For myself, I tend to divide the “art of war” into:
Grand Strategy: this is where national objectives are set and where all of the resources — military, diplomatic, economic, industrial, information, etc. — are utilized. The object of grand strategy is to determine what needs to be accomplished and how best to orchestrate all of those resources to the achievement of that/those objective(s). The grand strategists are supposed to be the ones to know what they have to work with, know what needs to be done, decide who to assign to do the doing, and prioritize competing theaters and goals at the highest level.
Theater Strategy: this might also be called “Campaign Strategy.” This is where people assigned by the grand strategists to accomplish specific goals go about accomplishing them. The sorts of issues they need to deal with might be “how do we win the war against the U-boats in the Atlantic” or “how do we deploy strategic air power against Germany” or “how do we invade France” or “how do we take the war to Japan through the Central Pacific.” Planning for those sorts of campaigns/operations takes place at this level, but so does execution and coordination.
Operational: this is the level where individual commanders within a theater or campaign strategy have to accomplish the tasks they are assigned. This would be the point at which a corps commander or a divisional commander or a fleet commander looks at his assigned mission and his resources and whatever support might be available from assets not under his direct command and decides how he’s going to apply them.
Tactical: this is the level where the battles are actually fought. This is the point at which unit movements decide the outcome of the engagement. For an army, this would traditionally involve units below the regimental level; for a fleet commander things are going to be a little different (usually) because individual warships (which would be the equivalent of the “regimental level or below”) don’t usually maneuver as individuals, but rather as components of a task force or a squadron.
This is horribly simplified, of course, and I’m sure people could pick all sorts of holes in it because it contains certain assumptions on my part that are so fundamental I don’t see any need to explicate them more fully.
As far as Honor’s abilities at the tactical, operational, strategic, and grand strategic levels (as I’ve defined them above) are concerned, I think it should be borne in mind that just as we haven’t had a chance to see Caparelli perform at the tactical level, we haven’t seen Honor have a chance to perform equally at all levels. She’s only really been admitted to the strategy/grand strategy level in the last two or three “Honor” books, and I sometimes think when someone’s performed outstandingly at a lower level in my hierarchy, people tend to consider them failures at a higher level unless they perform at least equally or even more spectacularly.
Shannon's worked at Tactics (Honor Among Enemies), Ops (IEH as Tourville's Ops officer), and Theater (Bolthole). I just thought I'd show that, for the others that like her, as a smart Havenite tech nerd. The short story Nightfall (with how close she was, until the bomb went off) and her holding Trevor's Star for so long against Hamish is what really made McQueen seem good in my eyes.