Bret Devereaux

As you can see here, it is contentious. Especially among officers of the AirLand Battle generation.

How about I have you and Wayne zoom in and debate it?

(A) I don't actually hold that view. (B) He would destroy me in any debate that wasn't about whether or not the ACW was objectively the most fascinating and important conflict in all of human history.

Responding to A) you can do it anyway... I believe in you. Responding to B) why do you think I suggested it?

In all seriousness, I used to explain it: The student wants a degree (strategic-level), and thus they're taking my course along with others distributed across but synchronized in space and time (operational-level), but in order for it to pay off they have to study (tactical).

If this is a History course, I would avoid giving too much doctrinal/theoretical reading on this topic, but come back to the different levels as you push through actual historical events. It then becomes easier to talk about how the levels interact with each other.

This has been my practice, but I haven't been doing it for so long that I feel I can speak to its effectiveness. But good to hear I'm not the only one!

I want to give them a basic definition up front and then come back to it again and again as we talk about specific conflicts.