JPME Phase I: Module 3 - Operational Art

Introduction

Operational art sits between the big "why" of strategy and the gritty "how" of tactics. It links national aims to what joint forces actually do. It is not strategy. It is the commander's way of turning purpose into campaigns that work in time, space, and force.

This post continues my JPME Phase I series:

• Foundational Knowledge Course (FKC)
• Module 1 - Fundamentals of Strategy
• Module 2 - The Security Environment

From August 15 to September 25, 2025, I completed Module 3: Operational Art with Professor Mark Wegge. This course sharpened the habit of thinking backward from the objective, balancing the operational factors, and designing campaigns that can survive contact with a living, thinking enemy. We studied principles of joint operations, the logic of objectives and levels of war, operational factors, theater geometry, center of gravity analysis, joint functions, and the legal frame that governs action at sea. We finished with a full synthesis on the Falklands and revisited Leyte Gulf to test the logic.

War is not an affair of chance. A great deal of knowledge, study and meditation is necessary to conduct it well.

Frederick the Great (1712-1786)

What follows is practical. Objectives first. Factors in balance. Design that adapts. Then proof from real campaigns.

Sessions

Module 3 built like a campaign: start from the operational objective, balance time-space-force, shape theater geometry, generate an operational idea with COG analysis, power it with joint functions, anchor it in operational law, then prove it on a live case and an assessment. The table below keeps the week rhythm while giving you a single place to scan the flow.

Session 3.1: Introduction to Operational Art (OPART) and Principles of Joint Operations

The fundamental truths that govern the [art of war] remain immutable, just as the principles of mechanics always govern architecture, regardless of whether one is building with wood, stone, iron, or reinforced concrete; just as the principles of harmony govern music whatever the genre might be. It is therefore still necessary to establish the principles of war.

Foch, F. (1918). The principles of war. (5th ed.).

Operational art gives a commander a way to think, not a script to follow. We started by framing problems through objective, time, space, and force, then pairing that logic with the Principles of Joint Operations. The point is disciplined judgment: estimate the situation, visualize a campaign, and set conditions so subordinate commanders can win. Staff work matters here—turning broad purpose into branches, sequels, and priorities that hold up once the enemy votes.

Key Takeaways

• Treat operational art as a cognitive process: estimate, visualize, decide, and resource against the objective.
• Use the Principles of Joint Operations as a guide to test ideas, not as a checklist.
• Build adaptability from the start: write plans with clear commander's intent, branches, and sequels.

Session 3.2: Military Objectives and Levels of War

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination—a maxim which should take first place among all causes of victory.

Carl von Clausewitz, Principles of War 1812

We shifted to the objective and the levels where objectives live: strategic, theater-strategic, operational, and tactical. The habit is "think backward." Start from the desired end state, then regress to the military conditions for success and the operational objective that creates them. Scale drives level. A bigger, more complex aim demands broader authorities, more time, and heavier sustainment. Misidentify the level and you chase the wrong centers of gravity, in the wrong place, on the wrong timeline.

Key Takeaways

• Objective first, then regress to the operational objective that produces the required conditions.
• Match level to aim and means; scale, authority, and sustainment signal the level of war.
• Write task and purpose so every action points to the objective.

📄 Assignment: DBF 3.1 — The Primacy of the Objective

Session 3.3: Operational Factors

War is a business of positions.

Napoleon I

Operational art lives on a three-legged stool: time, space, and force. The objective sets direction, then these factors set the limits and the leverage. We learned to balance them, accept trade-offs, and keep freedom of action. List-making is not analysis. The work is the conclusion you draw about how a specific mix of force and position, over a given time window, can achieve the objective. That conclusion becomes the commander's visualization and the seed of the plan.

Key Takeaways

• Start with the objective, then estimate time, space, and force as a single problem.
• Balance creates freedom of action; imbalance creates risk you must own upfront.
• Factor analysis ends with a judgment, not a catalog.

Session 3.4: Theater: Structure and Geometry

It is power plus position that constitutes an advantage over power without a position, or more instructively equations of force are composed of power and position in varying degrees, surplus in one tending to compensate for deficiency in the other.

Rear Admiral Alfred T. Mahan

Theater geometry turns abstract factors into ground truth. Objectives, positions, bases, decisive points, lines of operation, and lines of effort form the frame where campaigns move. Position can offset raw power. A chokepoint with the right force becomes a lever; the same chokepoint uncovered becomes a corridor for the enemy. Organize space to serve the operational objective and to make tactical success repeatable.

