Tactical/Operational/Strategic

All this talk recently about needing to revise our tactics or strategy in Iraq has got me thinking that those terms haven’t really been explained clearly in the media before.  Without an idea of what those terms mean,  I don’t think you can expect to have a valuable discussion about issues that revolve around them.

I was working on a project and trying to find an easy to understand analogy to explain the differences between tactical, operational and strategic levels of operation.  This is my attempt so far.  If anyone has any recommendations/changes I’d be glad to hear them.  Unfortunately, virtually my entire knowledge of baseball operations was gained from watching George Costanza work for the NY Yankees on Seinfeld.

Intelligence is frequently divided into three levels: tactical, operational and strategic. Those levels are defined in both the time and space where tactical considerations being more limited in space and immediate in time and strategic ones cover a much wider area and longer term.

One way to think about how the tactical, operational, and strategic levels interact is to use baseball as an analogy. During the game, an outfielder will have to decide whether to play deep or close in and where to throw the ball if he catches it. Those decisions will be based on who’s at bat, what bases have runners on them, and how many outs there are so far in the inning. His decisions are limited geographically to his position and temporally to the next pitch. Those are all tactical considerations.

The coach will be looking at the game from a different position. He will have to make decisions in order to win the game. What should the batting line up be? Has the pitcher been on the mound too long and does he need to be relieved? Will the crowd affect the players of either team? Will the weather play a role in player performance? His decisions cover a wider scope than the player and encompass the playing field or even the entire stadium and last the entire game. This would be considered to be the operational level.

Finally, the general manager will be looking at an even broader perspective. He will need information to help him make decisions that will result in a winning season as well as future seasons. Does the team need more pitchers? What minor league players should they attempt to recruit? Who should replace the outgoing batting coach? His decisions could cover several years and his area of interest could include the entire country. This would be considered the strategic level.

For more check out the Wikipedia definitions of tactics, strategy, or operational levels of military operations.

Update: This post has been one of my most frequently accessed so I thought I’d expand it a bit.

Converting my baseball analogy to the military sphere might look something like this if we used the attack at Pearl Harbor as an example (I know my example really oversimplifies the events of Pearl Harbor but I chose it because just about everyone should be familiar enough with the event to make it a good example).

Strategy would have been the Japanese decision to deliver a fatal strike to American seapower in the Pacific in order to gain recognition for Japanese dominance in that part of the world.  These decisions would be made by Japan’s national leaders.

How the attacking fleet was structured, it’s deployment and route were operational decisions.  These are the sorts of things the fleet commander would consider.

How the planes were armed, their attacking approach and methods of engaging American aircraft were tactical decisions.  That sort of thing would be decided by individual pilots or squadron leaders.

You can see how, as we move from strategic to tactical the scope of attention narrows both in space (from the entire Western Pacific to the airspace over Pearl Harbor) and time (from however long the Japanese sought dominance in their area of influence to the brief period of time of the actual attack).