Category War Theory
The Last Battle is the latest of the excellent histories of World War I that Peter Hart has produced. This book is an account of the last year of World War I on the Western Front with an emphasis on… Continue Reading →
Since 2014 there have been a whole slew of books released dealing with World War I in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the war. This volume is one of them. In The Great War Peter Hart has produced a… Continue Reading →
I thought that the victory laps the press and others are doing about the supposed defeat of ISIS in Iraq was a good time to post this. Apparently the leaders of the West and most of the Western population has… Continue Reading →
A reluctance to follow traditional, pre-world wars law of war. This point harks back to point #1 and is both a result of and reaction to the high cost of the two 20th century world wars. In the contemporary world… Continue Reading →
A post-World Wars Western (read European or nation-states settled by Europeans) reluctance to accept casualties in the prosecution of a war (note: this does not apply to non-Western countries which often suffer very high casualties) It is obvious to any… Continue Reading →
A reluctance to prosecute war to the extent necessary to achieve victory even when a realistic definition of victory was elucidated. This one should be a no-brainer as recent American experience has shown that stupidity very much exists at the… Continue Reading →
Wars are no longer fought to achieve victory but to achieve often nebulous goals short of the actual defeat of the enemy and often were unrelated or even contrary to national strategic interests. This one is a personal bug-bear of… Continue Reading →
Example: The Israeli bombing of a hospital in Gaza and use of white phosphorous munitions during Operation Cast Lead in 2008 During the 2008-2009 Israeli-Gazan war there were back and forth allegations that Israel had deliberately bombed hospitals in Gaza… Continue Reading →
Modern interpretations of the law of war are flawed from a war winning perspective This point cannot be hammered home enough as it is the root of the problem with Western war making in my opinion. The establishment of the… Continue Reading →
I got to thinking about the question at the title of this post a few months ago. Being me I started doing some research and then put my thoughts down in what ended up being a fairly long paper for… Continue Reading →
This episode explores the differences between hard and soft power and discusses what is normally meant when the to terms are used. Download this episode (right click and save)
This podcast is a wider discussion of strategy and the different aspects and types of strategy there are. Strategy is not one overarching concept except at its most basic. There are different nuances to strategy and strategy development that exist… Continue Reading →
A discussion of what the different terms Tactical, Operational, & Strategic actually mean and how they are so often misused both in history books but especially within the media. Download this episode (right click and save)
This podcast discusses Air Power and its limits. Specifically I expose the myth that it is possible to win a war with airpower alone. The example of Kosovo often held up as showing airpower can win wars is discussed as… Continue Reading →
The 2014 US Army Chief of Staff Professional Reading List (PRL) was released in the Summer of 2014 and I was relieved in the extreme to see that there was only one novel on the list, Once an Eagle by Anton Myrer. The… Continue Reading →