Tiny Wiki :
Fast loading, text only version of Wikipedia.
Military
A military is an organization authorized by its nation to use force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country (or by attacking other countries) by combating actual or perceived threats. As an adjective the term "military" is also used to refer to any property or aspect of a military. Militaries often function as societies within societies, by having their own military communities, economies, education, medicine and other aspects of a functioning civilian society.
The profession of soldiering as part of a military group is older than recorded history itself. Some of the most enduring images of the classical antiquity portray the power and feats of its military leaders. The Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC was one of the defining points of Pharaoh Ramesses II's reign and is celebrated in bas-relief on his monuments. A thousand years later the first emperor of unified China, Qin Shi Huang, was so determined to impress the gods with his military might that he was buried with an army of terracotta soldiers. The Romans were dedicated to military matters, leaving to posterity many treatises and writings as well as a large number of lavishly carved triumphal arches and columns.
In the modern era, world wars and countless other major conflicts have changed the employment of the militaries beyond recognition to their ancient participants. Empires have come and gone; states have grown and declined. Enormous social changes have been wrought, and military power continues to dominate international relations. The role of the military today is as central to global societies as it ever was.
Etymology and definitions
The first recorded use of military in English, spelled ''militarie'', was in 1585.[Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition) Oxford: 1994] It comes from the Latin ''militaris'' (from Latin ''miles'' meaning "soldier") but is of uncertain etymology, one suggestion being derived from ''*mil-it-'' - going in a body or mass The word is now identified as denoting someone that is skilled in use of weapons, or engaged in military service or in warfare.[[http://www.askoxford.com/dictionaries/?view=uk Compact Oxford Dictionary online]][[http://www.merriam-webster.com/ Merriam Webster Dictionary online]]
As a noun the military usually refers generally to a country's armed forces or sometimes, more specifically, to the senior officers who command them.
As an adjective military originally applied only to soldiers and soldiering, but it soon broadened to apply to land forces in general and anything to do with their profession.
Military history
Military history is often considered to be the history of all conflicts, not just the history of the state militaries. It differs somewhat from the history of war with military history focusing on the people and institutions of war-making while the history of war focuses on the evolution of war itself in the face of changing technology, governments, and geography.
Military history has a number of purposes. One main purpose is to learn from past accomplishments and mistakes so as to more effectively wage war in the future. Another is to create a sense of military tradition which is used to create cohesive military forces. Still another may be to learn to prevent wars more effectively.
Human knowledge about the military is largely based on recorded and oral history of military conflicts, their participating armies and navies, and more recently air forces. There are two types of military history, although almost all texts have elements of both: descriptive history that serves to chronicle conflicts without offering any statements about the causes, nature of conduct, the ending and effects of a conflict; and analytical history that seeks to offer statements about the causes, nature, ending and aftermath of conflicts as a means of deriving knowledge and understanding of conflicts as a whole, and prevent repetition of mistakes in future, to suggest better concepts or methods in employing forces, or to advocate need new technology.
The Military
Every nation in the history of humanity had different needs for military forces. How these needs are determined, forms the basis of their composition, equipment and use of facilities. It also determines what military does in terms of peacetime and wartime activities. All militaries, whether large or small, are military organizations that must perform certain functions and fulfil certain roles to qualify for being designated as such. If they fail to do so, they may become known as paramilitary, civil defence, militia or other which are not military. These commonalities of the state's military define them.
Military command
The first requirement of the military is to establish it as a force with a capability to execute national defense policy. Invariably, although the policy may be created by policy makers or Policy analyst, its implementation requires specific expert knowledge of how military functions and how it fulfils roles. The first of these skills is the ability to create a cohesive force capable of acting on policy as and when required, and therefore the first function of the military is to provide military command. One of the roles of military command is to translate policy into concrete missions and tasks, and to express them in terms understood by subordinates, generally called orders. Military command make effective and efficient military organisation possible through delegation of authority which encompass organisational structures as large as military districts or military zones, and as small as platoons. The command element of the military is often a strong influence on the organisational culture of the forces.
