Military terminology refers to the
terms and language of
military
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
organizations and
personnel as belonging to a discrete category. As distinguishable by their usage in
military doctrine, they serve to
depoliticise,
dehumanise, or otherwise
abstract discussion about its
operations from an actual description thereof.
Common understanding
The operational pressure for uniform understanding has developed since the early 20th century with the importance of
joint operations between different services (army, navy, air force) of the same country. International alliances and operations, including
peacekeeping, have added additional complexity. For example, the
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
alliance now maintains a large
dictionary of common terms for use by member countries. Development work is also taking place between NATO and Russia on common terminology for extended air defence, in English, French and Russian.
Criticism
Some claim military terms serve to depoliticise, dehumanize, or otherwise abstract discussion about operations from an actual description thereof.
Similar to "
legal terminology" and related to "political terminology", military terms are known for an oblique tendency to incorporate
technical language
Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a particu ...
. In many cases, it reflects a need to be precise. It can also reflect a perceived need for
operational security
Operations security (OPSEC) is a process that identifies critical information to determine if friendly actions can be observed by enemy intelligence, determines if information obtained by adversaries could be interpreted to be useful to them, a ...
, giving away no more information than needed. It can also serve to disguise or distort meaning as with
doublespeak
Doublespeak is language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs and "servicing the target" for bombing), in which case it is ...
. "Kinetic activity" as a
buzzword for
combat, in use since the inception of the
War on Terror
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campaign are militant ...
, has been criticized as a
don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy for murder.
See also
*
:Military terminology
*
Glossary of German military terms
This is a list of words, terms, concepts, and slogans that have been or are used by the German military. Ranks and translations of nicknames for vehicles are included. Also included are some general terms from the German language found frequently i ...
*
Glossary of military abbreviations
List of abbreviations, acronyms and initials related to military subjects such as modern armour, artillery, infantry, and weapons, along with their definitions.
A
* AA – anti-aircraft
* AA – AEGIS Ashore
* AAA – anti-aircraft artillery ...
*
List of established military terms
Notes
{{Reflist
External links
Glossary of Military Terms & Slang from the Vietnam War
Terminology
Terminology is a group of specialized words and respective meanings in a particular field, and also the study of such terms and their use; the latter meaning is also known as terminology science. A ''term'' is a word, compound word, or multi-wo ...
Warfare