People with actual military experience

[mrkelley23]

Help me, please.

I thought I understood the difference between "strategy" and "tactics," I really did.

McCain called Obama to task for not understanding the difference, and then in the very next sentence, said something to the effect of "the strategy of encircling neighborhoods and going door-to-door" in reference to Iraq.

My understanding of the words would have made that a tactic, to accomplish the overall strategy of pacifying the city.

I wasn't listening with both ears, admittedly, so I may have misunderstood, or missed something.

I kept waiting for post-debate analysis to clear thsi one up, but have gotten no help. Can somebody explain to this person ignorant of military jargon?

[etaoin22]

(doing consults at Ste-Anne's hospital, the last federal Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Canada doesn't qualify me, but I will comment anyway.)

My guess is that the Senator made a decision (?strategic ?tactical) not to use long words in the debate, and thus avoided the 17-letter jawbreaker "counterinsurgency" in describing the post-Rumsfeldian change in strategy carried out under Gen. Petraeus, but still needed to use the concept, somehow.

My second guess is that somewhere around this point,the Senator also used the words "Petraeus", "win", "Obama" and "lose", more or less in that order.

[wintergreen48]

What he was describing as a 'strategy' is in fact a strategy; 'strategy' is the larger picture that describes generally what you aims are. On the other hand, 'tactics' would be the way that the strategy would be carried out, that is, in this instance, how you would actually go about doing the encirclement, where you would actually deploy your own troops, how you would send in your troops, how you would cover the various entry and exit points, etc.

[BackInTex]

Help me, please.

I thought I understood the difference between "strategy" and "tactics," I really did.

McCain called Obama to task for not understanding the difference, and then in the very next sentence, said something to the effect of "the strategy of encircling neighborhoods and going door-to-door" in reference to Iraq.

My understanding of the words would have made that a tactic, to accomplish the overall strategy of pacifying the city.

I wasn't listening with both ears, admittedly, so I may have misunderstood, or missed something.

I kept waiting for post-debate analysis to clear thsi one up, but have gotten no help. Can somebody explain to this person ignorant of military jargon?

A tactic is a method of carrying out a strategy.

A strategy is a plan to acheive an objective.

In the above, pacifying the city is an objective.
The plan (strategy) is to encircle the neighborhoods and go door to door.
The method (tactic) would be to use tanks and armored personnel carriers to circle and deliver troops to the neighborhoods while dropping free Gummy Bears from helicoptors to distract the kids so they don't get scared.

[mrkelley23]

Ok, so I guess my understanding of the words is pretty good, but I think we need a third layer. Because to me, pacifying the city is a strategy. Encircling a neighborhood, going door-to-door looking for hiders is a tactic. But I can see where there would be a level "below" that, so to speak.

And obviously, if McCain had misspoken even a tiny bit, the blogosphere would be all over it, so he's fine. But I still think we need another word.

[BackInTex]

Ok, so I guess my understanding of the words is pretty good, but I think we need a third layer. Because to me, pacifying the city is a strategy. Encircling a neighborhood, going door-to-door looking for hiders is a tactic. But I can see where there would be a level "below" that, so to speak.

And obviously, if McCain had misspoken even a tiny bit, the blogosphere would be all over it, so he's fine. But I still think we need another word.

Well, realistically, every strategy could be a tactic of a higher level objective. What I want to know is what is a strategic tactic once removed?

[Spock]

Ok, so I guess my understanding of the words is pretty good, but I think we need a third layer. Because to me, pacifying the city is a strategy. Encircling a neighborhood, going door-to-door looking for hiders is a tactic. But I can see where there would be a level "below" that, so to speak.

And obviously, if McCain had misspoken even a tiny bit, the blogosphere would be all over it, so he's fine. But I still think we need another word.

Operations may be the word you are looking for.

