Royal Army College

Lesson Overview

Lesson 01 established that an officer studies military history for the judgement it builds. One of the chief products of that study is the principles of war: the distilled conclusions of long experience about what tends to make operations succeed. This lesson introduces them. It asks what they are, where they come from, what kind of thing they are, and how the Commonwealth tradition this Army follows frames them.

Before examining the individual principles in the next two lessons, an officer must grasp what the principles are as a kind of thing. Misunderstanding their nature is the commonest way they are misused. They are not laws that produce victory if followed, nor a checklist that ensures a sound operation if ticked. They are distilled guidance about the factors that tend to bear on success, to be applied with judgement, not followed mechanically. This is the same trap Lesson 01 warned of with history itself.

By the end you will be able to explain what the principles of war are and where they come from; explain what kind of thing they are, guidance rather than rules; describe the Commonwealth framing and the place of the selection and maintenance of the aim as master principle; and explain how the principles are used, with judgement and in tension with one another.

Key Terms

The principles of war: the distilled conclusions of long military experience about the factors that tend to bear on the success of operations; guidance to be applied with judgement, not laws that guarantee victory.
Distilled experience: the considered conclusions drawn from studying many operations across history, capturing what has tended to make for success, rather than rules deduced from theory.
Guidance, not rules: the correct understanding of the principles as considerations to weigh against a particular situation, not a checklist that ensures success if satisfied.
The Commonwealth tradition: the British and Commonwealth doctrinal framing of the principles, which this Army follows, with its settled list headed by the selection and maintenance of the aim.
The selection and maintenance of the aim: the master principle, that an operation must have a single clear aim, selected rightly and held to throughout, to which the others are subordinate.
The principles in tension: the truth that the principles can pull against one another, so that applying them is a matter of balancing them, not of satisfying all at once.

What the principles of war are, and where they come from

The principles of war are the profession's answer, arrived at over centuries of conducting and studying operations, to a single question: what tends to make operations succeed, and what tends to make them fail. They are few. The Commonwealth tradition lists about ten, each stated briefly, each naming a factor that the experience of war has found to matter. Together they carry, in compact form, much of what the profession has learned about the conduct of operations. That is why they are valued and taught.

Their origin sets both their authority and their limit. They are not deduced from theory or invented by a single author. They are drawn from experience, distilled from the careful study of many operations: exactly the product of the judgement-building study Lesson 01 described. Their authority is that they record how war has actually worked, not how someone thinks it ought to work, and an officer ignores them at his peril. Their limit is that generalisations from experience are not laws that hold without exception. They must be applied with judgement, attending to whether and how they bear on the situation at hand. The next section develops this.

What kind of thing they are: guidance, not rules

The most important thing to understand about the principles, and the thing most often got wrong, is what kind of thing they are. They are guidance to be applied with judgement, not rules that guarantee success. Misunderstanding them as rules is the commonest way they are misused: the same error, applied to the principles, that Lesson 01 identified with history.

No set of rules guarantees success in operations. Operations are too complex, too dependent on circumstance, and too contested for any formula to ensure their outcome, and the principles do not claim otherwise. An operation can observe every principle and still fail through circumstance or chance; it can violate one and still succeed. The principles state what tends to bear on success, not iron laws that determine it.

Used rightly, a principle prompts the officer to weigh a factor experience has found important. Concentration of force, for instance, prompts the question: am I concentrating my effort where it matters? That is worth asking in most operations, but it is a consideration to judge against the situation, not a rule that dictates the answer. The principles are a checklist for the mind, like the estimate: a set of considerations to make sure are weighed, not a formula that produces the answer. Each may bear on a situation strongly, weakly, or not at all, and the officer's task is to judge how each applies. There is a further reason judgement is indispensable, taken up below: the principles can pull against one another, and no rule can balance considerations that disagree.

   WHAT THE PRINCIPLES OF WAR ARE

   THEY ARE:                           THEY ARE NOT:
   - distilled conclusions of long      - laws that GUARANTEE victory
     military EXPERIENCE                  if followed
   - guidance / considerations          - a CHECKLIST that ensures
     that tend to bear on success         success if ticked
   - prompts to weigh the factors       - FORMULAS to apply
     experience found to matter           mechanically
   - applied with JUDGEMENT to the      - rules that all agree and can
     particular situation                 all be satisfied at once

   An operation can observe every principle and still fail; or
   violate one and still succeed. They guide judgement; they do
   not replace it. (Misusing them as rules = the Lesson 01 error.)

The Commonwealth tradition and the master principle

This Army follows the British and Commonwealth tradition, and so it follows that tradition's framing of the principles: a settled list of about ten, taught in the next two lessons as the framework an officer of the Royal Kaharagian Army uses. The particular list matters less than understanding what the principles are, but the officer should hold this list as his, because it is the framing his Army and its tradition use.

The Commonwealth tradition gives one principle a special place, and it organises the whole list: the selection and maintenance of the aim is the master principle, to which the others are subordinate. It holds that an operation must have a single clear aim, selected rightly at the outset and held to throughout. The tradition places it first because the others all serve it. Concentration of force, economy of effort, and the rest are about how to pursue the aim, and they are meaningless without one. An operation that loses its aim partway through cannot be conducted soundly, however well the rest is observed.

