Download or read book Command in War written by Martin Van Creveld and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1987-01-01 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many books have been written about strategy, tactics, and great commanders. This is the first book to deal exclusively with the nature of command itself, and to trace its development over two thousand years from ancient Greece to Vietnam. It treats historically the whole variety of problems involved in commanding armies, including staff organization and administration, communications methods and technologies, weaponry, and logistics. And it analyzes the relationship between these problems and military strategy. In vivid descriptions of key battles and campaigns—among others, Napoleon at Jena, Moltke’s Königgrätz campaign, the Arab–Israeli war of 1973, and the Americans in Vietnam—Martin van Creveld focuses on the means of command and shows how those means worked in practice. He finds that technological advances such as the railroad, breech-loading rifles, the telegraph and later the radio, tanks, and helicopters all brought commanders not only new tactical possibilities but also new limitations. Although vast changes have occurred in military thinking and technology, the one constant has been an endless search for certainty—certainty about the state and intentions of the enemy’s forces; certainty about the manifold factors that together constitute the environment in which war is fought, from the weather and terrain to radioactivity and the presence of chemical warfare agents; and certainty about the state, intentions, and activities of one’s own forces. The book concludes that progress in command has usually been achieved less by employing more advanced technologies than by finding ways to transcend the limitations of existing ones.
Download or read book A Question of Command written by Mark Moyar and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2009-10-20 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moyar presents a wide-ranging history of counterinsurgency which draws on the historical record and interviews with hundreds of counterinsurgency veterans. He identifies the ten critical attributes of counterinsurgency leadership and reveals why these attributes have been more prevalent in some organizations than others.
Download or read book Command Failure in War written by Philip Langer and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2004-05-12 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 behaviors of commanders during war. The other battles and commanders studied here are Napoleon in Russia, George B. McClellan's Peninsular Campaign, Robert E. Lee and Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg, John Bell Hood at the Battle of Franklin, Douglas Haig and the British command during World War I, "Bomber" Harris and the Strategic Bombing of Germany, and Stalingrad.
Download or read book Supreme Command written by Eliot A. Cohen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-04-17 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An excellent, vividly written” (The Washington Post) account of leadership in wartime that explores how four great democratic statesmen—Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion—worked with the military leaders who served them during warfare. The relationship between military leaders and political leaders has always been a complicated one, especially in times of war. When the chips are down, who should run the show—the politicians or the generals? In Supreme Command, Eliot A. Cohen expertly argues that great statesmen do not turn their wars over to their generals, and then stay out of their way. Great statesmen make better generals of their generals. They question and drive their military men, and at key times they overrule their advice. The generals may think they know how to win, but the statesmen are the ones who see the big picture. Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion led four very different kinds of democracy, under the most difficult circumstances imaginable. They came from four very different backgrounds—backwoods lawyer, dueling French doctor, rogue aristocrat, and impoverished Jewish socialist. Yet they faced similar challenges. Each exhibited mastery of detail and fascination with technology. All four were great learners, who studied war as if it were their own profession, and in many ways mastered it as well as did their generals. All found themselves locked in conflict with military men. All four triumphed. The powerful lessons of this “brilliant” (National Review) book will touch and inspire anyone who faces intense adversity and is the perfect gift for history buffs of all backgrounds.
Download or read book The Mantle of Command written by Nigel Hamilton and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 549 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth analysis of FDR's leadership during the Second World War reveals how he assumed control over key decisions to launch a successful trial landing in North Africa to shift the war in favor of Allied forces.
Download or read book The Generals written by Thomas E. Ricks and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller! An epic history of the decline of American military leadership—from the bestselling author of Fiasco and Churchill and Orwell. While history has been kind to the American generals of World War II—Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley—it has been less kind to the generals of the wars that followed, such as Koster, Franks, Sanchez, and Petraeus. In The Generals, Thomas E. Ricks sets out to explain why that is. In chronicling the widening gulf between performance and accountability among the top brass of the U.S. military, Ricks tells the stories of great leaders and suspect ones, generals who rose to the occasion and generals who failed themselves and their soldiers. In Ricks’s hands, this story resounds with larger meaning: about the transmission of values, about strategic thinking, and about the difference between an organization that learns and one that fails.
