Download or read book From Victory to Stalemate written by Charles J. Dick and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2016-11-07 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the summer of 1944, the war in Europe had reached a critical point. Both the western Allies and the Soviets possessed the initiative and forces capable of mounting strategic offensives against the German enemy. Writing a study of operations on first the Western then Eastern Front, respected military analyst C. J. Dick offers rare insight into the strengths and weaknesses of generalship on both fronts, especially the judgments, choices, and compromises made by senior commanders. At the same time, he clarifies the constraints imposed upon leadership—and upon operations—by doctrinal shortcomings, by logistics, and, not least, by the nature of coalition war. From Victory to Stalemate focuses on the Western Front, specifically American, British, and Canadian operations in France and the Low Countries. Dick's lens throughout is operational art, which links individual tactical battles to broader strategic aims. Beginning with the D-Day landings in Normandy and the strengths and weaknesses of the armies, including their military doctrines, Dick goes on to analyze the offensives launched in the high summer of 1944. He considers the strategic factors and plans that provide the context for his main concern: the Allied commanders’ handling of army, army group, and theatre offensive operations. Dick's analysis shows us an Allied command limited by thinking that is firmly rooted in the experience of small wars and the World War I. The resulting incremental approach was further complicated by a divergence in the ideas and interests of the Allied forces. The man responsible for pulling it all together, Dwight D. Eisenhower, proved remarkably capable in his role as statesman; he was to be less effective as a military technician who could govern such difficult subordinates as Bradley and Montgomery. As a result, the Allied offensive faltered and became a war of attrition, in contrast to the Soviet effort on the Eastern Front.
Download or read book Quest for Decisive Victory written by Robert Michael Citino and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the earliest days of warfare, military operations have followed a predictable formula: after a decisive battle, an army must pursue the enemy and destroy its organization in order to achieve a victorious campaign. But by the mid-19th century, the emergence of massive armies and advanced weaponry - and the concomitant decline in the effectiveness of cavalry - had diminished the practicality of pursuit, producing campaigns that bogged down short of decisive victory. Great battles had become curiously indecisive, decisive campaigns virtually impossible.
Download or read book From Victory to Stalemate written by Charles J. Dick and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the practical application of military theory in the most testing of circumstances-fighting the German army in the high summer of 1944. Offers broad and insightful arguments about the conduct of war at the operational level-the handling of armies and army groups-by both the western Allies and the Red Army in contemporaneous campaigns.
Download or read book Anatomy of Victory written by John D. Caldwell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-11-09 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking book provides the first systematic comparison of America’s modern wars and why they were won or lost. John D. Caldwell uses the World War II victory as the historical benchmark for evaluating the success and failure of later conflicts. Unlike WWII, the Korean, Vietnam, and Iraqi Wars were limited, but they required enormous national commitments, produced no lasting victories, and generated bitter political controversies. Caldwell comprehensively examines these four wars through the lens of a strategic architecture to explain how and why their outcomes were so dramatically different. He defines a strategic architecture as an interlinked set of continually evolving policies, strategies, and operations by which combatant states work toward a desired end. Policy defines the high-level goals a nation seeks to achieve once it initiates a conflict or finds itself drawn into one. Policy makers direct a broad course of action and strive to control the initiative. When they make decisions, they have to respond to unforeseen conditions to guide and determine future decisions. Effective leaders are skilled at organizing constituencies they need to succeed and communicating to them convincingly. Strategy means employing whatever resources are available to achieve policy goals in situations that are dynamic as conflicts change quickly over time. Operations are the actions that occur when politicians, soldiers, and diplomats execute plans. A strategic architecture, Caldwell argues, is thus not a static blueprint but a dynamic vision of how a state can succeed or fail in a conflict.
