List of military

strategies and
concepts

This article is a list of military

strategies and concepts that are
commonly recognized and
referenced. Military strategies are
methods of arranging and
maneuvering large bodies of military
forces during armed conflicts.
Offensive strategies
Air supremacy – A degree of air
superiority where a side holds
complete control of air power over
opposing forces. Control of the air
is the aerial equivalent of Command
of the sea.
Attrition warfare – A strategy of
wearing down the enemy to the
point of collapse through
continuous loss of personnel and
material. Used to defeat enemies
with low resources and high
morale.
Bait and bleed – To induce rival
states to engage in a protracted
war of attrition against each other
"so that they bleed each other
white", similar to the concept of
Divide and conquer
Battle of annihilation – The goal of
destroying the enemy military in a
single planned pivotal battle
Bellum se ipsum alet – A strategy of
feeding and supporting an army
with the potentials of occupied
territories
Blitzkrieg – A method of warfare
where an attacking force,
spearheaded by a dense
concentration of armoured and
motorised or mechanised infantry
formations with close air support,
breaks through the opponent's line
of defence by short, fast, powerful
attacks and then dislocates the
defenders, using speed and
surprise to encircle them with the
help of air superiority.[1]
Blockade / Siege / Investment – An
attempt to cut off food, supplies,
war material or communications
from a particular area by force,
usually taking place by sea
Clear and hold – A counter-
insurgency strategy in which
military personnel clear an area of
guerrillas or other insurgents, and
then keep the area clear of
insurgents while winning the
support of the populace for the
government and its policies.
Coercion – Compelling the enemy
to involuntarily behave in a certain
way by targeting the leadership,
national communications, or
political-economic centers
Command of the sea – A degree of
naval superiority where a side holds
complete control of naval power
over opposing forces. Control of the
sea is the naval equivalent of Air
Supremacy
Counter-offensive – A strategic
offensive taking place after the
enemy's front line troops and
reserves have been exhausted, and
before the enemy has had the
opportunity to assume new
defensive positions. Tactic is
usually implemented through
surging at the enemy after their
attack.
Counterforce – A strategy used in
nuclear warfare of targeting military
infrastructure (as opposed to
civilian targets)
Countervalue – The opposite of
counterforce; targeting of enemy
cities and civilian populations. Used
to distract the enemy.
Decapitation – Achieving strategic
paralysis by targeting political
leadership, command and control,
strategic weapons, and critical
economic nodes
Deception – A strategy that seeks
to deceive, trick, or fool the enemy
and create a false perception in a
way that can be leveraged for a
military advantage
Defeat in detail – Bringing a large
portion of one's own force to bear
on small enemy units in sequence,
rather than engaging the bulk of the
enemy force all at once. Similar to
divide and conquer
Denial – A strategy that seeks to
destroy the enemy's ability to wage
war
Distraction – An attack by some of
the force on one or two flanks,
drawing up to a strong frontal
attack by the rest of the force
Encirclement – Both a strategy and
tactic designed to isolate and
surround enemy forces
Ends, Ways, Means, Risk – Strategy
is much like a three legged stool of
ends, ways, means balanced on a
plane of varying degree of risk
Enkulette – A strategy used often in
the jungle that aims at attacking the
enemy from behind.
Exhaustion – A strategy that seeks
to erode the will or resources of a
country
Feint – A maneuver designed to
distract or mislead, done by giving
the impression that a certain
maneuver will take place, while in
fact another, or even none, will.
Flanking maneuver – Involves
attacking the opponent from the
side, or rear
Guerrilla tactics – Involves
ambushes on enemy troops.
Usually used by insurgency.
Heavy force – A counterinsurgency
strategy that seeks to destroy an
insurgency with overwhelming
force while it is still in a
manageable state
Human wave attack – An
unprotected frontal attack where
the attacker tries to move as many
combatants as possible into
engaging close range combat with
the defender
Incentive – A strategy that uses
incentives to gain cooperation
Indirect approach – Dislocation is
the aim of strategy. Direct attacks
almost never work, one must first
upset the enemy's equilibrium, fix
weakness and attack strength,
Eight rules of strategy: 1) adjust
your ends to your means, 2) keep
your object always in mind, 3)
choose the line of the least
expectation, 4) exploit the line of
least resistance, 5) take the line of
operations which offers the most
alternatives, 6) ensure both plans
and dispositions are flexible, 7) do
not throw your weight into an
opponent while he is on guard, 8)
do not renew an attack along the
same lines if an attack has failed
Interior lines – Placing one's forces
in between the enemy forces and
attacking each in turn in order to
allow one's forces to have better
communications and allows one to
mass all of one's forces against a
part of the enemies'
Limited war – A war in which the
belligerents do not expend all of the
resources at their disposal, whether
human, industrial, agricultural,
military, natural, technological, or
otherwise in a specific conflict.[2]
Motitus - A Motitus or Motti is a
double envelopment manoeuvre,
using the ability of light troops to
travel over rough ground to encircle
and defeat enemy troops with
limited mobility. By cutting the
enemy columns or units into
smaller groups, a mobile force can
restrict the mobility of a stronger
enemy and defeat it in detail. The
name comes from the Finnish word
for a cubic meter of firewood, and
the strategy was used extensively
during the Winter War.
Penetration – A direct attack
through enemy lines, then an attack
on the rear once through
Periclean strategy – The two basic
principles of the "Periclean Grand
Strategy" were the rejection of
appeasement (in accordance with
which he urged the Athenians not to
revoke the Megarian Decree) and
the avoidance of overextension
Persisting strategy – A strategy
that seeks to destroy the means by
which the enemy sustains itself
Pincer ambush – A "U"-shaped
attack with the sides concealed and
the middle held back until the
enemy advances, at which point the
concealed sides ambush them
Pincer maneuver – Allowing the
enemy to attack the center,
sometimes in a charge, then
attacking the flanks of the charge
Punishment – A strategy that seeks
to push a society beyond its
economic and physiological
breaking point
Rapid Decisive Operations –
Compelling the adversary to
undertake certain actions or
denying the adversary the ability to
coerce or attack others.
Raiding – Attacking with the
purpose of removing the enemy's
supply or provisions
Refusing the flank – Holding back
one side of the battle line to keep
the enemy from engaging with that
flank. The refused flank is held by
smallest force necessary to hold
out against the enemy's attack
while concentrating the main battle
force against the enemies' center or
other flank
Separation of insurgents – A
counterinsurgency strategy should
first seek to separate the enemy
from the population, then deny the
enemy reentry, and finally execute
long enough to deny the insurgent
access
Shape, Clear, Hold, Build – The
counterinsurgency theory that
states the process of winning an
insurgency is shape, clear, hold,
build
Siege – Continuous attack by
bombardment on a fortified
position, usually by artillery, or
surrounding and isolating it in at
attempt to compell a surrender
Shock and awe – A military doctrine
using overwhelming power to try
and achieve rapid dominance over
the enemy
Swarming – Military swarming
involves the use of a decentralized
force against an opponent, in a
manner that emphasizes mobility,
communication, unit autonomy and
coordination/synchronization.
Theater strategy – Concepts and
courses of action directed toward
securing the objectives of national
and multinational policies and
strategies through the synchronized
and integrated employment of
military forces and other
instruments of national power
Total war – Conflict in which
belligerents engage with all
available resources[3]
Troop surge – deploying a large
number of troops into theatre in
order to overcome resistance
Turning movement – An attack that
penetrates the enemy's flank, then
 curls into its rear to cut it off from
home
Win without fighting – Sun Tzu
argued that a brilliant general was
one that could win without killing
anybody
Crescent Strategy - Turkish
commanders used this strategy.
The soldiers act like a crescent and
take the enemy in the middle of the
crescent and surround it.