Download or read book Partners in Command written by Mark Perry and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A military analyst delivers a revelatory account of the remarkable, evolving relationship forged between George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower during World War II and into the Cold War.
Download or read book Refighting the Last War written by D. Clayton James and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Distinguished historian D. Clayton James offers a brilliant reinterpretation of the Korean War conflict. Focusing on the critical issue of command, he shows how the Korean War is a key to understanding American decision-making in all military encounters since World War II. Korea, the first of America’s limited wars to stem the tide of world communism, was fought on unfamiliar terrain and against peasant soldiers and would become a template for subsequent American military engagements, especially Vietnam. And yet, the strategic and tactical doctrines employed in Korea, as well as the weapons and equipment, were largely left over from World War II. James, the master biographer of MacArthur, uses studies of military crises to examine the American high command in the Korean War. He explores the roles, leadership, personalities, and prejudices of five key commanders—President Harry S. Truman; Generals Douglas MacArthur, Matthew B. Ridgway, and Mark W. Clark; and Admiral C. Turner Joy—and then looks at six crucial issues confronting them in that conflict. From the decision made by Truman, without congsessional approval, to commit United States forces to combat in Korea, to MacArthur’s persistent fight for approval of his dangerous plan to assault Inchon, to the judgment to finally open truce negotiations, these turning points illuminate the American way of command in wartime. James analyzes the ground-level results and long-term implications of each choice, and sensitively explores the course that might had followed if other options had been taken. Probing the nature and consequences of these military resolutions, James shows how the conduct of the Korean War, like every new war, bears the imprint of the preceding one.
Download or read book Stark s Command written by Jack Campbell and published by Titan Books. This book was released on 2011-09-09 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Jack Campbell, author of the bestselling The Lost Fleet series, comes Stark's Command, the second novel in the gripping Stark's War trilogy. Sergeant Ethan Stark is placed in command of the US military forces that have overthrown their high-ranking officers. Instead of issuing orders, Stark confides his hope of forging an army based on mutual respect. Now, in addition to fighting a merciless enemy on the moon's surface, Stark must contend with the US government's reaction to his mutiny.
Download or read book War with Russia written by Richard Shirreff and published by Quercus. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rapid rise in Russia's power over the course of the last ten years has been matched by a stunning lack of international diplomacy on the part of its president, Vladimir Putin. One consequence of this, when combined with Europe's rapidly shifting geopolitics, is that the West is on a possible path toward nuclear war. Former deputy commander of NATO General Sir Richard Shirreff speaks out about this very real peril in this call to arms, a novel that is a barely disguised version of the truth. In chilling prose, it warns allied powers and the world at large that we risk catastrophic nuclear conflict if we fail to contain Russia's increasingly hostile actions. In a detailed plotline that draws upon Shirreff's years of experience in tactical military strategy, Shirreff lays out the most probable course of action Russia will take to expand its influence, predicting that it will begin with an invasion of the Baltic states. And with GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump recently declaring that he might not come to the aid of these NATO member nations were he to become president, the threat of an all-consuming global conflict is clearer than ever. This critical, chilling fictional look at our current geopolitical landscape, written by a top NATO commander, is both timely and necessary-a must-read for any fan of realistic military thrillers as well as all concerned citizens.
Download or read book Presidents and Their Generals written by Matthew Moten and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-05 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moten traces a sweeping history of the evolving roles of civilian and military leaders in conducting war. In doing so he demonstrates how war strategy and national security policy shifted as political and military institutions developed, and how they were shaped by leader's personalities.
Download or read book Lee Takes Command written by Time-Life Books and published by Time Life Medical. This book was released on 1984 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When General Robert E. Lee took command of the Confederate forces defending Richmond in June of 1862, he was famous yet little known. How Lee's background and training prepared him for his supreme trial is shown on the following pages. - from the book.