Level One-Strategy
Level 2-Operations
Level 3-Tactics

[silverscreenselect]

The surge was a strategy. Of course, the surge isn't the reason that the situation in Iraq improed. The reason it improved was that starting in Anbar and spreading to other parts of the country, we decided to pay off local militias (the very same people who had been shooting at us) so that they wouldn't shoot anymore. Once the Shiites in Baghdad saw the Anbar Sunnis raking in the money, which will be needed in the future for black market arms, they decided to get in the fun.

The people who were left for us to shoot at were those too low on the totem pole to get a piece of the pie, who were usually ratted out by our "helpful" new allies. They may or may not have been Al Qaeda, but they weren't able to buy into our newfound largesse.

The mistake the Democrats made was not calling out and publicizing this strategy from day one. The way you do that was to credit Petraeus every single time for "bringing the militias into the fold" by providing them with assitance in exchange for cease fire and lending us aid (which is more diplomatic than saying bribes and payoffs). We could have avoided the Fallujah bloodbath if we'd paid off the Sunnis who held that town (as they asked) instead of blasting them out. Petraeus proved to be more pragmatic than his predecessors and Bush went along, with Bushco perpetuating the nonsense that the "surge" was the reason for violence quieting down.

It's a little late in the game now for Obama or other Democrats to bring up the payoffs as the reason for the surge's success.

[Bob Juch]

The surge was a strategy. Of course, the surge isn't the reason that the situation in Iraq improed. The reason it improved was that starting in Anbar and spreading to other parts of the country, we decided to pay off local militias (the very same people who had been shooting at us) so that they wouldn't shoot anymore. Once the Shiites in Baghdad saw the Anbar Sunnis raking in the money, which will be needed in the future for black market arms, they decided to get in the fun.

The people who were left for us to shoot at were those too low on the totem pole to get a piece of the pie, who were usually ratted out by our "helpful" new allies. They may or may not have been Al Qaeda, but they weren't able to buy into our newfound largesse.

The mistake the Democrats made was not calling out and publicizing this strategy from day one. The way you do that was to credit Petraeus every single time for "bringing the militias into the fold" by providing them with assitance in exchange for cease fire and lending us aid (which is more diplomatic than saying bribes and payoffs). We could have avoided the Fallujah bloodbath if we'd paid off the Sunnis who held that town (as they asked) instead of blasting them out. Petraeus proved to be more pragmatic than his predecessors and Bush went along, with Bushco perpetuating the nonsense that the "surge" was the reason for violence quieting down.

It's a little late in the game now for Obama or other Democrats to bring up the payoffs as the reason for the surge's success.

Nice to see you calling Republicans liars for a change.

[Spock]

The surge was a strategy. Of course, the surge isn't the reason that the situation in Iraq improed. The reason it improved was that starting in Anbar and spreading to other parts of the country, we decided to pay off local militias (the very same people who had been shooting at us) so that they wouldn't shoot anymore. Once the Shiites in Baghdad saw the Anbar Sunnis raking in the money, which will be needed in the future for black market arms, they decided to get in the fun.

The people who were left for us to shoot at were those too low on the totem pole to get a piece of the pie, who were usually ratted out by our "helpful" new allies. They may or may not have been Al Qaeda, but they weren't able to buy into our newfound largesse.

The mistake the Democrats made was not calling out and publicizing this strategy from day one. The way you do that was to credit Petraeus every single time for "bringing the militias into the fold" by providing them with assitance in exchange for cease fire and lending us aid (which is more diplomatic than saying bribes and payoffs). We could have avoided the Fallujah bloodbath if we'd paid off the Sunnis who held that town (as they asked) instead of blasting them out. Petraeus proved to be more pragmatic than his predecessors and Bush went along, with Bushco perpetuating the nonsense that the "surge" was the reason for violence quieting down.

It's a little late in the game now for Obama or other Democrats to bring up the payoffs as the reason for the surge's success.

I generally agree with your main idea here. Personally, I view the Surge as shorthand for the general change in tactics/strategy (and some luck thrown in)that occurred roughly concurrently.

[nitrah55]

By the way, did anybody count the number of times McCain said "General Petreus" in the debate?

For a while there, I was thinking Petreus was the candidate, and McCain was the surrogage.