Svechin Alexander Andreevich fb2 strategy. Victory strategy from Alexander Andreevich Svechin. Project "Military Literature" Edition

The book is devoted to war strategy. Includes both consideration of issues directly related to the armed forces (building the armed forces, military mobilization, etc.), and issues of the influence of politics, diplomacy and economics on the course and outcome of the war...

CONTENT:

Preface to the 1st edition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Preface to the 2nd edition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . eleven
INTRODUCTION
Strategy among military disciplines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Classification of military disciplines. - Tactics. - Operational art. - Strategy as an art. - Strategy as a theory of art. - The relationship between theory and practice. - Strategy as the art of military leaders. - Responsible politicians must be familiar with the strategy. - Mandatory familiarity with the strategy for all command personnel. - The beginning of the study of strategy should be related to the beginning of serious studies in the art of war. - Objective of the strategy course. - Military history. - Maneuvers. - War game. - Study of the classics.
STRATEGY AND POLICY
1. Politics and economics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Offense and defense on a historical scale. - Political art. - Violence. - War is part of the political struggle. - The struggle for economic combat capability. - International trade. - Industrial development. - Economic positions abroad. - Geographical distribution of industry.
2. The political purpose of the war. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Economic goals of the war. - Formulation of a political goal. - Political base. - Political attack and defense. - Development of the idea of ​​a political offensive. - Contrition and exhaustion. - Political goal and program for peace. - Preventive war. - Politics determines the most important theater of war. - Integral commander. - Collaboration between politicians and the military.
3. Internal security plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Direct protection of internal security. - Domestic policy. - The peasant question in Prussia and Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. - The meaning of the rear. - Vera Zasulich and the Triple Alliance. - Adventure of the Russian-Japanese War. - Note from Durnovo. - Preparing the state for war in relation to domestic politics. - Offensive front of domestic policy.
4. Economic plan for the war. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
The scope of the economic struggle. - Economic plan of the war. - Transport. - Cost of war and military budget. - Means for waging war. - War communism. - Economic mobilization: permanent economic mobilization, organizational issue, distribution of labor, city and countryside, industrial mobilization. - Technical surprise. - Economic General Staff.
5. Diplomatic plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Tasks of diplomacy. - Slogans of war. - Dependence of foreign policy on domestic policy. - Central states. - Diplomatic preparation for war. - Crusade. - The League of nations. - Coalitions. - Difficulties of a separate peace. - State egoism. - Vassals of the era of imperialism. - Reluctant allies. - Great powers and small allies. - Military conventions. - Political junctions. - Coordinated coalition strategy.
6. Line of political behavior during the war. . . . . . . . . . . 83
Political maneuvering. - Occupation policy. - Expanding the basis of war. - Evacuation and refugees. - Changing the political goals of the war. - Politics and freedom of retreat. - Borodino. - Sedan operation. - Schlieffen Plan. - The main line of waging the world war by Germany and England. - Marne operation. - Knievel's Crush Strategy. - Help from politics at the end of the war. - Policy and choice of operational direction. - Geographical object of the operation. - Independent operations of the sea and air fleets. - The impact of foreign policy at the beginning and end of the war.
PREPARATION OF AN ARMED FRONT
1. Initial provisions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
The importance of the front of armed struggle. - War plan and operations plan. - Militarization. - Intelligence service.
2. Construction of the armed forces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Political basis of the army. - Moral strength. - Quantity and quality. - Small states. - Regular army and partisans. - Staffing. - Organization. - The attitude of non-combatants to combatants. - Relations between military branches. - Railway maneuver.
3. Military mobilization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Permanent mobilization. - The need for flexibility. - Pre-mobilization period. - Mobilization and operational deployment plan. - Grouping of ages. - Mobilization plan. - Dislocation. - Districts or corps?
4. Preparation of border theaters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Organizational preparation. - Road preparation. - Fortification preparation.
5. Operation plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Contents and scope of the operations plan. - The degree of variability of the operation plan. - Flexibility of the operation plan. - Rapid deployment. - Organization of fronts. - Operating basis. - Transportation by concentration. - Deployment cover. - Ideological training of the army. - Supply plan. - Supply and regulation of military operations.
GROUPING OF OPERATIONS TO ACHIEVE THE ULTIMATE MILITARY OBJECTIVE
1. Forms of warfare. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Initial provisions. - Destruction. - The feasibility of the operation. - Starvation. - Strategic defense and offensive. - Positionality and maneuverability.
2. Messages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Strategy is the study of messages. - Messages in 20th century strategy. - Useful work of the armed front. - Alexander Logic
Macedonian. - Setting fire to your ships. - Messages when crushed.
3. Operation with a limited purpose. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Evolution of the operation. - Suddenness. - Operation and local battles. - Material battle. - Saving energy. - Operational defense and offensive. - Operation plan. - Forms of operation. - Rapid deployment. - Start of preparation for the operation.
4. Strategic line of behavior. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Ultimate military objective and objectives of operations. - Sequence of operations. - Strategic tension curve. - The moment the operation begins. - The operation is interrupted. - Actions on internal lines. - Simultaneous pursuit of several positive goals. - Dosing operation. - Strategic reserve. - Strategic line of behavior.
CONTROL
1. Strategic leadership. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
General base. - Place of bet. - Orientation in the actions of your troops. - Diagnosis of enemy intentions. - Decision-making. - Activity. - High command and tactics. - Stealth. - Press releases. - Orientation of rear work.
2. Management methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Order and directive. - Frequent initiative. - Measures of actual impact. - Harmony of the organization. - Friction.