Key Takeaways

• Structure the theater relative to the objective and your factor balance.
• Positions, bases, LOCs, and decisive points are tools to convert power into advantage.
• Geometry is the bridge from factor analysis to a workable CONOPS.

📄 Assignments: DBF 3.2 and FA 11 — Factors and Theater

Session 3.5: Major Operations/Campaigns and their Elements

The thing that keeps me awake, worries me and can prevent me from accomplishing my mission.

Anonymous Marine

Factor work sets the limits; the operational idea gives the campaign its bite. We moved from the objective through time-space-force to isolate the enemy's center of gravity (COG) for this operation, then paired that with ways to protect our own. From there, decisive points, branches, sequels, and culminating points fall into place.

... a source of massed strength—physical or moral—or a source of leverage whose serious degradation, dislocation, neutralization, or destruction would have the most decisive impact on the enemy's or one's own ability to accomplish a given military objective.

Dr. Milan Vego

Key Takeaways

• Use COG analysis to produce one clear operational idea tied to the objective.
• Shield friendly COG while pressuring the enemy's through decisive points and prudent sequencing.
• Plan for culmination on both sides and set triggers early.

Session 3.6: Operational Functions

Generally, management of the many is the same as management of the few. It is a matter of organization.

Sun Tzu

Ideas fail without the machinery to run them. Joint functions—C2, intelligence, fires, movement and maneuver, protection, sustainment, information—are that machinery. We weighted them against the operational objective, then allocated priorities to keep tempo, conserve combat power, and reduce surprise. Integration beats enumeration; sequence the functions so each amplifies the next.

Key Takeaways

• Every major operation uses all functions; their weight shifts with the objective.
• Integration creates tempo and preserves freedom of action; checklists don't.
• Misweighting functions invites culmination and lost initiative.

You're right—thanks for the catch. Here's the corrected Week 19 assignments section including DBF 3.3 Part II.

📄 Assignments: DBF 3.3 and FA 12 — COG and Functions

Session 3.7: Maritime Operational Law

Directives issued by competent military authority that delineate the circumstances and limitations under which United States forces will initiate and/or continue combat engagement with other forces encountered.

Joint Publication 1-02

Operational law at sea sits on three pillars: where force may be used, on what legal basis, and to what degree. UNCLOS classifies the maritime domain and airspace, shaping transit, innocent passage, and due regard. LOAC governs conduct once armed conflict exists. SROE defines inherent self-defense and provides the policy frame for mission-specific ROE. Commanders build ROE alongside the concept of operations, integrate JAGs early, and delegate authorities to preserve tempo under contested comms.

Key Takeaways

• Legitimacy protects freedom of action: authority, perception, and compliance move together.
• SROE anchors self-defense; ROE tailors permissions and restraints to the mission and environment.
• Write plain-language ROE, wargame them against COAs, and delegate to the lowest echelon consistent with risk.

📄 Assignment: DBF 3.4 — Law (GOLD Team)

Session 3.8: Analysis of the Falklands/Malvinas Conflict

The battle of the Falklands was a remarkable military operation, boldly planned, bravely executed, and brilliantly accomplished. We owe an enormous debt to the British forces and to the Merchant Marine. We honour them all. They have been supported by a people united in defence of our way of life and of our sovereign territory.

Margaret Thatcher, Speech to the Scottish Conservative Party Conference, 14 May 1982.

This synthesis asked for a full operational-art read of the campaign from both sides. We tracked aims, factor balance, theater geometry, and how each commander protected or threatened centers of gravity. Logistics at distance, sea control versus sea denial, air range and tanking, chokepoints, and ROE all showed up as decisive shapers of tempo and risk.

Key Takeaways

• Sea denial plus distance can decide sustainment faster than attrition alone.
• Theater geometry—Ascension, TEZ/MEZ, chokepoints—turned position into leverage.
• Function weighting (C2, protection, sustainment, information) made or broke tempo more than any one tactical success.

📄 Assignment: DBF 3.5 — Falklands/Malvinas

Session 3.9: Summative Assessment #5

The assessment measured whether operational art had become habit. No trivia. The prompt forced a complete estimate, a defensible COG choice for both sides, and a design that linked ends, ways, means, and risk. The work demanded clarity on desired end state, military conditions for success, factor balance, and how to attack or protect a COG using decisive points and function weighting.

