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Strategic depth is a term in military literature that refers, broadly speaking, to the distances between the front lines or battle sectors and the combatants’ industrial core areas, capital cities, heartlands, and other key centers of population or military production.

The key questions any military commander must ask when dealing with strategic depth are: How vulnerable are these assets to a quick, preemptive attack or to a methodical offensive? Conversely, can a country withdraw into its own territory, absorb an initial thrust, and allow the subsequent offensive to culminate short of its goal and far from its source of power?

Commanders must be able to plan for both eventualities, and have measures and resources in place on both tactical and strategic levels to counter any and all stages of a minor or major enemy attack. These measures do not need to be limited to purely military assets, either - the ability to reinforce civilian infrastructure or make it flexible enough to withstand or evade assault is very valuable in times of war.

The issue is the trade-off between space and time; a classic historical case is Germany’s failure to knock out the Soviet Union in 1941–42. The Soviet retreat, in the face of the German attack, from Poland in June 1941 to the outskirts of Moscow in December 1941, allowed the Soviet Union to move its industrial base to the east of the Ural Mountains.

See also

• defence in depth
• military strategy

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