He was immediately appointed military leader of the Smolensk region of the Western Curtain, then - chief of the All-Russian General Staff. Since October 1918, Svechin has been working at the Academy of the General Staff, holding the post of chief director of the military academies of the Red Army in the history of military art and strategy. Arrested on December 30, 1937 on charges of participation in a counter-revolutionary organization and training of terrorists. Shot and buried at Kommunarka (Moscow region) on July 29, 1938.

Preface to the 1st edition

55 years separate the last practical manifestation of Moltke's strategy - the Franco-Prussian War - from Napoleon's last operation, which was resolved at Waterloo. 55 years separate us from the Sedan operation.

We cannot at all talk about a slowdown in the pace of evolution of the art of war. If Moltke had reasons to begin a revision of the strategic and operational thinking left as a legacy by Napoleon, then there are even greater reasons in our time to begin a revision of the strategic thinking left to us by Moltke. We can refer to a number of new material factors that force us to take a new point of view on the art of strategy. Let us point out, for example, the railways, which in Moltke’s era played a significant role only during the initial operational deployment; Now the railway maneuver intrudes into every operation and forms an essential part of it; Let us point out the increased importance of the rear, the economic and political fronts of the struggle, the permanence of military mobilization, which postpones the moment of highest strategic tension from the twentieth day of the war for several months, etc.

A whole series of truths that were true even in Moltke’s era are now relics.

Napoleon's brilliant military creativity greatly facilitated the work of Jomini and Clausewitz in compiling theoretical treatises on strategy; Jomini's works are only a theoretical codification of the practice created by Napoleon. Less complete, but still rich material, with a number of masterful solutions, was left by the elder Moltke at the disposal of Schlichting. A modern researcher of strategy, drawing on the experience of world and civil wars, of course, cannot complain about the lack of new historical material; however, his task is more difficult than the tasks that fell to Jomini and Schlichting: neither the world war nor the civil war put forward such practical figures who would be fully up to the demands imposed by the new conditions, and who, with the authority of their masterful decisions, crowned with victory, would reinforce the new presentation of strategic theory. And Ludendorff, and Foch, and the military leaders of the Civil War, far from dominating events, were rather carried away by their whirlpool.

This means that the modern strategic writer is less constrained, but he is forced to pay for his freedom with the enormous difficulties of his work and, perhaps, with even greater difficulties on the way to the approval and recognition of his views. We are attacking a significant number of prejudices of strategy, which, perhaps, in the eyes of many, have not yet suffered final defeat in life, in the theater of war. New phenomena force us to give new definitions, establish new terminology; we tried not to abuse innovations; however, even with such a cautious approach, no matter how confusing the outdated terms may be, they will probably find their defenders. Marshal Marmont, who was reproached for using, instead of the term “defensive line”, the term “operational line”, which has a completely different meaning, had the cheek to call those who tried to reconcile military language with military reality charlatans!

The nature of our work does not permit citing authorities to support our views. If the strategy is being reproached that it is just “politeness of the military”, hiding an empty place, a barracks fairy tale, then in this discrediting of the strategy, purely compilative works played a major role, shining with a set of aphorisms borrowed from great people and writers of different eras. We do not rely on any authority; we strive to foster critical thought; our references indicate either the source of the factual material with which we are working, or they provide the original source of individual well-known thoughts that have settled into our theory. Our initial intention was to write a work on strategy without any quotations - so we began to hate sets of sayings - to doubt everything and only from the existence of modern wars to build a doctrine of war; We were not able to fully implement this plan. We also did not want to enter into polemics - therefore we did not emphasize the contradictions between the definitions and explanations that are ours and the opinions of very large and famous writers; to our regret, there are even significantly more of these contradictions in our work than would be required to recognize it as a completely original work. Unfortunately, as this can make it difficult for us to understand from a superficial reading.

We hope that these difficulties will be partly mitigated by an acquaintance with our work on the history of the art of war, as well as several courses of lectures on strategy, which we have given during the past two years, and which have already somewhat popularized our formulation of certain questions.

We consider modern war, with all its possibilities, and do not seek to narrow our theory to the outline of a red Soviet strategic doctrine. The situation of war in which the USSR might find itself drawn is extremely difficult to foresee, and any restrictions on the general doctrine of war must be approached with extreme caution. For each war it is necessary to develop a special line of strategic behavior; Each war represents a special case that requires the establishment of its own special logic, and not the application of any template, even a red one. The more widely the theory covers the entire content of modern war, the sooner it will come to the aid of the analysis of a given situation. A narrow doctrine will perhaps confuse our thinking more than guide its work. And we must not forget that only maneuvers are one-sided, but war is always a two-sided phenomenon. We must be able to grasp the war in the minds of the other side and understand its aspirations and goals. Theory can be useful only by rising above the parties, imbued with complete dispassion; we have chosen this path, despite the indignation with which some of our young critics greet the excess of objectivity, the “posture of the American observer” in military matters. Any betrayal of scientific objectivity will at the same time be a betrayal of the dialectical method, which we have firmly decided to adhere to. Within the broad framework of the general doctrine of modern war, dialectics makes it possible to characterize much more clearly the line of strategic behavior that must be chosen for a given case than a theory could do, even if it had only a given case in mind. Man knows only by distinguishing.