Key Takeaways

• Start from the operational objective and regress to conditions, then design the approach.
• Pick a COG that truly powers the objective, then deconstruct it into CC/CR/CV to open direct and indirect paths.
• Protect your own COG while pressing the opponent's; sequence functions to keep tempo and avoid culmination.

📄 Assignment: SA 5 — Falklands/Malvinas Operational Art

Case Studies

Operational art only earns its keep when it survives contact with real campaigns. The two cases that follow—Leyte Gulf (1944) and Falklands/Malvinas (1982)—apply the full grammar from this module: begin with the objective, balance time-space-force, frame theater geometry, identify a CoG from strength and deconstruct it (CC-CR-CV), then weight functions and respect the legal frame. Leyte shows how closing the right straits at the right time turns carriers plus logistics into sea control; the Falklands show how distance + sea denial can decide sustainment before the ground finish. In both, phase changes shift CoGs, indirect pressure opens doors for the direct blow, and disciplined ROE keeps tempo on your side.

Leyte Gulf (1944)

Leyte Gulf unfolded in the late Pacific War as the United States drove toward Japan through the Central and Southwest Pacific campaigns. By mid 1944 the Imperial Japanese Navy had lost most of its carrier air groups in the Battle of the Philippine Sea and faced severe fuel shortages that threatened its ability to defend sea lines from the oil fields in Southeast Asia. General MacArthur's return to the Philippines aimed to cut Japan's southern lifeline and set conditions to isolate the Home Islands. Tokyo answered with Operation Sho Go, a high risk plan to mass surface forces through the Philippine straits and crush the American landing at Leyte. With that context in place, we move into objectives, factors, theater geometry, and centers of gravity.

Objective and Levels (SO → TSO → OpO)

Operational Factors

Theater Geometry

Center of Gravity Determination — Two-Step Method

Operational Functions That Decided It

Lessons in One Minute

• Close the right strait at the right time or invite a breakthrough.
• Sea control rests on carriers plus logistics, not carriers alone.
• Command seams burn time; time burns force.
• A thin, cohesive screen can buy decisive minutes (Taffy 3).

Falklands / Malvinas (1982)

The Falklands and Malvinas conflict grew from long standing sovereignty claims dating to the nineteenth century and a breakdown in talks during the late 1970s. In April 1982 Argentina's ruling junta seized the islands amid domestic crisis, expecting London to accept a fait accompli. The United Kingdom responded under United Nations Security Council Resolution 502, organized a carrier led task force from eight thousand nautical miles away, and built a maritime exclusion regime while seeking diplomatic off ramps. The campaign tested sea control, sea denial, reach, and sustainment across extreme distance and winter seas. With that background set, we turn to objectives, factors, theater geometry, and centers of gravity.

Objective and Levels (SO → TSO → OpO)

Operational Factors

Theater Geometry

Center of Gravity — Two-Step Method (combined)

Attack / Protect Logic (phase-linked)

Operational Functions That Decided It

Lessons in One Minute

• Distance + sea denial can end a defense before the main land fight.
• A well-chosen lodgment is a lever; protect it until mass and fires stack in your favor.
• Function weighting matters: protect and sustain first, then maneuver for the finish.
• COG shifts by phase; plan the handoff and guard the seam.

Key Concepts Overview

Operational art is "the cognitive approach by commanders and staffs… to develop strategies, campaigns, and operations to organize and employ military forces by integrating ends, ways, means, and risk" (JP 3-0). It bridges grand strategy and tactics. It is analysis and design—not doctrine. It works at larger scales and longer timelines, uses diverse forces, plans regressively from the objective, and leans hard on deployment and logistics.

Quick notes: historically grounded and joint/combined by default; not the "operational level" itself and not a substitute for strategy or tactics; start at the objective, then build a plan that balances time-space-force.

War at sea vs. war on land. War at sea serves events ashore. There are no front lines to hold, no enduring possession of water, and the victor departs after action. Space, movement time, and force mix differently on water; weather and ice can negate whole areas. Sea control isn't "captured"—it's exercised. Objectives at sea tend to be physical (e.g., destroy a task group), then disengage.

Primacy of the objective. Start with the OBJECTIVE, then regress to conditions and actions.

Below covers the Levels of War and the associated methods.

Rules of thumb: nest objectives (lower levels support higher); plan backward from the objective; write clear task-and-purpose.

Principles of Joint Operations. Use them as a guide, not a checklist; weight them to the objective and context.