Defensive strategies
Boxing maneuver – A strategy used
to "box in" and force an attack on all
sides at once
Choke point – A use of strategic
geography, usually in a narrow area,
intended to concentrate the enemy
into a confined area where the
defender can maximize his forces
Defence in depth – A strategy to
delay rather than prevent the
advance of the attackers by buying
time and causing additional
casualties by yielding space so that
the momentum of the attack is lost
and the attacking force can be
attacked on its flanks
Elastic Defense - A strategy to
flexibly absorb then repel the
advance of attackers through
carefully planned integrated
fighting positions, perfected by the
German Army in WWI
Fortification – A semi-permanent or
permanent defensive structure that
gives physical protection to a
military unit
Fabian strategy – Wearing down
the enemy by using attrition warfare
and indirection, while avoiding
pitched battles or frontal assaults.
Named after Quintus Fabius
Maximus Verrucosus in his defense
against Carthage. See Pyrrhic
warfare
Military district – An area controlled
by a military force, for
administrative purposes rather than
combat. Also known as Wehrkreis
in German
Scorched earth – Destroying
anything that might be of use to the
enemy while retreating, or
advancing
Turtling – Continuous
reinforcement of the military front
until it has reached its full strength,
then an attack with the now-
superior force
 Withdrawal – A retreat of forces
while maintaining contact with the
enemy