But we did not intend to write something like a strategic Baedeker that would cover all the smallest issues of strategy. We do not at all deny the usefulness of compiling such a guide, the best form of which would probably be a strategic explanatory dictionary, which would clarify all strategic concepts with logical consistency. Our work represents a more militant attempt. We covered a total of about 190 issues that seemed more important to us, and grouped them into 18 chapters. Our presentation, sometimes more profound and thoughtful, sometimes perhaps unfinished and superficial, represents the defense and preaching of a well-known understanding of war, the management of preparations for war and military operations, and methods of strategic management. The encyclopedic character is alien to our work.

Particularly deliberate one-sidedness is carried out in the presentation of political issues, which are touched upon very often in this work and play a major role in it. A more in-depth study would probably have led the author to a weak, banal repetition of those strong and vivid thoughts that were developed with enormous authority and persuasiveness in the works of Lenin and Radek on war and imperialism. Our authority on matters of modern interpretation of Marxism is, unfortunately, so insignificant and so hotly contested that an attempt at such a repetition would obviously be futile. Therefore, when presenting the connection between the superstructure of war and its economic basis, we decided to consider political issues only from the side from which they are depicted to a military specialist; We ourselves are aware and warn the reader that our conclusions on issues of a political nature - grain prices, city and countryside, covering the costs of war, etc. - represent only one of many motives that should guide a politician when resolving these issues. It is not a mistake if a shoemaker criticizes a painting by a famous artist from the point of view of the boot depicted in it. Such criticism can be instructive even for an artist.

We managed to keep our work rather modest in volume by refusing a detailed presentation of military-historical facts. We limited ourselves to just referring to them. Despite this narrowing of military-historical material, our work is a reflection on the history of recent wars. We do not at all propose to take our conclusions on faith; let the reader join them, perhaps making certain amendments, having done the work of analysis himself on the references made; A truly laboratory study of the theory of strategy would result if a circle of readers took the trouble to repeat the author's work - would divide among its members references to various operations and, having thought through them, would compare their thoughts and conclusions with those proposed in the present work. Theoretical work on strategy should provide only a framework for the independent work of the student. History should be material for independent study, and not illustrative, often rigged examples for memorization.

Many will probably not approve of the absence of any agitation in favor of offensive and even crushing in labor: labor approaches the issues of offensive and defensive, crushing and attrition, maneuverability and positionality completely objectively: its goal is to pluck fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to broaden our general horizons as much as possible, and not to cultivate thinking in any strategic blinders. He does not have an ideal - a strategic paradise. Victor Cousin once proclaimed the subordination of philosophical truth to moral utility. Many strategic doctrinaires, who formed a kind of offensive sect, who abandoned an objective approach to the phenomena of war, who believed in the victorious power of principles, rules, norms, stood on the same point of view and did not even disdain the manipulation of factual material to achieve an educational effect. We are very far from such views. We do not think that strategic theory is in any degree responsible for the offensive impulse in the army. The latter originates from completely different sources. Clausewitz, who proclaimed defense as the strongest form of war, did not corrupt the German army.

We gave up chasing details and didn't give rules. The study of details is the task of disciplines that come into contact with strategy, dwelling in detail on issues of organization, mobilization, recruitment, supply, and strategic characteristics of individual states. Rules are irrelevant in strategy. The Chinese proverb, however, says that reason is created for the wise, and the law is for the unwise. The theory of strategy, however, would in vain strive to take such a path and would try to popularize its presentation in the form of statutory rules accessible to persons who do not have the opportunity to independently delve into the study of strategic issues and look at the root. In any question of strategy, theory cannot make a rigid decision, but must appeal to the wisdom of the decider.

From the foregoing, the reader should not at all conclude that the author sees the height of perfection in his work. The author clearly depicts the lack of agreement and insufficient depth of development of many issues. Within the same series of questions, one could work on this work for another dozen years. This is what Clausewitz did, who did not have time to complete his study on the war during his entire life, who finally edited only the first chapter, but nevertheless created a work that will retain its significance, partly, into the second century of its existence. Such a major deepening does not meet the conditions of our time. The evolution of ideas proceeds at such a pace that, after working for dozens of years to deepen the work, one can fall further behind than catch up with the progress of development. It seems to us that, to a certain extent, this work meets the existing need for strategic generalization; It seems to us that, with all its imperfections, it can still provide assistance in understanding the modern features of war and be useful to those preparing for practical work in the field of strategic art.

Only these considerations prompted the author to publish this book. Of course, it is not original in all parts. In many places the reader will come across ideas known to him from the works of Clausewitz, von der Goltz, Blume, Delbrück, Ragueneau, and a number of the latest military and political thinkers. The author considered it fruitless to replete the text with a continuous indication of the primary sources of thoughts that organically settled into this work and are part of it as a logical whole.

