graduate). He currently serves in the Hellenic Army Academy (Stratiotiki Sxoli Evelpidon) as director of Military Studies.
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