Military invasion is a military action in which the armed forces of one geopolitical entity cross into another with intent of conquest or occupation. It can be part of a war or occur as an independent conflict. Invasions often lead to a profound shift in the culture and politics of a region and its people.
From Genghis Khan’s Mongol conquest of Central Asia to Nazi Germany’s 1941 Operation Barbarossa, the largest military invasion in history, these major events have shaped much of the world we live in today. But, while modern technology has lent itself to warfare on an unprecedented scale, the military invasion remains a fundamentally challenging and largely intractable force.
The military invasion is typically characterized by the use of maneuvers to erode or demoralize the enemy, and exploit vulnerabilities in defenses. The most common tactics include feigned retreat, drawing the enemy in pursuit and then launching an assault with a strong force held in reserve (as used by Napoleon at the Battle of Grunwald), crossing the “T” (advancing from the flank or rear to take advantage of the enemy’s defensive formations, as used by Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar) and deep penetrations by raiding formations coupled with disruptive techniques.
During modern warfare, military invasions may be based entirely on airborne or seaborne operations. The first involves sending in the invaders by aircraft, either landing the airplane and allowing them to disembark, or dropping troops from the plane itself. An entirely air-based invasion is rare and has never been successful, however. It is believed that two immediate problems with this strategy are resupply and the capacity to invade a country as large as the United States which has a navy larger than all of the militaries in the world combined.
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