Preface to the second edition

In 1923 and 1924 the author was assigned to teach a course on strategy. The result of this two-year work was this book. The author had two tasks. The first - the center of gravity of the work - consisted of a careful study of recent wars, observations of the evolution that the strategic art has experienced over the past 65 years, research that determines this evolution of the material prerequisites. The second task was to fit the observed reality of our time into the framework of a certain theoretical framework, to give a series of broad messages that would help to deepen and comprehend practical issues of strategy.

In the present, second edition, the author has expanded them in many places, made clarifications and somewhat developed the military-historical basis of his conclusions. He conscientiously reviewed all the numerous criticisms he had accumulated - whether in the form of printed reviews, or letters compiled by individual circles, reviews, instructions, approvals and censures of prominent and invisible military and political figures. Since he could understand and assimilate the point of view of criticism, he took advantage of the comments made and expresses his gratitude for the attention given to this work. In general, the author’s ideas about the evolution of strategy were almost uncontested, but his terminology, especially the definition of the categories of crushing and starvation, met with different interpretations and counter-definitions.

On controversial issues, the author develops and supplements his previous point of view in this edition. He cannot agree with other emerging boundaries between contrition and exhaustion; The most developed point of view of criticism was that the war develops into attrition if the center of gravity lies on the economic and political fronts, and to destruction if the center of gravity of the war is transferred to the actions of the armed front. This is incorrect, since the line between crushing and starvation must be sought not outside, but inside the armed front. The concepts of crushing and attrition apply not only to strategy, but also to politics, and to economics, and to boxing, to any manifestation of struggle, and must be explained by the very dynamics of the latter.

Some of the difficulties arise from the fact that we did not invent these terms. Professor Delbrück, who developed the concepts contained in them, saw in the latter a means of historical research necessary to comprehend the military-historical past, which cannot be understood in one context, but requires, when assessing the facts of war, to apply either the scale of destruction or the scale of starvation, depending on era. For us, these phenomena live in the present, united in one era, and we do not see the possibility, without the corresponding concepts and terms, to build any theory of strategy. We are not responsible for the interpretation of contrition and starvation that is alien to us.

We consider ourselves bound in defining the category of contrition by Clausewitz's brilliant characterization; It would be a pity to try to replace the bright, juicy definition of contrition, rich in consequences and conclusions, with another, softened concept of half-contrition, stark contrition, which does not give any consequences and conclusions, under the pretext that contrition in its pure form is not currently applicable. We are more willing to go the opposite way, sharpening the crushing to the limit, which was hardly fully realized even by the real Napoleonic strategy, but is rather its idealization.

The thinking of previous theorists of strategy was associated almost exclusively with extreme contrition; to comply with the logic of crushing, the principle of partial victory was set forth, decisive points were sought, strategic reserves were denied, the reconstruction of military power during the war was ignored, etc. This circumstance makes the strategy of crushing as if a strategy of the past, and, due to the contrast, exposes the author as striving for complete objectivity, but sharply breaking with his predecessors, some kind of lover of starvation. The division into crushing and attrition in our eyes is not a means of classifying wars. The question of crushing and starvation, in one form or another, has been debated for the third millennium. These abstract concepts lie outside of evolution. The colors of the spectrum do not evolve, while the colors of objects fade and change. And it is reasonable that we leave known general concepts behind evolution, since this is the best way to understand evolution itself. To force contrition to evolve towards attrition, instead of recognizing that evolution proceeds from contrition to attrition, we do not see the slightest sense.

Introduction. Strategy among military disciplines

Classification of military disciplines. - Tactics. - Operational art. - Strategy as an art. - Strategy as a theory of art. - The relationship between theory and practice. - Strategy as the art of military leaders. - Responsible politicians must be familiar with the strategy. - Mandatory familiarity with the strategy for all command personnel. - The beginning of the study of strategy should be related to the beginning of serious studies in the art of war. - Objective of the strategy course. - Military history. - Maneuvers. - War game. - Study of the classics.

Classification of military disciplines. Military art, understood in a broad sense, covers all issues of military affairs; it includes: 1) the doctrine of weapons and other technical means with which armed struggle is conducted, as well as the doctrine of the construction of defensive structures; 2) the study of military geography, assessing the means available in various states for conducting armed struggle, studying the class grouping of the population and its historical, economic and social aspirations and exploring possible theaters of military action; 3) the doctrine of military administration, which examines the organization of the armed forces, their command apparatus and supply methods, and, finally, 4) the doctrine of the conduct of military operations. Even in the era of the great French Revolution, military-technical issues, which we classified under the first heading, represented the main content included in the concept of military art. The art of warfare was an area on which few historians of war have focused their attention; only its formal part, covering elementary statutory issues - about formations, formations, battle formations - was analyzed in tactics courses, as the subject of daily troop exercises.

In modern times, issues related to the conduct of military operations have become significantly more complicated and deepened. Nowadays one cannot expect to wage any successful war against a prepared enemy if the command staff is not prepared in advance to solve the tasks that will confront them with the outbreak of hostilities. This part of the art of war has now expanded so much and acquired such a self-sufficient significance that by military art in the narrow sense we now mean precisely the art of conducting military operations.

