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What's the difference in meanings between tactical and strategic?

My teacher told me tactical is short term whereas strategy is related with long time ambitions. But I think otherwise that both are synonyms. Please help me out in context of geopolitics.

lookatmenow
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1 Answers1

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Not sure why you think differently, because your teacher is entirely correct. Tactics are what you do "small scale", strategy is what you do "big scale". For instance, we employed a strategy of containment to halt the spread of communism. That got us involved in Vietnam. Tactics are the things we did like escalation and deploying agent orange to try to beat the VC and thus halt the spread of communism. The strategy worked even if some of our tactics were flawed. It may be better to think of strategy and tactics in terms of war. Your strategy might be to divide and conquer the enemy, but how you actually go about doing that is going to require a series of tactical maneuvers.

Maximilian Power
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  • The question says that the teacher thinks it has to do with time, not scale. You are correct that it has to do with scale, but you are incorrect that the teacher's belief it has to do with time (specifically) is correct. Unfortunately, while I agree with most of your answer, you saying that the teacher is right is not entirely accurate. Tactics could be considered a battle in a city, while strategy could be considered a battle in the country. However, both battles could take the same amount of time. – Jason Bassford Jul 19 '19 at 00:41
  • The person asking the question thought that tactics and strategy are synonyms. Time is absolutely a factor. What you do here and now is tactical, what you do long term is strategic, and the strategy will help guide the tactics. Your example of "a battle in a city" vs "a battle in a country" are both tactical battles, part of a strategic war. Yes a particular battle might be a battle of attrition but its still tactical in so far as it is part of the greater strategic war, unless that battle started day 1 of the war and lasted until that final day of the war. Do you know of a real life example? – Maximilian Power Aug 06 '19 at 16:22
  • "Your example of "a battle in a city" vs "a battle in a country" are both tactical battles." That's not at all true. The broad picture (the strategy of the war) could be to lose the battles in specific cities but win them in other cities. The battle in each city involves tactics, while the overall war (the totality of what's won and lost) involves strategy. And if the battles in each city conclude in the same amount of time, then time doesn't play a factor in that distinction. – Jason Bassford Aug 06 '19 at 16:29