ILLUSTRATING THE LEVELS OF WAR – OPERATION ZITADELLE (KURSK), 5-14 JULY 1943, A CASE STUDY

Abstract

In wartime military organisations function in a dangerous and complex
environment. Doctrines are designed to ensure standardisation of thinking about
military conflict and the use of military power. Therefore, it is defined as an explicit
set of concepts according to which actions in a given field are discussed and
executed. However, without proper communication (conveying of information)
vital time and opportunities will be lost in a conflict situation. Efforts to standardise
military technology (command language) will ensure proper communication within
the framework of doctrine. However, this is difficult and many debates have
developed on the meaning of terms and how they manifested in the past.
In this process military historians have a very important responsibility.
Until the coining of the concept of operational art and the identification of the
operational level of war in the English-speaking world they tended to identify any
clash of arms as campaigns or battles and also not in a standardised manner. This
led to confusion as contemporary students on senior military courses throughout the
world are sometimes more bewildered by Military History, rather than being led to a
clearer understanding of military terminology. For example, the so-called Battle of
the Atlantic, 1939 – 1945 was clearly a campaign and not a battle, as the discussion
of the term campaign will later indicate.