The art of warfare is not divided by any facets into completely independent, sharply defined departments. It represents one whole, which includes setting tasks for the actions of fronts and armies, and driving a small patrol sent to reconnoiter the enemy. However, studying it as a whole presents a major inconvenience. Such a study would create the danger that not all issues would be given due attention; we could adopt an approach to the main, major issues of war from the point of view of petty requirements, or, on the contrary, we could take an overly haughty, generalized approach to the study of the combat operations of small units, and details that are extremely significant in their sum would be hidden from our attention. Therefore, it is quite reasonable to divide the art of warfare into several separate parts, provided that we do not miss the close connection that exists between them and do not forget some of the conventions of such a division. Our division should be carried out in such a way that, if possible, we do not split up among different departments issues that must be resolved for the same reasons. We notice that the art of warfare most naturally breaks down into the art of warfare, conducting an operation and conducting combat operations. The requirements imposed by modern combat, modern operations and war in general represent three relatively specific stages, according to which it is most natural to justify the classification of military disciplines.

A. SVECHIN

STRATEGY

SECOND EDITION

MILITARY NEWSLETTER

Preface to the 1st edition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Preface to the 2nd edition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . eleven

INTRODUCTION

Strategy among military disciplines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Classification of military disciplines. - Tactics. - Operational art. - Strategy as an art. - Strategy as a theory of art. - The relationship between theory and practice. - Strategy as the art of military leaders. - Responsible politicians must be familiar with the strategy. - Mandatory familiarity with the strategy for all command personnel. - The beginning of the study of strategy should be related to the beginning of serious studies in the art of war. - Objective of the strategy course. - Military history. - Maneuvers. - War game. - Study of the classics.

strategy and policy

1. Politics and economics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Offense and defense on a historical scale. - Political art. - Violence. - War is part of the political struggle. - The struggle for economic combat capability. - International trade. - Industrial development. - Economic positions abroad. - Geographical distribution of industry.

2. The political purpose of the war. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Economic goals of the war. - Formulation of a political goal. - Political base. - Political attack and defense. - Development of the idea of ​​a political offensive. - Contrition and exhaustion. - Political goal and program for peace. - Preventive war. - Politics determines the most important theater of war. - Integral commander. - Collaboration between politicians and the military.

3. Internal security plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Direct protection of internal security. - Domestic policy. - The peasant question in Prussia and Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. - The meaning of the rear. - Vera Zasulich and the Triple Alliance. - Adventure of the Russian-Japanese War. - Note from Durnovo. - Preparing the state for war in relation to domestic politics. - Offensive front of domestic policy.

4. Economic plan for the war. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

The scope of the economic struggle. - Economic plan of the war. - Transport. - Cost of war and military budget. - Means for waging war. - War communism. - Economic mobilization: permanent economic mobilization, organizational issue, distribution of labor, city and countryside, industrial mobilization. - Technical surprise. - Economic General Staff.

5. Diplomatic plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Tasks of diplomacy. - Slogans of war. - Dependence of foreign policy on domestic policy. - Central states. - Diplomatic preparation for war. - Crusade. - The League of nations. - Coalitions. - Difficulties of a separate peace. - State egoism. - Vassals of the era of imperialism. - Reluctant allies. - Great powers and small allies. - Military conventions. - Political junctions. - Coordinated coalition strategy.

6. Line of political behavior during the war. . . . . . . . . . . 83

Political maneuvering. - Occupation policy. - Expanding the basis of war. - Evacuation and refugees. - Changing the political goals of the war. - Politics and freedom of retreat. - Borodino. - Sedan operation. - Schlieffen Plan. - The main line of waging the world war by Germany and England. - Marne operation. - Knievel's Crush Strategy. - Help from politics at the end of the war. - Policy and choice of operational direction. - Geographical object of the operation. - Independent operations of the sea and air fleets. - The impact of foreign policy at the beginning and end of the war.

PREPARATION OF AN ARMED FRONT

1. Initial provisions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

The importance of the front of armed struggle. - War plan and operations plan. - Militarization. - Intelligence service.

2. Construction of the armed forces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Political basis of the army. - Moral strength. - Quantity and quality. - Small states. - Regular army and partisans. - Staffing. - Organization. - The attitude of non-combatants to combatants. - Relations between military branches. - Railway maneuver.

3. Military mobilization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Permanent mobilization. - The need for flexibility. - Pre-mobilization period. - Mobilization and operational deployment plan. - Grouping of ages. - Mobilization plan. - Dislocation. - Districts or corps?

4. Preparation of border theaters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Organizational preparation. - Road preparation. - Fortification preparation.

5. Operation plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

GROUPING OF OPERATIONS TO ACHIEVE THE ULTIMATE MILITARY OBJECTIVE

1. Forms of warfare. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Initial provisions. - Destruction. - The feasibility of the operation. - Starvation. - Strategic defense and offensive. - Positionality and maneuverability.

2. Messages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Strategy is the study of messages. - Messages in 20th century strategy. - Useful work of the armed front. - Logic of Alexander the Great. - Setting fire to your ships. - Messages when crushed.

3. Operation with a limited purpose. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Evolution of the operation. - Suddenness. - Operation and local battles. - Material battle. - Saving energy. - Operational defense and offensive. - Operation plan. - Forms of operation. - Rapid deployment. - Start of preparation for the operation.

4. Strategic line of behavior. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Ultimate military objective and objectives of operations. - Sequence of operations. - Strategic tension curve. - The moment the operation begins. - The operation is interrupted. - Actions on internal lines. - Simultaneous pursuit of several positive goals. - Dosing operation. - Strategic reserve. - Strategic line of behavior.