Download or read book Foch in Command written by Elizabeth Greenhalgh and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-04 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ferdinand Foch ended the First World War as Marshal of France and supreme commander of the Allied armies on the Western Front. Foch in Command is a pioneering study of his contribution to the Allied victory. Elizabeth Greenhalgh uses contemporary notebooks, letters and documents from previously under-studied archives to chart how the artillery officer, who had never commanded troops in battle when the war began, learned to fight the enemy, to cope with difficult colleagues and allies, and to manoeuvre through the political minefield of civil-military relations. She offers valuable insights into neglected questions: the contribution of unified command to the Allied victory; the role of a commander's general staff; and the mechanisms of command at corps and army level. She demonstrates how an energetic Foch developed war-winning strategies for a modern industrial war and how political realities contributed to his losing the peace.
Download or read book The Eye of Command written by Kimberly Kagan and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An important new work that will change the way we think about and understand battles
Download or read book Command Of The Air written by General Giulio Douhet and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the pantheon of air power spokesmen, Giulio Douhet holds center stage. His writings, more often cited than perhaps actually read, appear as excerpts and aphorisms in the writings of numerous other air power spokesmen, advocates-and critics. Though a highly controversial figure, the very controversy that surrounds him offers to us a testimonial of the value and depth of his work, and the need for airmen today to become familiar with his thought. The progressive development of air power to the point where, today, it is more correct to refer to aerospace power has not outdated the notions of Douhet in the slightest In fact, in many ways, the kinds of technological capabilities that we enjoy as a global air power provider attest to the breadth of his vision. Douhet, together with Hugh “Boom” Trenchard of Great Britain and William “Billy” Mitchell of the United States, is justly recognized as one of the three great spokesmen of the early air power era. This reprint is offered in the spirit of continuing the dialogue that Douhet himself so perceptively began with the first edition of this book, published in 1921. Readers may well find much that they disagree with in this book, but also much that is of enduring value. The vital necessity of Douhet’s central vision-that command of the air is all important in modern warfare-has been proven throughout the history of wars in this century, from the fighting over the Somme to the air war over Kuwait and Iraq.
Download or read book Always at War written by Melvin G. Deaile and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2018-04-15 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Always at War is the story of Strategic Air Command (SAC) during the early decades of the Cold War. More than a simple history, it describes how an organization dominated by experienced World War II airmen developed a unique culture that thrives to this day. Strategic Air Command was created because of the Air Force’s internal beliefs, but the organization evolved as it responded to the external environment created by the Cold War. In the aftermath of World War II and the creation of an independent air service, the Air Force formed SAC because of a belief in the military potential of strategic bombing centralized under one commander. As the Cold War intensified, so did SAC’s mission. In order to prepare SAC’s “warriors” to daily fight an enemy they did not see, as well as to handle the world’s most dangerous arsenal, the command, led by General Curtis LeMay, emphasized security, personal responsibility, and competition among the command. Its resources, political influence, and manning grew as did its “culture” until reaching its peak during the Cuban Missile Crisis. SAC became synonymous with the Cold War and its culture forever changed the Air Force as well as those who served.
Download or read book Men Against Fire written by S.L.A. "Slam" Marshall and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2019-12-06 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Men Against Fire, first published in 1947 (and updated in 1961), is an in-depth analysis of military leadership and infantry tactics, with numerous recommendations to improve the effectiveness of ground troops in combat situations. The psychology of combat (e.g., chapters “Why Men Fight” and “Men Under Fire”) is also examined by Marshall, himself a veteran of World War I and a combat historian during World War II. S.L.A. "Slam" Marshall was a veteran of World War I and a combat historian during World War II. He startled the military and civilian world in 1947 by announcing that, in an average infantry company, no more than one in four soldiers actually fired their weapons while in contact with the enemy. His contention was based on interviews he conducted immediately after combat in both the European and Pacific theaters of World War II.
