Military Principles

Posts dealing with discussions of the principle of the military art or Strategy, Operations, and Tactics

Periodic World Craziness Update # 4

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The latest installment of updates on the wackiness of Iran and the wider Muslim World.  I have also decided to change the title of this series and just make it a monthly installment, it will be an aggregation of what I consider the most relevant news pieces with my analysis and criticisms attached. George Kerchner and the Lessons of Afghanistan: This is not strictly about Iran and their idiocy but a good point is made about the lack of strategic focus of US and Western War Planning over the past decade. Obama Needs to Stay the Course in Afghanistan:  This article contains perhaps the most asinine sentence I have read regarding the deaths of our soldiers in a long time, perhaps … More after the Jump…

Book Review: Military or civilians? The curious anomaly of the German Women’s Auxiliary Services during the Second World War by Alison Morton

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[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the author. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own] I was contacted by Ms. Morton about reading and reviewing her book: Military or civilians? The curious anomaly of the German Women’s Auxiliary Services during the Second World War and jumped at the opportunity as the subject matter of the book, German Woman serving with the Wehrmacht is one that has been virtually ignored in English scholarship as she rightly points out in her introduction and demonstrates by including the text of an email she received from the director of the Imperial War Museum in which he demonstrates total ignorance about any female auxiliaries used … More after the Jump…

Honey or Salt?

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There is an old adage that “you can catch more flies with honey than with salt.” The truth of that adage is being put to the test daily in Afghanistan and being to shown to be false under certain circumstances at least. ISAF is not winning currently, but they are not exactly losing either. At best from what I read, see, and hear ISAF is fighting a delaying action against the inevitable fall of the central government and rise of whatever Islamic extremist group bubbles up out of the morass of internal Afghan politics. I can almost guarantee it won´t be the Taliban, but probably someone very much like them. … More after the Jump…

Tactical Aspects of Battle: A Discussion

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There is a very interesting pair of essays in the Baen free non-fiction compendium for 2011. The essence of these two pieces is the geo-strategic position of the United States in the early 21st Century and what the American prospects for maintaining global dominance are. This piece is not necessarily about geopolitics but it did get me thinking about another idea I have been tossing around in my head for the past few years, and that is tactics. Specifically tactics and the way their use affects the course of battles both classical and contemporary. Too often, tactical considerations are given short shrift in accounts of battle. For example, it is … More after the Jump…

Book Review: Julius Caesar: Lessons in Leadership from the Great Conqueror by Bill Yenne

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[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the publisher. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own] I am someone who loves the ancients and loves reading the their stories. That being said, I am much more likely to read Caesar’s Commentaries or Plutarch’s Life of Caesar than a modern day biography derived from those sources. In fact, I have read all those ancient works, most in both English and the original Latin. This book was a pleasure to read anyway.   Bill Yenne has put together a comprehensive account of Caesar’s life that someone unfamiliar with Caesar’s exploits … More after the Jump…

Book Review: Makers of Ancient Strategy – Edited by Victor David Hanson

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This book was conceived as being a sort of prequel to the modern classic, Makers of Modern Strategy, edited by Peter Paret and first published in the 70’s and updated in the 90’s. As Dr Hanson states in his foreword the scholars who wrote the various essays presented in the book did so with an eye to drawing lessons from antiquity that are relevant to the challenges faced by modern states and statesmen. They have succeeded admirably. It is not as hard to do as you might think despite the fact that modern war is fought with the benefit of tanks, night vision, aircraft, and satellite communications. Modern commanders Face … More after the Jump…

Europe and Modern War

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Saw an interesting piece awhile ago on the South African Business Day website called: GIDEON RACHMAN: Threat of war seems unreal in an age of peace. The essential point is that although war seems to have been eradicated in Europe, don’t count it out if the Euro crisis gets as bad as it possibly can. I think it is naive in the extreme to think that because there has not been a major war in Europe for the past 65+ years that one cannot happen.   We should keep in mind that it was 49 years between the Congress of Vienna ending the Napoleonic Wars and the Prusso-Danish war of … More after the Jump…

