(Tyler Hicks/The New York Times) Putin’s Narrowed Battlefield Broad evidence shows Moscow has not narrowed its goals in Ukraine, a point vital to any notion for peace talks. Ukrainians fire at Russian forces in Donetsk province, a target of Russia’s current, narrowed offensive. This reality undermines well-meaning suggestions for peace negotiations that are based on beliefs the Kremlin will settle for what it has now. ![]() Putin’s goal is unchanged, and he is prepared to achieve it by degrees. Yet this is probably just a short-term change. This and other signals may suggest that President Vladimir Putin is limiting his war aims and will settle for consolidation of control over four provinces in southern and eastern Ukraine. Likewise, the United States strategically assumed that the full extent of its power was not merited in Vietnam.Russia’s Ukraine war, launched in February along the 350 miles from Belarus to the Black Sea, has largely narrowed these weeks to a 45-mile-wide assault on cities in the Donbas region. The United States did not intend to conquer North Vietnam for fear of a Chinese or Soviet military reaction. The American strategic goal was not the destruction of an organized military machine armed with tanks, planes, helicopters, and war ships, for which the United States had prepared, but the preservation of a fragile regime from the lightly armed attacks of both its own people and the North Vietnamese. This occurred because aside from the economic change that saw cost of war escalate beyond original predictions, and the change in political leadership was no longer willing to commit to the conduct of war, but also to the radical change which the United States society experienced during the war, and more importantly because The complex and varied nature of the Vietnam War made it especially difficult to translate abstract, strategic goals into specific missions for individual organizations. However, analysis of military history abounds with examples of the two factors that plague goal setting in military strategies, their change during the campaign or war due to changes in economic, political or social changes within the state, or in a change of how achievement of existing goal is being assessed, and the criteria of its achievement. Ī critical product of the analysis which leads to the strategic decision to use military force is determination of the national goal to be achieved by that application of force. As an example, these are illustrated by the failure of the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command during the winter of 1943/44. However, aside from the obstacles used by the enemy to prevent achievement of the strategic goal, inappropriate technological capabilities and operational weakness in combat may prevent fulfilment of the strategic plan. This is necessary because "high-level" strategic goals are often abstract, and therefore difficult to assess in terms of achievement without referring to some specific, often physical objectives. In terms of goal assignment it corresponds to operations performed by a front or a fleet on a theatre scale, and by an Army group or, during the Second World War, by a Red Army Front.Ī strategic goal is achieved by reaching specific strategic objectives that represent intermediary and incremental advances within the overall strategic plan. It is the highest level of organisational achievement in a military organisation, and is usually defined by the national defence policy. Sometimes the strategic goal can be to limit the scope of the conflict. ![]() Usually it entails either a strategic change in enemy's military posture, intentions or ongoing operations, or achieving a strategic victory over the enemy that ends the conflict, although the goal can be set in terms of diplomatic or economic conditions, defined by purely territorial gains, or the evidence that the enemy's will to fight has been broken. A strategic military goal is used in strategic planning to define desired end-state of a war or a campaign.
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