Download or read book Victory Soon Or Stalemate written by and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm written by Robert Michael Citino and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Germany launched its blitzkrieg invasion of France in 1940, it forever changed the way the world waged war. Although the Wehrmacht ultimately succumbed to superior Allied firepower in a two-front war, its stunning operational achievement left a lasting impression on military commanders throughout the world, even if their own operations were rarely executed as effectively. Robert Citino analyzes military campaigns from the second half of the twentieth century to further demonstrate the difficulty of achieving decisive results at the operational level. Offering detailed operational analyses of actual campaigns, Citino describes how UN forces in Korea enjoyed technological and air superiority but found the enemy unbeatable; provides analyses of Israeli operational victories in successive wars until the Arab states finally grasped the realities of operational-level warfare in 1973; and tells how the Vietnam debacle continued to shape U.S. doctrine in surprising ways. Looking beyond major-power conflicts, he also reveals the lessons of India's blitzkrieg-like drive into Pakistan in 1971 and of the senseless bloodletting of the Iran-Iraq War. Citino especially considers the evolution of U.S. doctrine and assesses the success of Desert Storm in dismantling an entrenched defending force with virtually no friendly casualties. He also provides one of the first scholarly analyses of Operation Iraqi Freedom, showing that its plan was curiously divorced from the realities of military history, grounded instead on nebulous theories about expected enemy behavior. Throughout Citino points to the importance of mobility—especially mobilized armor—in modern operational warfare and assesses the respective roles of firepower, training, doctrine, and command and control mechanisms. Brimming with new insights, Citino's study shows why technical superiority is no guarantee of victory and why a thorough grounding in the history of past campaigns is essential to anyone who wishes to understand modern warfare. Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm provides that grounding as it addresses the future of operational-level warfare in the post-9/11 era.
Download or read book How America Won World War I written by Alan Axelrod and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-09-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immediately after the armistice was signed in November, 1918, an American journalist asked Paul von Hindenburg who won the war against Germany. He was the chief of the German General Staff, co-architect with Erich Ludendorff of Germany’s Eastern Front victories and its nearly war-winning Western Front offensives, and he did not hesitate in his answer. “The American infantry,” he said. He made it even more specific, telling the reporter that the final death blow for Germany was delivered by “the American infantry in the Argonne.” The British and the French often denigrated the American contribution to the war, but they had begged for US entry into the conflict, and their stake in America’s victory was, if anything, even greater than that of the United States itself. But How America Won WWI will not litigate the points of view of Britain and France. The book will accepts as gospel the assessment of the top German leader whose job it had been to oppose the Americans directly - that the American infantry won the war - and this book will tell how the American infantry did it.
Download or read book Operation Stalemate written by Daniel Wrinn and published by Storyteller Books, LLC. This book was released on 2021-05-21 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is the real deal, unvarnished, brutal, and a profound primer on what it was like to be in that war." -Reviewer A gripping account of the grim history in the battle for Peleliu and the Pacific war. On September 14, 1944, the US 1st Marine Division landed on the island of Peleliu, one of the Palau Islands in the Pacific, as part of a larger operation to provide support for General MacArthur, who was preparing to invade the Philippines. The cost in American lives would prove historic. Peleliu was subject to pre-invasion bombardment, but it proved of little consequence. The Japanese defenders were buried too deep in the jungle, and the target intelligence given the Americans was faulty. Upon landing, the Marines met little resistance--but that was a ploy. This narrative recounts the story of Peleliu in vivid, gritty detail. Explore the fascinating feats of strategy, planning, and bravery, handing the Allies what would eventually become a victory over the Pacific Theater and an end to Imperialist Japanese expansion
Download or read book Stalemate written by David A. Korn and published by Westview Press. This book was released on 1992-05-10 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For three years following Israel's victory in the Six-Day War, Egypt, with a massive infusion of weaponry from the Soviet Union, continued to do battle with Israel in what became known as the War of Attrition. The history of these years holds the key to understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict today. In this book, David Korn offers a detailed insider's account of the first--and, until recently, the only--U.S.-Soviet cooperative effort to bring peace to the Middle East, including an explanation of the origin of the "land for peace" formula. He relates a fascinating story of political intrigue in Washington and Jerusalem that stymied the efforts of peacemakers; of Egypt's massing a huge army along the west bank of the Suez Canal; and of Israel's desperate search for a strategy to hold the east bank with a token force and minimal losses. He also describes the incredible miscalculation that nearly plunged Israel into war with the Soviet Union and the great heroism on both sides of the Suez line. This book fills a large gap in the history of the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors and is the first to analyze war and diplomacy in the Middle East during the critical years 1967-1970 from the Egyptian as well as the Israeli point of view. To both, Korn brings penetrating insights based on a wealth of materials never before published. It is a gripping story by a writer who had a grandstand seat on the line.