Book Review: The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman

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The Guns of August is one of the classic histories of World War I. It was originally published in 1962 and has remained a mainstay of accounts of the opening months of the war ever since. The book reads more like fiction than reality as Mrs. Tuchman brings the main players alive through her descriptive style of writing. She effortlessly recounts the events of August, 1914 and tries to bring the reader into the mood of that month when world shaking events were happening. Not all of her conclusions about the cases of the war have withstood the test of time and she repeats some stories that have since been … More after the Jump…

Book Review: The Roman Army at War: 100 BC – AD 200 by Adrian Keith Goldsworthy

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  I thought this book would be more than it turned out to be, unfortunately, I was mistaken. The author states in the forward that it is an expansion of his doctoral dissertation and it is obvious throughout that this is indeed the case. Neither that or my disappointment make this a book not worth reading though, it is in fact worth reading. The first chapter alone makes it well worth the purchase price. Dr. Goldsworthy has produced perhaps the best, and most concise description of the organization and structure of the roman army outside of Vegetius or Polybius that I have found. The book is divided into six sections … More after the Jump…

Book Review: The Age of Total War: 1860-1945 by Jeremy Black

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The notion that a book is “thought-provoking” is often thrown out there for works of non-fiction, and of those that are described as such that I have read most very seldom are.   This book is different, Dr. Black has written not so much a history as a treatise challenging historians, particularly military historians, to reexamine the history of conflict in the examined period with the idea of total war uppermost in their minds.   It seems a counter-intuitive thing to do at first, but he provides plenty of examples of why the wars under consideration were not total or were only partially total at best.   This includes World … More after the Jump…

S.L.A. Marshall, Men Against Fire, and Whether Men are Conditioned to Kill in Combat or Not.

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I am currently reading The Roman Army at War 100 BC – AD 200 by Adrian Kieth Goldsworthy. In the final chapter he talks about the motivation of the Roman soldier to fight. What brings up this topic that starting on page 264 he references S.L.A. Marshall’s (hereafter SLAM) work Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command and repeats the claim that only 25% of men actively participate in combat, the rest being cowards in place at worst or half-hearted fighters at best.   Now, being a recently retired soldier who has seen combat, in Iraq I have several issues with the claim.   In fact, I completely dispute … More after the Jump…

How did the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan impact the Cold War?

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As the period of détente during the 1970’s continued, the rapprochement between the Soviet Union and the United States seemed to intensify and promised to lessen tensions between the rival countries.   The invasion of Afghanistan and the imposition of a communist regime seemed to signal that the communists had not abandoned their dream of global conquest.   This caused the United States to renew their efforts to halt the communist expansion by supporting the Afghan rebels in their efforts to expel the Russians. After the Soviet invasion, progress towards furthering friendly relations between the west and Soviets halted and even moved backwards.   Ronald Reagan, the newly elected American … More after the Jump…

The Fall of Qaddafi and the future of the “Arab Spring”

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I wrote about the war/action/conflict/kinetic what have you in Libya when it kicked off in March, April, and again in June. With the rebels now storming Tripoli itself and being on the verge of success under the cover of NATO, the question now becomes what will the successor regime look like. I will guess here and say that it will be a notional democracy wit an oligarchy of strongmen in power. They will also make all the right noises to placate the soft-heads in the west and make them feel good about their policy of R2P. It will probably not be long before the new regime starts hunting down Qaddafis … More after the Jump…

The Fronts of World War I in 1917 & 1918

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The tactical and strategic situation at the beginning of 1917 was little changed from that at the beginning of 1916.   All that the offensives on the Western Front had managed to accomplish the previous year were minor changes in the trace of the trenches and massive loss of life.   Both the British and French planned further offensives in the west during the years but events would intervene to ensure that only the British committed themselves to large-scale offensives on the Western Front in 1917. The spring and summer saw the French army undergo a crisis of confidence that has come to be known as the French mutinies, thought … More after the Jump…

Sun-Tzu & Clausewitz: A Comparison

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Both Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz have something to offer for the serious student of warfare.   The biggest distinction between the two seems to be their different approaches to the art of war.   Sun-Tzu advocates a more subtle and indirect approach to the art of war while Clausewitz advocates a more direct approach. The essence of Sun-Tzu’s philosophy seems to be winning through superior generalship.   He almost seems to advocate a type of warfare by superior maneuver similar to that practiced in Renaissance Italy.   He preaches the avoidance of pitched battles unless the attacker is assured of winning.   This view is summed up in chapter III verse … More after the Jump…

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