Decisive victory

The term decisive victory refers to a military victory in battle that definitively resolves the objective being fought over, ending one stage of the conflict and beginning another stage. Until a decisive victory is achieved, conflict over the competing objectives will continue. Like all concepts of warfare, a decisive battle can take place from the tactical or unit level (Pavlov's House during the Battle of Stalingrad or the Chew House at the Battle of Germantown), the operational level (the Battle of Cowpens or the Battle of Cannae), all the way up to the strategic level (the Battle of Saratoga) or battles that bring an end to hostilities, such as the Battle of Hastings, the Battle of Aljubarrota or the Battle of Waterloo.

The phrases "decisive battle" and "decisive victory" have evolved over time, as the methods and scope of wars themselves changed. More modernly, as armies, wars and theaters of operation expanded — so that the gestalt (i.e., the sum total) of the overall venture was more definitive — the phrase "lost its meaning." The meaning is ephemereal, like the difference between “strategy” and "tactics”.

In Defining and Achieving Decisive Victory, Colin Gray defined an operational decisive victory as "a victory which decides the outcome to a campaign, though not necessarily to the war as a whole". For example, the Battle of Midway is often cited as a decisive operational victory for the US despite the fact that the Pacific War ended more than three years later with the decisive strategic victory of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which directly led to the Japanese surrender; this is because the Midway operation represented the destruction of the majority of the IJN's offensive carrier forces, which decisively stopped both the IJN's string of unbroken victories in combat and their plans to expand eastward into Midway Island, Hawaii, the Aleutian Islands and potentially the US mainland. During this period the US Navy expanded greatly and the IJN was never able to regain their former strength, making the victory decisive in terms of determining the future operational shape of the battles for the Pacific.

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