Download or read book Nothing Less than Victory written by John David Lewis and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-26 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How aggressive military strategies win wars, from ancient times to today The goal of war is to defeat the enemy's will to fight. But how this can be accomplished is a thorny issue. Nothing Less than Victory provocatively shows that aggressive, strategic military offenses can win wars and establish lasting peace, while defensive maneuvers have often led to prolonged carnage, indecision, and stalemate. Taking an ambitious and sweeping look at six major wars, from antiquity to World War II, John David Lewis shows how victorious military commanders have achieved long-term peace by identifying the core of the enemy's ideological, political, and social support for a war, fiercely striking at this objective, and demanding that the enemy acknowledges its defeat. Lewis examines the Greco-Persian and Theban wars, the Second Punic War, Aurelian's wars to reunify Rome, the American Civil War, and the Second World War. He considers successful examples of overwhelming force, such as the Greek mutilation of Xerxes' army and navy, the Theban-led invasion of the Spartan homeland, and Hannibal's attack against Italy—as well as failed tactics of defense, including Fabius's policy of delay, McClellan's retreat from Richmond, and Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. Lewis shows that a war's endurance rests in each side's reasoning, moral purpose, and commitment to fight, and why an effectively aimed, well-planned, and quickly executed offense can end a conflict and create the conditions needed for long-term peace. Recognizing the human motivations behind military conflicts, Nothing Less than Victory makes a powerful case for offensive actions in pursuit of peace.
Download or read book Not One Inch written by M. E. Sarotte and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 567 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirty years after the Soviet Union’s collapse, this book reveals how tensions between America, NATO, and Russia transformed geopolitics in the decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall “The most engaging and carefully documented account of this period in East-West diplomacy currently available.”—Andrew Moravscik, Foreign Affairs Not one inch. With these words, Secretary of State James Baker proposed a hypothetical bargain to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev after the fall of the Berlin Wall: if you let your part of Germany go, we will move NATO not one inch eastward. Controversy erupted almost immediately over this 1990 exchange—but more important was the decade to come, when the words took on new meaning. Gorbachev let his Germany go, but Washington rethought the bargain, not least after the Soviet Union’s own collapse in December 1991. Washington realized it could not just win big but win bigger. Not one inch of territory needed to be off limits to NATO. On the thirtieth anniversary of the Soviet collapse, this book uses new evidence and interviews to show how, in the decade that culminated in Vladimir Putin’s rise to power, the United States and Russia undermined a potentially lasting partnership. Prize-winning historian M. E. Sarotte shows what went wrong.
Download or read book The Complete Chess Swindler written by David Smerdon and published by New In Chess. This book was released on 2020-02-17 with total page 762 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chess is a cruel game. We all know that feeling when your position has gone awry and everything seems hopeless. You feel like resigning. But don’t give up! This is precisely the moment to switch to swindle mode. Master the art of provoking errors and you will be able to turn the tables and escape with a draw – or sometimes even steal the full point! Swindling is a skill that can be trained. In this book, David Smerdon shows how you can use tricks from psychology to marshal hidden resources and exploit your opponent’s biases. In a lost position, your best practical chance often lies not in the computer’s best moves, but in playing your opponent – however bad the evaluation! With an abundance of eye-popping examples and training exercises, Smerdon identifies the four best friends of every chess swindler: your opponent’s impatience, their hubris, their fear, and their need to stay in control. You’ll also learn about such cunning swindling motifs as the Trojan Horse, the decoy trap, the berserk attack, and ‘window-ledging’. So, come and join the Swindlers’ Club, become a great escape artist and dramatically improve your results. In this instructive and wildly entertaining guide, Smerdon shows you how.
