Amilitary operation (op) is the coordinatedmilitary actions of astate, or anon-state actor, in response to a developing situation. These actions are designed as amilitary plan to resolve the situation in the state or actor's favor. Operations may be of acombat ornon-combat nature and may be referred to by acode name for the purpose ofnational security. Military operations are often known for their more generally accepted common usage names than their actualoperational objectives.
Military operations can be classified by the scale and scope of force employment, and their impact on the wider conflict. The scope of military operations can be:
Theater: this describes an operation over a large, often continental,area of operation and represents a strategic national commitment to the conflict, such asOperation Barbarossa, with generalgoals that encompass areas of consideration outside the military, such as theeconomic andpolitical impact of military goals on areas concerned.
Campaign: this describes either a subset of the theatre of operation, or a more limited geographic and operational strategic commitment, such as theBurma Campaign, and need not represent total national commitment to a conflict, or have broader goals outside the military impact.
Battle: this describes a subset of a campaign that will have specific military goals and geographic objectives, as well as clearly defined use of forces, such as theBattle of Gallipoli, which operationally was acombined arms operation originally known as the "Dardanelles landings" as part of theDardanelles Campaign, where about 480,000Allied troops took part.
Strike: this describes a singleattack, upon a specifiedtarget. This often forms part of a broader engagement. Strikes have an explicit goal, such as rendering facilities such asairports inoperable,assassinating enemy leaders, or limitingthe delivery of supplies to enemy troops.
Parallel to and reflecting this framework for operations are organized elements within thearmed forces which prepare for and conduct operations at various levels ofwar. While there is a general correlation between the size ofunits, the area within which they operate, and the scope of mission they perform, the correlation is not absolute. In fact, it is ultimately the mission that a unit performs that determines the level of war within which it operates.
— David M. Glantz,Soviet Military Operational Art[1]
Theoperational level of war occupies roughly the middle ground between the campaign's strategic focus and thetactics of an engagement. It describes "a distinct intermediate level of war betweenmilitary strategy, governing war in general, and tactics, involving individual battles".[2] For example, duringWorld War II, the concept applied to use ofSoviet Tank Armies.[3]
