Kategoria BISAC: History >> Military - Strategy

An indispensable guide to how wars are fought, James F. Dunnigan's classic text has been enormously popular with citizens, professional soldiers, and journalists alike. Now, it's been revised to include a stunning array of new subjects. From the cutting edge of cyberwar to the current concern about terrorism, How to Make War presents a clear picture of complex weapons, armed forces, and tactics.

Describing a new world order, one with a greater number of equipped players than the "Big Two" (the United States and the former Soviet Union), this updated edition features all the...

A remarkable compendium of the worst military
decisions and the men who made them

The annals of history are littered with horribly bad military leaders. These combat incompetents found amazing ways to ensure their army's defeat. Whether it was a lack of proper planning, miscalculation, ego, bad luck, or just plain stupidity, certain wartime stratagems should never have left the drawing board. Written with wit, intelligence, and eminent readability, How to Lose a Battle pays dubious homage to these momentous and bloody blunders, including:

• Cannae,...

Why do military commanders, most of them usually quite capable, fail at crucial moments of their careers? Robert Pois and Philip Langer--one a historian, the other an educational psychologist--study seven cases of military command failures, from Frederick the Great at Kunersdorf to Hitler's invasion of Russia. While the authors recognize the value of psychological theorizing, they do not believe that one method can cover all the individuals, battles, or campaigns under examination. Instead, they judiciously take a number of psycho-historical approaches in hope of shedding light on the...

The victory of Fidel Castro's rebel army in Cuba was due in no small part to the training, strategy, and leadership provided by Ernesto Che Guevara. Despite the deluge of biographies, memoirs, and documentaries that appeared in 1997 on the thirtieth anniversary of Guevara's death, his military career remains shrouded in mystery. Comandante Che is the first book designed specifically to provide an objective evaluation of Guevara's record as a guerrilla soldier, commander, and strategist from his first skirmish in Cuba to his defeat in Bolivia eleven years later.

Using new...

Logistics, the movement of forces to battlefields, their supply, and on-going support, is critical to military success. Although this principle is theoretically accepted, the importance of being well-prepared to rapidly transport troops and supplies to distant crisis points has not been complemented, as Menarchik shows, by adequate lift capabilities. The author uses the six-month buildup to Desert Storm as proof that the United States needs to increase the priority of logistics in strategy and improve its strategic transport capabilities, especially surge strategic lift. Current transport...

In the immediate post-World War II period, Army aviation began to evolve from an observatory role to a mobility role. Helicopter air mobility began to develop in the Army from 1949 onwards. The outbreak of the Korean war assisted and accelerated the acceptance of greater helicopter air mobility within the Army. The Eisenhower period was a golden age for Army aviation, with rapid and extensive developments in air mobility doctrine and tactics. There was also a strong research and development effort to overcome the initial technological lag. These developments allowed the formation of the...

"Steel Wind" is a piece of historical detective work that explains how Colonel Georg Bruchmuller, an obscure German artillery officer recalled from retirement, played a pivotal role in the revolution of offensive tactics that took place in 1917-18. Ironically, the methods developed by Bruchmuller ultimately were rejected by the German Army of World War II, but they were taken up and applied with a vengeance by the emerging Red Army. The Soviets further developed Bruchmuller's principles and incorporated them into their doctrine, where they remain to this day. Through Soviet doctrine, they...

Contrary to prevalent military historical thinking, the early medieval general was not an ignorant warrior chieftain, but an able, astute, intelligent, and often very cunning commander. Through the use of contemporary literature, art, and archaeological evidence, this study argues that these generals could and did effectively exercise command control before, during, and after battle. Using the examples of a dozen or so leaders and drawing upon over 60 battles, this study brings to light the genius and the adaptability of medieval generals.

This work considers the modern antecedants and evolution of the operational art in military thought and practice in both peace and wartime. This theme is developed over time and across military cultures. A comparative framework allows the treatment of the overall theme by examining the concept of the operational art in the context of different nationalities, different military organizations, and different societies. This study situates the current operational art in its historical context.

This book uses history in two ways: as the source of ideas about strategy and as examples to illustrate the elements by showing their application to specific campaigns and their utility in understanding the role of strategy in military operations. The focus is on American military campaigns from the American Indian Wars to the War in the Gulf. Those case studies are used to illustrate the strategy behind land, sea, and air campaigns. Over a fifth of the book examines the U.S. war against Japan because it furnishes such fine examples of independent and interdependent operations on land, on...

This book uses history in two ways: as the source of ideas about strategy and as examples to illustrate the elements by showing their application to specific campaigns and their utility in understanding the role of strategy in military operations. The focus is on American military campaigns from the American Indian Wars to the War in the Gulf. Those case studies are used to illustrate the strategy behind land, sea, and air campaigns. Over a fifth of the book examines the U.S. war against Japan because it furnishes such fine examples of independent and interdependent operations on land, on...

Why have militaries so often failed to learn from conflict and war? Why, for example, despite years of unsuccessful counterinsurgency experiences in Vietnam and El Salvador and repeated recommendations from official Army studies, has the U.S. Army not changed its doctrine for counterinsurgency? Writing for scholars as well as military professionals and policymakers, Downie examines the sources of doctrinal change and innovation from a theoretical perspective and derives practical and relevant policy recommendations.

Contrasting with other findings in this field, Downie...

This study is one of the rare contributions to the very small library of genuine strategic studies. (Strategy here covers all military activity.) The broad purpose is to show how strategy works, using air power and special operations as substantial case studies, but also addressing sea power, nuclear deterrence, and information warfare. Although this book has many interesting things to say about the future of air power, the reliability of non-nuclear deterrence, the true character of joint warfare, the utility of special warriors, and the limitations of excellence in information warfare,...