Military personnel
Another requirement is for the military command personnel, often called the officer corps, to command subordinated military personnel, generally known as soldiers, sailors, marines, or airmen, capable of executing the many specialised operational missions and task required for the military to execute the policy directives. Unsurprisingly, just like in the commercial enterprises where there are, in a corporate setting, directors, managers and various staff that carry out the business of the day as part of business operations or undertake business project management, military also has its routines and projects. During peacetime when military personnel are mostly employed in garrisons or permanent military facilities they mostly conduct administrative tasks, training and education activities, and technology maintenance. Another role of military personnel is to ensure a continuous replacement of departing servicemen and women through military recruitment, and the maintenance of a military reserve.
Military intelligence
Next requirement comes as a fairly basic need for the military to identify the possible threats it may be called upon to face. For this purpose some of the command and other military, and often civilian personnel participate in identification of these threats, which is at once an organisation, a system and a process collectively called military intelligence. The difficulty in using military intelligence concepts and military intelligence methods is in the nature of the secrecy of the information they seek, and the clandestine nature that intelligence operatives work in obtaining what may be plans for a conflict escalation, initiation of combat or an invasion. An important part of the military intelligence role is the military analysis performed to assess military capability of potential future aggressors, and provide combat modelling that helps to understand factors on which comparison of forces can be made. This helps to quantify and qualify such statements as "China and India maintain the largest armed forces in the World" or that "the U.S. Military is considered to be the world's strongest".
Military finance
Having military intelligence representatives participate in the execution of the national defence policy is important because it becomes the first respondent and commentator on the policy expected strategic goal compared to the realities of identified threats. When the intelligence reporting is compared to the policy, it becomes possible for the national leadership to think about allocating resources over an above the officers and their subordinates military pay and the expense of maintaining military facilities and military support services for them. The process of allocating resources is conducted by determining a military budget which is administered by a military finance organisation within the military. Military procurement is then authorised to purchase or contract provision of goods and services to the military, whether in peacetime at a permanent base or in a combat zone from local population.
Capability development
Capability development, which is often referred to as the military "strength", is arguably one of the most complex activities known to humanity because it requires determining: Strategic, operational and tactical capability requirements to counter the identified threats; Strategic, operational and tactical doctrines by which the acquired capabilities will be used; identifying concepts, methods and systems involved in executing the doctrines; creating design specifications for the manufacturers who would produce these in adequate quantity and quality for their use in combat; purchase the concepts, methods and systems; create a forces structure that would use the concepts, methods and systems most effectively and efficiently; integrate these concepts, methods and systems into the force structure by providing military education, training, and practice that preferably resembles combat environment of intended use; create military logistics systems to allow continued and uninterrupted performance of military organisations under combat conditions, including provision of health services to the personnel and maintenance for the equipment; the services to assist recovery of wounded personnel and repair of damaged equipment; and finally post-conflict demobilisation and disposal of war stocks surplus to peacetime requirements.
Development of military doctrine is perhaps the more important of all capability development activities because it determines how military forces were, and are used in conflicts, the concepts and methods used by the command to employ appropriately military skilled, armed and equipped personnel in achievement of the tangible goals and objectives of the war, campaign, battle, engagement, action or a duel.[p.67, Dupuy] The line between strategy and tactics is not easily blurred, although deciding which is being discussed had sometimes been a matter of personal judgement by some commentators, and military historians. The use of forces at the level of organisation between strategic and tactical is called operational mobility.
Military science
Because most of the concepts and methods used by the military, and many of its systems are not found in the commercial use, much of materiel is researched, designed, developed and offered for inclusion in arsenals by military science organisation within the overall structure of the military. Military scientists are therefore found to interact with all Arms and Services of the armed forces, and at all levels of the military hierarchy of command. Although concerned with research into military psychology, and particularly combat stress and how it affect troop morale, often the bulk of military science activities is directed at the military intelligence technology, military communications and improving military capability through research, design, development and prototyping of weapons, military support equipment, and military technology in general that includes everything from global communication networks and aircraft carriers to paint and food.