CONTROL

1. Strategic leadership. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

General base. - Place of bet. - Orientation in the actions of your troops. - Diagnosis of enemy intentions. - Decision-making. - Activity. - High command and tactics. - Stealth. - Press releases. - Orientation of rear work.

2. Management methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Order and directive. - Frequent initiative. - Measures of actual impact. - Harmony of the organization. - Friction.

PREFACE TOIEDITION

55 years separate the last practical manifestation of Moltke's strategy - the Franco-Prussian War - from Napoleon's last operation, which was resolved at Waterloo. 55 years separate us from the Sedan operation.

We cannot at all talk about a slowdown in the pace of evolution of the art of war. If Moltke had grounds to begin revising the strategic and operational thinking left as a legacy by Napoleon, then there are even greater grounds in our time to begin revising the strategic thinking left to Moltke. We can refer to a number of new material factors that force us to take a new point of view on the art of strategy. Let us point out, for example, the railways, which in Moltke’s era played a significant role only during the initial operational deployment; Now the railway maneuver intrudes into every operation and forms an essential part of it; Let us point out the increased importance of the rear, the economic and political fronts of the struggle, the permanence of military mobilization, which postpones the moment of highest strategic tension from the twentieth year of the war by several months, etc.

A whole series of truths that were true even in Moltke’s era are now relics.

Napoleon's brilliant military creativity greatly facilitated the work of Jomini and Clausewitz in compiling theoretical treatises on strategy: Jomini's works are only a theoretical codification of the practice created by Napoleon. Less complete, but still rich material, with a number of masterful solutions, was left by the elder Moltke at the disposal of Schlichting. A modern researcher of strategy, drawing on the experience of world and civil wars, of course, cannot complain about the lack of new historical material; however, his task is more difficult than the tasks that fell to Jomini and Schlichting: neither the world war nor the civil war put forward such practical figures who would be fully up to the demands imposed by the new conditions, and who, with the authority of their masterful decisions, crowned with victory, would reinforce the new presentation of strategic theory. And Ludendorff, and Foch, and the military leaders of the Civil War, far from dominating events, were rather carried away by their whirlpool.

This means that the modern strategic writer is less constrained, but he is forced to pay for his freedom with the enormous difficulties of his work and, perhaps, with even greater difficulties on the way to the approval and recognition of his views. We are attacking a significant number of prejudices of strategy, which, perhaps, in the eyes of many, have not yet suffered final defeat in life, in the theater of war. New phenomena force us to give new definitions,

establish new terminology 1); we tried not to abuse innovations, however, and with such a careful approach, no matter how confusing outdated terms are, they will probably find their defenders. Marshal Marmont, who was reproached for using, instead of the term “defensive line”, the term “operational line”, which has a completely different meaning, had the cheek to call those who tried to reconcile military language with military reality charlatans!

The nature of our work does not permit citing authorities to support our views. If the strategy is being reproached that it is just “politeness of the military”, hiding an empty space, a barracks fairy tale, then in this discrediting of the strategy, purely compilative works played a major role, shining with a set of aphorisms borrowed from great people and writers of different eras. We do not rely on any authorities, we strive to cultivate critical thought, our references point either to the source of the factual material with which we are working, or they provide the original source of individual well-known thoughts embedded in our theory. Our initial intention was to write a work on strategy without any quotations - so we began to hate sets of sayings - to doubt everything and only from the existence of modern wars to build a doctrine of war; We were not able to fully implement this plan. We did not want to enter into polemics in the same way - therefore we did not emphasize the contradictions between the definitions and explanations that are ours and the opinions of very large and famous writers. To our regret, there are even significantly more of these contradictions in our work than would be required to recognize it as a completely original work. Unfortunately, - since this can make it difficult for us to understand when reading superficially.

We hope that these difficulties will be partly mitigated by an acquaintance with our work on the history of the art of war, as well as several courses of lectures on strategy, which we have given during the past two years, and which have already somewhat popularized our formulation of certain questions.

We consider modern war, with all its possibilities, and do not seek to narrow our theory to the outline of a red Soviet strategic doctrine. The situation of war in which the USSR might find itself drawn is extremely difficult to foresee, and any restrictions on the general doctrine of war must be approached with extreme caution. For each war it is necessary to develop a special line of strategic behavior; each war represents a special case that requires the establishment of its own special logic, and not the application of any template, even a red one. The more widely the theory covers the entire content of modern war, the sooner it will come to the aid of the analysis of a given situation. A narrow doctrine will perhaps confuse our thinking more than guide its work. And we must not forget that only maneuvers are one-sided, but war is always a two-sided phenomenon. We must be able to grasp the war in the minds of the other side and understand its aspirations and goals. Theory can be useful only by rising above the parties, imbued with complete dispassion; we have chosen this path, despite the indignation with which

Some of our young critics are met with an excess of objectivity, the “posture of an American observer” in military matters. Any betrayal of scientific objectivity will at the same time be a betrayal of the dialectical method, which we have firmly decided to adhere to. Within the broad framework of the general doctrine of modern war, dialectics makes it possible to characterize much more clearly the line of strategic behavior that must be chosen for a given case than a theory could do, even if it had only a given case in mind. Man knows only by distinguishing.

