What’s the difference between a strategic vicory and a tactical one?
From my understanding…
A tactical victory is won on the battlefield…For example, something like “The way the Soviets destroyed the Panzers was a tactical victory.”
Strategic is a won battle that encompasses more of the campaign, like, “The victory at Stalingrad was a turning point on the Eastern Front.”
A tactical victory describes a victory that is very localized, such as one won at a particular battlefront, or, to put it in other words, a small scale victory involving only the local combatants. As a contrast, a strategic victory describes one that is more global, and advances one’s cause against an enemy in a larger step. A tactical victory can also be a strategic victory, if the right pieces are in place. Midway is one example of that.
Hmmm…, I’m not particularly happy with that, but I must go to bed now.
To sum it up, a tactical victory means a battle or fight that was won, and a strategic victory is usually a tactical victory that has greater political or over-reaching importance.
Taking tactical and strategic and applying them in a slightly differing context, the hypothetical war plan in Iraq to sweep up from Kuwait and try to skip towns and cities with the simultaneous sweep down from Turkey by the 4th Infantry Division with the objective of taking over the country and ejecting the Ba’ath party is a strategic plan. A tactical plan would be where to send each particular division, brigade, battalion, regiment, company, platoon, and even fire team. Do you take the southernly bridge or the northernly one? Do you send the infantry in with the tanks or do you send the tanks or infantry alone? Do you fire at the enemy at your right or at your left? These are tactical decisions. A strategic decision would be whether to skip the towns when possible, whether to leave in remnants of the Ba’ath party for infrastructure or try to remove it completely, or even whether to invade Iraq at all.