BiblioVault - Books about Military doctrine

The Art of Military Coercion

Why the West's Military Superiority Scarcely Matters

Rob de Wijk

Amsterdam University Press, 2014

The United States spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined. And Western nations in general spend far more than developing nations around the globe. Yet when Western nations have found themselves in conflicts in recent decades, their performance has been mixed at best. In his fully updated new edition of The Art of Military Coercion, Rob de Wijk presents a theory on the use of force. He argues that the key is a failure to use force decisively, to properly understand the dynamics of conflict and balance means and ends. Without that ability, superiority of dollars, numbers, and weaponry won't necessarily translate to victory.

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Improving the U.S. Military’s Understanding of Unstable Environments Vulnerable to Violent Extremist Groups

Insights from Social Science

David E. Thaler

RAND Corporation, 2013

For over a decade, operations associated with irregular warfare have placed large demands on U.S. ground forces and have led to development of new Army and Joint doctrine. This report helps analysts identify and assess twelve key factors that create and perpetuate environments susceptible to insurgency, terrorism, and other extremist violence and instability to inform military decisions on allocation of analytic and security assistance resources.

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Lessons Unlearned

The U.S. Army's Role in Creating the Forever Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

Pat Proctor

University of Missouri Press, 2020

Colonel Pat Proctor’s long overdue critique of the Army’s preparation and outlook in the all-volunteer era focuses on a national security issue that continues to vex in the twenty-first century: Has the Army lost its ability to win strategically by focusing on fighting conventional battles against peer enemies? Or can it adapt to deal with the greater complexity of counterinsurgent and information-age warfare?

In this blunt critique of the senior leadership of the U.S. Army, Proctor contends that after the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. Army stubbornly refused to reshape itself in response to the new strategic reality, a decision that saw it struggle through one low-intensity conflict after another—some inconclusive, some tragic—in the 1980s and 1990s, and leaving it largely unprepared when it found itself engaged—seemingly forever—in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The first book-length study to connect the failures of these wars to America’s disastrous performance in the war on terror, Proctor’s work serves as an attempt to convince Army leaders to avoid repeating the same mistakes.

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Lifting the Fog of Peace

How Americans Learned to Fight Modern War

Janine Davidson

University of Michigan Press, 2011

Lifting the Fog of Peace puts the U.S. military’s frustrating experiences in Iraq into context and reveals how the military was able to turn the tide during the so-called surge in 2007–8.“Lifting the Fog of Peace is a captivating study of an agile and adaptive military evolving through the chaos of the post-9/11 world. In what is certain to be regarded as the definitive analysis of the reshaping of American combat power in the face of a complex and uncertain future, Dr. Janine Davidson firmly establishes herself as a rising intellectual star in government and politics. A thoroughly captivating study of organizational learning and adaptation—a ‘must read’ for leaders in every field.”
—LTG William B. Caldwell IV, Commanding General, NATO Training Mission—Afghanistan “In Lifting the Fog of Peace, Dr. Janine Davidson explains how the American military has adapted itself to succeed in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that are the most likely future face of combat. The book is informed by her experience of these wars in the Department of Defense, where she now plays a critical role in continuing the process of learning that has so visibly marked the military’s performance in today’s wars. Highly recommended.”
—John A. Nagl, President, Center for a New American Security“. . . a ‘must read’ on the E-Ring of the Pentagon and in security studies programs across the nation.”
—Joseph J. Collins, Professor, National War College, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability Operations

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Military Realism

The Logic and Limits of Force and Innovation in the U.S. Army

Peter Campbell

University of Missouri Press, 2019

After the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army considered counterinsurgency (COIN) a mistake to be avoided. Many found it surprising, then, when setbacks in recent conflicts led the same army to adopt a COIN doctrine. Scholarly debates have primarily employed existing theories of military bureaucracy or culture to explain the army’s re-embrace of COIN, but Peter Campbell advances a unique argument centering on military realism to explain the complex evolution of army doctrinal thinking from 1960 to 2008.

In five case studies of U.S. Army doctrine, Campbell pits military realism against bureaucratic and cultural perspectives in three key areas—nuclear versus conventional warfare, preferences for offense versus defense, and COIN missions—and finds that the army has been more doctrinally flexible than those perspectives would predict. He demonstrates that decision makers, while vowing in the wake of Vietnam to avoid (COIN) missions, nonetheless found themselves adapting to the geopolitical realities of fighting “low intensity” conflicts. In essence, he demonstrates that pragmatism has won out over dogmatism. At a time when American policymakers remain similarly conflicted about future defense strategies, Campbell’s work will undoubtedly shape and guide the debate.

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Winged Defense

The Development and Possibilities of Modern Air Power--Economic and Military

William "Billy" Mitchell, with a new foreword by Robert S. Ehlers Jr.

University of Alabama Press, 2009

This book is the basis for airpower doctrine in the US, and demonstrates how forward looking Gen Mitchell was even though the technology for conducting air operations was in its infancy when it was written. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with airpower history or aerospace doctrine.

William Lendrum "Billy" Mitchell (December 28, 1879 – February 19, 1936) was an American Army general who is regarded as the father of the U.S. Air Force, and is one of the most famous and most controversial figures in the history of American airpower.

Mitchell served in France during the First World War and, by the conflict's end, commanded all American air combat units in that country. After the war, he was appointed deputy director of the Air Service and began to advocate increased investment in air power, claiming this would prove vital in future wars. He particularly stressed the ability of bombers to sink battleships and organized a series of dramatic bombing runs against stationary ships designed to test the idea that attracted wide notice from the public.

He antagonized many in both the Army and Navy with his arguments and criticism and, in 1925, was demoted to Colonel. Later that year, he was court-martialed for insubordination after accusing military chiefs of an "almost treasonable administration of the national defense." He resigned from the service shortly thereafter.

Mitchell received many honors following his death, including a commission by the President as a Major General. He is also the only individual after whom a type of American military aircraft is named: the B-25 "Mitchell."

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