So the principles are not a flat list of equal considerations. They are a list headed by the aim, with the others serving its clear pursuit. The next lesson examines this principle in full, but the officer should already hold the selection and maintenance of the aim as the first and governing principle, the foundation on which the rest rests.

How the principles are used: with judgement and in tension

Two features of the principles' use must be understood before the individual principles are examined: they are applied with judgement, and they can pull against one another.

The first feature is settled above. Each principle may bear on a situation strongly, weakly, or not at all, and the officer judges how each applies rather than satisfying them all mechanically. He brings the principles to bear on his thinking, asks how each applies, and weighs them in light of the case at hand.

The second feature is more subtle. The principles can be in tension, pulling in different directions, so that applying them is a matter of balance rather than full satisfaction of each. This follows from their being distilled from experience rather than deduced from a consistent theory: the factors experience has found to matter do not always point the same way. Concentrating force at the decisive point may require accepting risk elsewhere, in tension with security. Surprise may cost some security; speed may trade against careful preparation. The principles cannot all be maximised at once. The art of applying them is judging how to balance their competing pulls in the particular situation, deciding which to weight more heavily given the circumstances and the aim.

This is why no mechanical application is possible. A rule cannot balance principles that disagree, because balancing requires judging the situation, which is what judgement does and rules cannot. The officer therefore weighs the principles against the situation and against each other, in service of the aim the master principle places first. This is the use the next lessons assume: each principle understood, then applied with judgement, balanced against the others, in service of the clear aim.

In Practice: The Principles as Considerations, Not a Checklist

An officer of the Royal Kaharagian Army is planning a relief task of the kind the Army actually conducts. He brings the principles of war to bear, and the lesson shows not in any single principle but in how he uses them as a whole.

He begins with the master principle. He fixes a single clear aim for the operation and resolves to hold to it, because without a clear aim the rest has nothing to serve. Then he works through the others as considerations: is he concentrating effort where it matters; is he economical elsewhere; is he sustaining the force; is he cooperating well with the other agencies involved. The principles ensure nothing vital is overlooked. But he applies each with judgement, recognising that some bear heavily on this task and some barely at all.

Crucially, he handles their tensions. Where concentrating effort at the decisive point would leave him thin elsewhere, or where speed would cost careful preparation, he balances the competing pulls against the situation and the aim rather than trying to satisfy every principle at once.

Contrast the officer who treats the principles as a checklist. He supposes that an operation ticking every principle must be sound, ignores that they pull against each other, and applies them without judging how they bear on the case. He is misled exactly as the careless student of history is misled, mistaking distilled guidance for fixed rules. The officer who uses them rightly gains their real value: the distilled experience of war brought to bear through his own judgement.

Check Your Understanding

Explain what the principles of war are and where they come from, and why their origin in distilled experience gives them both their authority and their limit.
Explain what kind of thing the principles are, and why misunderstanding them as rules is the same error as misunderstanding history as fixed lessons. Why can an operation observe every principle and still fail, or violate one and still succeed?
Describe the place of the selection and maintenance of the aim as master principle, then explain the two features of how the principles are used and why no mechanical application is possible.

Reflection (write a short paragraph): This lesson teaches that the principles of war pull against one another, so applying them means balancing competing considerations with judgement, and that an operation can observe every principle and still fail. Consider why this is harder to accept than it sounds. There is a deep appeal in the idea that following the right rules will produce success, and the principles are easily mistaken for exactly such a set. Be honest about whether you are drawn to that appeal. Then describe one way you could begin holding important guidance, in any part of your life, as considerations to be weighed and balanced rather than as rules that guarantee outcomes.

Summary

The principles of war are the distilled conclusions of long experience about what tends to make operations succeed or fail, about ten brief considerations. They come from the careful study of many operations, not from theory or a single author: the product of the judgement-building study of Lesson 01. This gives them both authority (how war has actually worked) and a limit (generalisations, not laws).
What kind of thing they are matters most: guidance applied with judgement, not rules that guarantee success. No formula ensures success in operations, so an operation can observe every principle and still fail, or violate one and still succeed. Treating them as a success-guaranteeing checklist is the commonest misuse, the same error as treating history as fixed lessons.
This Army follows the Commonwealth tradition's settled list. It makes the selection and maintenance of the aim the master principle, because the others all serve the clear pursuit of the aim and are meaningless without one. The list is headed by the aim, not flat.
The principles are used with judgement and in tension. The officer judges how each bears on the situation, and balances those that pull against one another (concentration against security, surprise against security, speed against preparation). No mechanical application is possible, because balancing disagreeing principles requires judgement.
This understanding is the foundation for examining the individual principles in Lessons 03 and 04. It deepens the judgement-and-study teaching of Lesson 01 and connects to the command thinking of Command, Mission Command, and Decision-Making (LDR 410).

The Principles of War: Origin, Nature, and the Commonwealth Tradition