A. M. SHAHVERDYAN, Colonel (Res.), PhD in Political Science, Associate Professor, Research Fellow, Center for Military Strategic Studies,
INSS, NDRU, MOD, RA

SUMMARY

Changing the character of modern warfare immediately affects also a number of notions and categories of military strategy, giving rise to the necessity of apprehending and reformulating traditional approaches to them, their perception and definition. The new understanding of these notions is dictated by the necessity of reflecting actual challenges and warfare principles in them based upon the concepts with the modern operational-strategic incidence. This requirement relates, in particular, to “strategic initiative”, a concept important for the military art, the analysis-based reapprehension of which in light of modern concepts of conducting operations and military actions of operational-strategic scale will allow to deeply evaluate its significance in the process of the Armed Forces employment strategic planning.

With the account of modern means of conducting operations and wars in general, the acceleration, seizure and maintenance of the strategic initiative are being accentuated. In this context the author refers to the theory of “dromocracy” by the renowned philosopher Paul Virilio, and de novo considered such fundamental notions as “dromology”, “dromoscopia” and “dromosphere”. In this regard, the author supposes that the novel interpretation of the theory of dromology can considerably facilitate the effective conduct of war, the fleeting nature and fluidity of armed and non-armed means of struggle and actions, the quick and good decision-making, the reduction in the management phase, which should be taken into account in the process of reformation and development of the Armed Forces.