But we did not intend to write something like a strategic Baedeker that would cover all the smallest issues of strategy. We do not at all deny the usefulness of compiling such a guide, the best form of which would probably be a strategic explanatory dictionary, which would clarify all strategic concepts with logical consistency. Our work represents a more militant attempt. We covered a total of about 190 issues that seemed more important to us, and grouped them into 18 chapters. Our presentation, sometimes more profound and thoughtful, sometimes perhaps unfinished and superficial, represents the defense and preaching of a well-known understanding of war, the management of preparations for war and military operations, and methods of strategic management. The encyclopedic character is alien to our work.

Particularly deliberate one-sidedness is carried out in the presentation of political issues, which are touched upon very often in this work and play a major role in it. A more in-depth study would probably have led the author to a weak, banal repetition of those strong and vivid thoughts that were developed with enormous authority and persuasiveness in the works of Lenin and Radek on war and imperialism. Our authority on matters of modern interpretation of Marxism is, unfortunately, so insignificant and so hotly contested that an attempt at such a repetition would obviously be futile. Therefore, when presenting the connection between the superstructure of war and its economic basis, we decided to consider political issues only from the side from which they are depicted to a military specialist; We ourselves are aware and warn the reader that our conclusions are on issues of a political nature - grain prices, city and countryside, covering the costs of war, etc. - represent only one of many motives that should guide a politician when resolving these issues. It is not a mistake if a shoemaker criticizes a painting by a famous artist from the point of view of the boot depicted in it. Such criticism can be instructive even for an artist.

We managed to keep our work rather modest in volume by refusing a detailed presentation of military-historical facts. We limited ourselves to just referring to them. Despite this narrowing of military-historical material, our work is a reflection on the history of recent wars. We do not at all propose to take our conclusions on faith; let the reader join them, perhaps making certain amendments, having done the work of analysis himself on the references made; A truly laboratory study of the theory of strategy would result if a circle of readers took the trouble to repeat the author's work - would divide among its members references to various operations and, having thought through them, would compare their thoughts and conclusions with those proposed in the present work. Theoretical work on strategy should provide only a framework for the independent work of the student. History should be material for independent study, and not illustrative, often rigged examples for memorization.

Many will probably not approve of the absence of any agitation in favor of offensive and even crushing in labor: labor approaches the issues of offensive and defensive, crushing and attrition, maneuverability and positionality completely objectively: its goal is to pluck fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to broaden our general horizons as much as possible, and not to cultivate thinking in any strategic blinders. He does not have an ideal - a strategic paradise. Victor Cousin once proclaimed the subordination of philosophical truth to moral utility. Many strategic doctrinaires, who formed a kind of offensive sect, who abandoned an objective approach to the phenomena of war, who believed in the victorious power of principles, rules, norms, stood on the same point of view and did not even disdain the manipulation of factual material to achieve an educational effect. We are very far from such views. We do not think that strategic theory is in any degree responsible for the offensive impulse in the army. The latter originates from completely different sources. Clausewitz, who proclaimed defense as the strongest form of war, did not corrupt the German army.

We gave up chasing details and didn't give rules. The study of details is the task of disciplines that come into contact with strategy, dwelling in detail on issues of organization, mobilization, recruitment, supply, and strategic characteristics of individual states. Rules are irrelevant in strategy. The Chinese proverb, however, says that reason is created for the wise, and the law is for the unwise. The theory of strategy, however, would in vain strive to take such a path and would try to popularize its presentation in the form of statutory rules accessible to persons who do not have the opportunity to independently delve into the study of strategic issues and look at the root. In any question of strategy, theory cannot make a rigid decision, but must appeal to the wisdom of the decider.

From the foregoing, the reader should not at all conclude that the author sees the height of perfection in his work. The author clearly depicts the lack of agreement and insufficient depth of development of many issues. Within the same series of questions, one could work on this work for another dozen years. This is what Clausewitz did, who did not have time to complete his study on the war during his entire life, who finally edited only the first chapter, but nevertheless created a work that will retain its significance, partly, into the second century of its existence. Such a major deepening does not meet the conditions of our time. The evolution of ideas proceeds at such a pace that after working for decades on deepening work, one can lag behind rather than catch up with the progress of development. It seems to us that, to a certain extent, this work meets the existing need for strategic generalization; It seems to us that, with all its imperfections, it can still provide assistance in understanding the modern features of war and be useful to those preparing for practical work in the field of strategic art.

Only these considerations prompted the author to publish this book. Not all parts of it, of course, are original. In many places the reader will come across ideas known to him from the works of Clausewitz, von der Goltz, Blume, Delbrück, Ragueneau, and a number of the latest military and political thinkers. The author considered it fruitless to replete the text with a continuous indication of the primary sources of thoughts that organically settled into this work and are part of it as a logical whole.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

In 1923 and 1924 the author was assigned to teach a course on strategy. The result of this two-year work was this book. The author had two tasks. The first - the center of gravity of the work - consisted of a careful study of recent wars, observation of the evolution that the strategic art has experienced over the past 65 years, and a study of the material prerequisites that determine this evolution. The second task was to put the observed reality of our time within the framework of a certain theoretical framework, to give a series of broad messages that would help to deepen and comprehend practical issues of strategy.