Strategic concepts
Center of the gravity (military) –
The hub of all power and movement
on which everything depends, the
point at which all energies should
be directed
Decisive point – A geographic
place, specific key event, critical
system, or function that allows
commanders to gain a marked
advantage over an enemy and
greatly influence the outcome of an
attack
DIME(FIL) – The elements of
national power diplomacy,
information, military, and
economics, often included are
financial, intelligence, and law
enforcement see MIDLIFE
Expediency – War is a matter of
expedients – von Moltke
Fog, friction, chance – War is
characterized by fog, friction, and
chance
Golden Bridge – To leave an
opponent an opportunity to
withdraw in order to not force them
to act out of desperation – Sun Tzu
Iron Calculus of War – Resistance =
Means x Will – Clausewitz
MIDLIFE – The elements of national
power diplomacy, information,
military, and economics, often
included are financial, intelligence,
and law enforcement, see
DIME(FIL)
Moral ascendancy – Moral force is
the trump card for any military
event because as events change
the human elements of war remain
unchanged – Du Piq
OODA loop – Decision-making
occurs in a recurring cycle of
observe-orient-decide-act. An entity
(whether an individual or an
organization) that can process this
cycle quickly, observing and
reacting to unfolding events more
rapidly than an opponent, can
thereby "get inside" the opponent's
decision cycle and gain the
advantage – Boyd
Paradoxical nature – The nature of
strategy is a paradoxical and does
not follow a linear pattern –
Luttwak
Positive ends – The possibility of
taking advantage of a new security
environment to create conditions
for long-term peace – Wass de
Czege
Primary Trinity – (1) primordial
violence, hatred, and enmity; (2) the
play of chance and probability; and
(3) war's element of subordination
to rational policy – Clausewitz
Secondary Trinity – People,
Army, and Government –
Clausewitz
Principles of war:
Objective (Direct every military
operation towards a clearly
defined, decisive, and
attainable objective)
Offensive (Seize, retain, and
exploit the initiative)
Mass (Concentrate combat
power at the decisive place and
time)
Economy of Force (Allocate
minimum essential combat
power to secondary efforts)
Maneuver (place the enemy in
a disadvantageous position
through the flexible application
of combat power)
Unity of Command (For every
 Objective, ensure Unity of effort
under one responsible
commander)
Security (Never permit the
enemy to acquire an
unexpected advantage)
Surprise (Strike the enemy at a
time, at a place, or in a manner
for which he is unprepared)
Simplicity (Prepare clear,
uncomplicated plans and clear,
concise orders to ensure
thorough understanding) – US
Army FM 3.0
Systems approach – Nation-states
operate like biological organisms
composed of discrete systems.
These systems included:
leadership, organic essentials,
infrastructure, population, and the
military – Warden
Tipping point – The point at which
"the momentum for change
becomes unstoppable." – Gladwell
VUCA – Volatility, uncertainty,
complexity and ambiguity
characterize the strategic
environment – U.S. Army War
College
Weinberger-Powell Doctrine – A list
of questions have to be answered
affirmatively before military action
is taken by the United States:
Is a vital national security
interest threatened?
Do we have a clear attainable
objective?
Have the risks and costs been
fully and frankly analyzed?
Have all other non-violent
policy means been fully
exhausted?
Is there a plausible exit
strategy to avoid endless
entanglement?
 Have the consequences of our
action been fully considered?
Is the action supported by the
American people?
Do we have genuine broad
international support?

Economic concepts
Salaries – Always pay your troops
on time.
Asymmetric costs – ensure the
cost of enemy losses (or
objectives) is at least an order of
magnitude higher than the costs of
attacking.
Budget like a business – Ensure
there is sufficient funds and
revenue streams to finish the war.
Intentional insufficient
Funding(Rcoined) - ensure you
make the funds less than the return,
if a cost of logistics costs X$ in
delivering army collateral, and
supplies. By only closing a canal or
an route, using sea denial strategy
then the price becomes (X$)*4=
4x$. For example a country from
the gulf is to attack the United
States, if only the souize Canal
(Egypt canal closed) then the
supplies need to take an expensive
 route, whereas the funding
becomes insufficient.

See also
List of established military terms
List of military tactics
Military science
Military strategy
Military tactics
Tactical formation
Sun Tzu and The Art of War
Thirty-Six Stratagems

References
Notes
 1. "blitzkrieg | Definition,
Translation, & Facts" .
Encyclopedia Britannica.
Retrieved 2020-02-25.
2. "Limited warfare" . Encyclopedia
Britannica. Retrieved 2020-02-25.
3. "Total War | Meaning of Total War
by Lexico" . Lexico Dictionaries |
English. Retrieved 2020-02-20.
This article needs additional citations for
verification. Learn more

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