Military logistics
Possessing military capability is not sufficient if this capability can not be deployed for, and employed in combat operations. To achieve this, military logistics are used for the logistics management and logistics planning of the forces supply "tail", the consumables and capital equipment of the troops. Although mostly concerned with the military transport as a means of delivery using different modes of transport from military trucks to container ships operating from permanent military base, it also involves creating field supply dumps in the rear of the combat zone, and even forward supply points in specific unit's Tactical Area of Responsibility. These supply points are also used to provide military engineering services such as the recovery of defective and derelict vehicles and weapons, maintenance of weapons in the field, the repair and field modification of weapons and equipment, and in peacetime the life-extension programs undertaken to allow continued use of equipment. One of the most important role of logistics is the supply of munitions as a primary type of consumable, their storage and disposal.
Military operations
While capability development is about enabling the military to perform its functions and roles in executing the defence policy, how personnel and their equipment are used in engaging the enemy, winning battles, successfully concluding campaigns, and eventually the war, is the responsibility of military operations. Military operations oversees the policy interpretation into military plans, allocation of capability to specific strategic, operational and tactical goals and objectives, change in posture of the armed forces, the interaction of Combat Arms, Combat Support Arms and Combat Support Services during combat operations, defining of military missions and tasks during the conduct of combat, management of military prisoners and military civil affairs, and the military occupation of enemy territory, seizure of captured equipment, and maintenance of civil order in the territory under its responsibility. Throughout the combat operations process, and during the lulls in combat combat military intelligence provides reporting on the status of plan completion and its correlation with desired, expected and achieved satisfaction of policy fulfilment.
Military performance assessment
The last requirement of the military is for military performance assessment and learning from it. These two functions are performed by military historians and military theorists who seek to identify failures and success of the armed force and integrate corrections into the military reform with the aim of producing an improved force capable of performing adequately should there be a national defence policy review.
Military in combat
The primary reason for the existence of the military is to engage in combat, should it be required to do so by the national defence policy, and to win. This represents an organisational goal of any military, and the primary focus for military thought through military history. The "show" of military force has been a term that referred as much to military force projection, as to the units such as regiments or gunboats deployed in a particular theatre, or as an aggregate of such forces. In the Gulf War the United States Central Command controlled ''military forces'' (units) of each of the four military services of the United States. How victory is achieved, and what shape it assumes is studied by the militaries on three levels.
Strategic victory
:Military strategy is the management of forces in wars and military campaigns by a commander-in-chief employing large military forces either national and allied as a whole, or the component elements of armies, navies and air forces such as army groups, fleets and large numbers of aircraft. Military strategy is a long-term projection of belligerents' policy with a broad view of outcome implications, including outside the concerns of military command. Military strategy is more concerned with the supply of war and planning, then management of field forces and combat between them. The scope of Strategic military planning can span weeks, but commonly months and years.
Operational victory
:Operational mobility is, within warfare and military doctrine, the level of command which coordinates the minute details of tactics with the overarching goals of strategy. A common synonym is operational art.
:The operational level is at a scale bigger than one where line of sight and the time of day are important, and smaller than the strategic level, where production and politics are considerations. Formations are of the operational level if they are able to conduct operations on their own, and are of sufficient size to be directly handled or have a significant impact at the strategic level. This concept was pioneered by the German army prior to and during the Second World War. At this level planning and duration of activities takes from one week to a month, and are executed by Field Armies and Army Corps and their naval and air equivalents.
Tactical victory
:Military tactics concerns itself with the methods for engaging and defeating an enemy in direct combat. Military tactics are usually used by units over hours or days, and are focused on the specific, close proximity tasks and objectives of squads, companys, battalions, regiments, brigades and divisions and their naval and air equivalents.
One of the oldest military publications is ''The Art of War'' by the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu. Written in the 6th century BCE, the 13-chapter book is intended as military instruction and not as military theory, but has had a huge influence on Asian, and from the late 19th century, European and United States military planning. It has even been used to formulate business tactics, and used elsewhere.
Source: Wikipedia