In the present, second edition, the author has expanded them in many places, made clarifications and somewhat developed the military-historical basis of his conclusions. He conscientiously reviewed all the numerous criticisms he had accumulated - whether in the form of printed reviews, or letters compiled by individual circles, reviews, instructions, approvals and censures of prominent and invisible military and political figures. Since he could understand and assimilate the point of view of criticism, he took advantage of the comments made and expresses his gratitude for the attention given to this work. In general, the author’s ideas about the evolution of strategy were almost not challenged, but his terminology, especially the definition of the categories of crushing and starvation, met with various interpretations and counter-definitions.

On controversial issues, the author develops and supplements his previous point of view in this edition. He cannot agree with other emerging boundaries between contrition and exhaustion; The point of view most elaborated by criticism was that a war develops into attrition if its center of gravity lies on the economic and political fronts, and into destruction if the center of gravity of the war is transferred to the actions of the armed front. This is incorrect, since the line between crushing and starvation must be sought not outside, but inside the armed front. The concepts of crushing and attrition apply not only to strategy, but also to politics, and to economics, and to boxing, to any manifestation of struggle, and must be explained by the very dynamics of the latter.

Some of the difficulties arise from the fact that we did not invent these terms. Professor Delbrück, who developed the concepts contained in them, saw in the latter a means of historical research necessary to comprehend the military-historical past, which cannot be understood in one context, but requires, when assessing the facts of war, to apply either the scale of destruction or the scale of starvation, depending on era. For us, these phenomena live in the present, united in one era, and we do not see the possibility, without the corresponding concepts and terms, to build any theory of strategy. We are not responsible for the interpretation of contrition and starvation that is alien to us.

We consider ourselves bound in defining the category of contrition by Clausewitz's brilliant characterization; It would be a pity to try to replace the bright, juicy definition of contrition, rich in consequences and conclusions, with another, softened concept of half-contrition, stark contrition, which does not give any consequences and conclusions, under the pretext that contrition in its pure form is not currently applicable. We are more willing to go the opposite way, sharpening the crushing to the limit, which was hardly fully realized even by the real Napoleonic strategy, but is rather its idealization.

The thinking of previous theorists of strategy was associated almost exclusively with extreme contrition; to comply with the logic of crushing, the principle of partial victory was set forth, decisive points were sought, strategic reserves were denied, the reconstruction of military power during the war was ignored, etc. This circumstance makes the strategy of crushing as if a strategy of the past, and, due to the contrast, exposes the author as striving for complete objectivity, but sharply breaking with his predecessors, some kind of lover of starvation. The division into crushing and attrition in our eyes is not a means of classifying wars. The question of crushing and starvation, in one form or another, has been debated for the third millennium. These abstract concepts lie outside of evolution. The colors of the spectrum do not evolve, while the colors of objects fade and change. And it is reasonable that we leave known general concepts behind evolution, since this is the best way to understand evolution itself. To force contrition to evolve towards attrition, instead of recognizing that evolution proceeds from contrition to attrition, we do not see the slightest sense.

Svechin...

Alexander Andreevich Svechin (1878, Odessa—1938, Moscow) - Russian and Soviet military leader, outstanding military theorist, publicist and teacher; author of the classic work “Strategy” (1927), division commander.

He graduated from the Second Cadet Corps (1895) and the Mikhailovsky Artillery School (1897). Since 1899 it has been published in the press. He graduated from the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff in 1903, first class, and was assigned to the General Staff. Member of the Russian-Japanese; (company commander of the 22nd East Siberian Regiment, chief officer for assignments at the headquarters of the 16th Army Corps, then under the administration of the Quartermaster General of the 3rd Manchurian Army) and World War I (for assignments under the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, commander of the 6th Finnish Rifle Regiment, Chief of Staff of the 7th Infantry Division, Head of a separate Black Sea Naval Division, Acting Chief of Staff of the 5th Army) wars. The last military rank in the tsarist army was major general (1916).

In March 1918 he went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. He was immediately appointed military leader of the Smolensk region of the Western Curtain, then - chief of the All-Russian General Staff. Came into disagreement with the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Republic, Joachim Vatsetis. The Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, Leon Trotsky, who had heard about Svechin’s penchant for scientific work and wanted to eliminate the conflict, appointed him as a teacher at the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army. Since October 1918, Svechin has worked at the Academy of the General Staff (since 1921 - the Military Academy of the Red Army), and holds the post of chief director of the military academies of the Red Army in the history of military art and strategy. Here his talent as a military teacher and writer fully developed.

He was arrested in 1930 in connection with the National Center case, but was released. He was re-arrested in February 1931 in the “Spring” case and sentenced in July to 5 years in the camps. However, already in February 1932 he was released and returned to serve in the Red Army: first in the Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, then in the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army, newly formed in 1936. The last military rank in the Red Army is division commander.

The last arrest followed on December 30, 1937. During the investigation, Svechin did not confess to anything and did not incriminate anyone. Signed up for repression in the first category (execution) in the Moscow Center list dated July 26, 1938 for 139 people, No. 107, on the recommendation of I. Shapiro. Captions: “For the execution of all 138 people.” Stalin, Molotov. Sentenced by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on July 29, 1938, on charges of participating in a counter-revolutionary organization and training terrorists. Shot and buried at Kommunarka (Moscow region) on July 29, 1938. Rehabilitated on September 8, 1956.