The four questions (Ends-Ways-Means-Risk). Ends: what operational objective leads to the desired end state? Ways: what sequence of actions is most likely to achieve it? Means: what resources are required to run that sequence? Risk: what is the chance of failure or unacceptable cost, and where? Put these answers in commander's intent and the operational approach.

Operational factors (time-space-force). Factors set the context and push back on plans. Balance creates freedom of action; imbalance creates risk.

Reciprocity: objectives and factors shape each other; as factors change, you may adjust the objective or method.

Theater structure and geometry. Organize space so tactical success adds up to the operational objective.

Bridge concept: factor analysis → theater geometry → CONOPS → OpO.

Center of Gravity (CoG): the two-step method. Use both frameworks—Vego to identify the CoG; Joint Pubs to break it. Start with Critical Factors analysis (Vego: CS-CW-CV). From the objective, list the opponent's Critical Strengths (CS), Critical Weaknesses (CW), and Critical Vulnerabilities (CV). Select the CoG from a CS (the hub that truly powers the OpO). Then deconstruct the chosen CoG using JP 3-0/5-0: CC-CR-CV —map Critical Capabilities (CC), the Critical Requirements (CR) that enable those capabilities, and the Critical Vulnerabilities (CV) within those requirements. Attack indirectly by exploiting CVs → degrading CRs → collapsing CCs (direct attack only when necessary).

Step 1 — Identification ("find me something to kill"). Rule: the CoG comes from strength, not weakness.

What the CoG is (Vego): a source of massed strength—physical or moral—whose serious degradation would most decisively affect the ability to accomplish the military objective. What it is not: objective, end state, decisive point, target list, or automatically present in every scenario.

Step 2 — Deconstruction ("find the best way to kill it"). Rule: use CVs to pull on requirements and collapse capabilities.

Direct vs indirect: direct = strike the CoG head-on (fast, costly). Indirect = exploit CVs to degrade CRs and collapse CCs (usually preferred). CoGs can shift by phase (e.g., carrier shield at sea → land force ashore); plan the handoff and protect the seam.

Tangible and intangible elements. Most operational CoGs are mostly physical, but they run on intangibles.

Culmination. JP 5-0: the point where a force can't continue its current form of operations. Aim to hasten enemy culmination and delay your own. Set measurable triggers (ammo, fuel, lift, casualties, tempo) and pre-plan branches and sequels.

Operational functions (JP 3-0). Every major operation uses all functions; weights are set by the operational objective.

Which is most important? It depends on the OpO. Weight accordingly; integration beats enumeration.

Recurring themes. Objective first—plan regressively. The enemy votes—build branches for disruptions and sequels for success. Use "…in order to …" to tie tasks to why they matter. Airpower is a critical enabler, rarely decisive by itself without control on the ground.

Operational law and ROE. Legitimacy protects freedom of action; authority and perception move together.

Law governing the use of force.

UNCLOS—why planners care.

The Four Questions frame every operational design—answer them regressively from the Operational Objective and carry the answers straight into commander's intent and the operational approach.

Bottom line. Start from the objective; balance time-space-force; identify the CoG from strength (Vego: CS-CW-CV) and deconstruct it (JP: CC-CR-CV) to choose the best way to break it—indirect if you can, direct if you must. Guard legitimacy, weight functions to the job, and set branches and sequels before contact.

Conclusion

Module 3 ran from August 15 to September 25, 2025 with Professor Mark Wegge, and it turned operational art from a set of terms into a working habit. Start with the operational objective, regress to the conditions that make it real, and build an approach that holds tempo in time, space, and force. Frame the theater so tactical wins add up. Pick a center of gravity from strength—Vego's identification: CS-CW-CV → CoG—then choose how to break it—JP's deconstruction: CC-CR-CV → indirect first. Sequence joint functions to keep the plan moving, guard legitimacy, and write branches and sequels because the enemy always votes.

Leyte reinforced the value of closing the right strait at the right time and protecting the lodgment through carriers plus logistics. The Falklands showed how distance plus sea denial can decide sustainment early, how a well-chosen lodgment becomes a lever, and how function weighting—protection and sustainment before maneuver—sets the stage for the finish. In both cases, the same grammar held: objective, factors, geometry, COG, functions, law.

This is the craft I'll carry into Module 4: Joint Capabilities—same logic, different tool set. Ends, ways, means, and risk remain the spine; the kit gets deeper.

See the associated LinkedIn post.