Download or read book To Win a War written by John Terraine and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An expert narrative of 1918, when the breakthrough was finally made, and everything it took to achieve victory.
Download or read book The Civil War in the East written by Brooks D. Simpson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-07-06 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book fills a gap in Civil War literature on the strategies employed by the Union and Confederacy in the East, offering a more integrated interpretation of military operations that shows how politics, public perception, geography, and logistics shaped the course of military operations in the East. For all the literature about Civil War military operations and leadership, precious little has been written about strategy, particularly in what has become known as the eastern theater. Yet it is in this theater where the interaction of geography and logistics, politics and public opinion, battlefront and home front, and the conduct of military operations and civil-military relations can be highlighted in sharp relief. With opposing capitals barely 100 miles apart and with the Chesapeake Bay/tidewater area offering Union generals the same sorts of opportunities sought by Confederate leaders in the Shenandoah Valley, geography shaped military operations in fundamental ways: the very rivers that obstructed Union overland advances offered them the chance to outflank Confederate-prepared positions. If the proximity of the enemy capital proved too tempting to pass up, generals on each side were aware that a major mishap could lead to an enemy parade down the streets of their own capital city. Presidents, politicians, and the press peeked over the shoulders of military commanders, some of who were not reluctant to engage in their own intrigues as they promoted their own fortunes. The Civil War in the East does not rest upon new primary sources or an extensive rummaging through the mountains of material already available. Rather, it takes a fresh look at military operations and the assumptions that shaped them, and offers a more integrated interpretation of military operations that shows how politics, public perception, geography, and logistics shaped the course of military operations in the East. The eastern theater was indeed a theater of decision (and indecision), precisely because people believed that it was important. The presence of the capitals raised the stakes of victory and defeat; at a time when people viewed war in terms of decisive battles, the anticipation of victory followed by disappointment and persistent strategic stalemate characterized the course of events in the East.
Download or read book On a Knife s Edge written by Prit Buttar and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The battle of Stalingrad was the turning point of World War II. The German capture of the city, their encirclement by Soviet forces shortly afterwards, and the hard-fought but futile attempts to relieve them, saw bitter attritional fighting and extremes of human misery inflicted on both sides. The surrender of General Friedrich von Paulus's army left Germany's eastern armies severely weakened, but the Red Army had suffered enormous losses as it overreached itself in trying to exploit its great victory. The war was not over. Germany would continue the fight, and the battles that took place in the winter of 1942/43 would show the tactical and operational skill of Erich von Manstein and the Wehrmacht as they attempted to avert total disaster. In this title, now available in paperback, a renowned expert on warfare on the Eastern Front reveals the often-overlooked German counteroffensive post-Stalingrad, and how it prevented the whole Axis front line from collapsing. Drawing on first-hand accounts, On a Knife's Edge is a story of brilliant generalship, lost opportunities and survival in the harshest theatre of war.
Download or read book United States Chess Federation s Official Rules of Chess Fifth Edition written by United States Chess Federation and published by Random House Incorporated. This book was released on 2003 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explains all legal chess moves, and discusses the regulations governing tournaments, lifetime rankings, and tournament director certification.
Download or read book The Lessons of History written by Will Durant and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A concise survey of the culture and civilization of mankind, The Lessons of History is the result of a lifetime of research from Pulitzer Prize–winning historians Will and Ariel Durant. With their accessible compendium of philosophy and social progress, the Durants take us on a journey through history, exploring the possibilities and limitations of humanity over time. Juxtaposing the great lives, ideas, and accomplishments with cycles of war and conquest, the Durants reveal the towering themes of history and give meaning to our own.
