...century unfeasible without military science, which keeps abreast of the most up-to-date requirements." (1) Recalling Sun Tse's maxim saying that "the greatest military leader achieves victory without fighting the battle," the Vice-Premier admitted that "thus far, military science failed to identify the unambiguously generalized type of modern war and armed conflict ... Military science's current task is to reveal their common regularities, which will open the door to the reasonable forecasting of the nature of future wars and to effective military planning." (2)

The solution of the task largely depends on the adequate understanding of the role, place and contents of the forecasting, prevision and planning notions. Meanwhile, variant readings appear in numerous publications concerning the matter. For instance, the Larger Encyclopedic Dictionary supplies the following definition: "Forecast (Gr. prognosis)--prevision, prediction, (3) forecasting--the development of forecast ... "As one of the forms to concretize scientific prevision in social sphere, it interrelates with planning, programming, design, control." (4) In several written sources, the prevision concept is dissolved in seventeen synonyms, which also include the forecast notion.

The Military Encyclopedia supplies more acceptable definitions of the prevision and forecasting concepts in military art. (5) However, besides being ambiguous, in our view, they all err by insufficient focus on the role of intellect, information technologies, military scientific methodology in contexts of intellectual informational confrontation.

It is fair to recollect M.V. Frunze, who held, laying the groundwork for prevision in military art, that the defense of our country should be build, first, by the clear and adequate perception of the nature of future war; second, by correct and precise reckoning with the forces and facilities, which will be at the disposal of our potential enemies; third, by the same reckoning with our own resources. In 1921, he pointed out in his keynote article Unified Military Doctrine and Red Army that "it is essential always to monitor what is done both in our country and in other countries; it is necessary permanently to widen and enrich own knowledge ... Therefore, persistent systematic self-instruction work is needed, and it is the duty of all commanders without exception. Those who keep away from doing it will find themselves outflanked, and in that case they will have only themselves to blame." (6)

"Things may turn out well at due course and in the right place, M.V. Frunze wrote, and the commander's military art manifests itself in the ability to choose from the multitude of diverse methods and assets the most suitable one for each particular case. Military theory can offer him neither ready-made answers, nor stereotype solutions; it can serve only as the directive guiding source." (7) Predicting the methodological content of commanders and staffs intellectual informational activity, M.V. Frunze noted "there cannot be absolute and ossified things to us, everything flows, everything changes, and any asset, any method can have an application in certain surroundings. Commander's military art shall manifest itself in the ability to select from the variety of means at his disposal those means, which shall yield the best results in this situation and at this moment." (8)

The idea of the necessary optimization of decision-making and the selection of warfare methods, most suitable for the situation, based on creative approach and the use of military science recommendations is fairly pertinent for the RF Armed Forces under the present-day conditions,...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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