[PDF] How Wars Are Won eBook

Author : Bevin Alexander
Publisher : Forum Books
Page : 418 pages
File Size : 31,5 MB
Release : 2007-12-18
Category : History
ISBN : 0307421031

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Even as we head into twenty-first-century warfare, thirteen time-tested rules for waging war remain relevant. Both timely and timeless, How Wars Are Won illuminates the thirteen essential rules for success on the battlefield that have evolved from ancient times until the present day. Acclaimed military historian Bevin Alexander’s incisive and vivid analyses of famous battles throughout the ages show how the greatest commanders—from Alexander the Great to Douglas MacArthur—have applied these rules. For example: • Feign retreat: Pretend defeat, fake a retreat, then ambush the enemy while being pursued. Used to devastating effect by the North Vietnamese against U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. • Strike at enemy weakness: Avoid the enemy’s strength entirely by refusing to fight pitched battles, a method that has run alongside conventional war from the earliest days of human conflict. Brilliantly applied by Mao Zedong to defeat the Chinese Nationalists. • Defend, then attack: Gain possession of a superior weapon or tactical system, induce the enemy to launch a fruitless attack, then go on the offensive. Employed repeatedly against the Goths by the Eastern Roman general Belisarius to reclaim vast stretches of the Roman Empire. The lessons of history revealed in these pages can be used to shape the strategies needed to win the conflicts of today.

Author : Cathal Nolan
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 729 pages
File Size : 32,18 MB
Release : 2017-01-02
Category : History
ISBN : 0199874654

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History has tended to measure war's winners and losers in terms of its major engagements, battles in which the result was so clear-cut that they could be considered "decisive." Cannae, Konigsberg, Austerlitz, Midway, Agincourt-all resonate in the literature of war and in our imaginations as tide-turning. But these legendary battles may or may not have determined the final outcome of the wars in which they were fought. Nor has the "genius" of the so-called Great Captains - from Alexander the Great to Frederick the Great and Napoleon - play a major role. Wars are decided in other ways. Cathal J. Nolan's The Allure of Battle systematically and engrossingly examines the great battles, tracing what he calls "short-war thinking," the hope that victory might be swift and wars brief. As he proves persuasively, however, such has almost never been the case. Even the major engagements have mainly contributed to victory or defeat by accelerating the erosion of the other side's defences. Massive conflicts, the so-called "people's wars," beginning with Napoleon and continuing until 1945, have consisted of and been determined by prolonged stalemate and attrition, industrial wars in which the determining factor has been not military but matériel. Nolan's masterful book places battles squarely and mercilessly within the context of the wider conflict in which they took place. In the process it help corrects a distorted view of battle's role in war, replacing popular images of the "battles of annihilation" with somber appreciation of the commitments and human sacrifices made throughout centuries of war particularly among the Great Powers. Accessible, provocative, exhaustive, and illuminating, The Allure of Battle will spark fresh debate about the history and conduct of warfare.

Author : Williamson Murray
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 736 pages
File Size : 50,50 MB
Release : 2009-06-30
Category : History
ISBN : 0674041305

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Chronicles the military operations and tactics of World War II in both the European and Pacific theaters from the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 to the surrender of Japan in 1945.

Author : Phillips Payson O'Brien
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 655 pages
File Size : 35,59 MB
Release : 2015-02-12
Category : History
ISBN : 1107014751

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An important new history of air and sea power in World War II and its decisive role in Allied victory.

Author : Christian P. Potholm
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 302 pages
File Size : 28,98 MB
Release : 2010
Category : History
ISBN : 9781442201309

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What are the independent variables that determine success in war? Drawing on 40 years of studying and teaching war, political scientist Christian P. Potholm presents a 'template of Mars, ' seven variables that have served as predictors of military success over time and across cultures. In Winning at War, Potholm explains these variables--technology, sustained ruthlessness, discipline, receptivity to innovation, protection of military capital from civilians and rulers, will, and the belief that there will always be another war--and provides case studies of their implementation, from ancient battles to today.

Author : David Keen
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 379 pages
File Size : 13,85 MB
Release : 2012-07-31
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0300183712

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Keen investigates why conflicts are so prevalent and so intractable, even when one side has much greater military resources. He asks who benefits from wars-- whether economically, politically, or psychologically-- and argues that in order to bring them successfully to an end we need to understand the complex vested interests on all sides.

Author : Sean McFate
Publisher : HarperCollins
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 27,19 MB
Release : 2019-01-22
Category : History
ISBN : 0062843605

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"Stunning. Sean McFate is a new Sun Tzu." -Admiral James Stavridis (retired), former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO An Economist Book of the Year 2019 Some of the principles of warfare are ancient, others are new, but all described in The New Rules of War will permanently shape war now and in the future. By following them Sean McFate argues, we can prevail. But if we do not, terrorists, rogue states, and others who do not fight conventionally will succeed—and rule the world. The New Rules of War is an urgent, fascinating exploration of war—past, present and future—and what we must do if we want to win today from an 82nd Airborne veteran, former private military contractor, and professor of war studies at the National Defense University. War is timeless. Some things change—weapons, tactics, technology, leadership, objectives—but our desire to go into battle does not. We are living in the age of Durable Disorder—a period of unrest created by numerous factors: China’s rise, Russia’s resurgence, America’s retreat, global terrorism, international criminal empires, climate change, dwindling natural resources, and bloody civil wars. Sean McFate has been on the front lines of deep state conflicts and has studied and taught the history and practice of war. He’s seen firsthand the horrors of battle and understands the depth and complexity of the current global military situation. This devastating turmoil has given rise to difficult questions. What is the future of war? How can we survive? If Americans are drawn into major armed conflict, can we win? McFate calls upon the legends of military study Carl von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and others, as well as his own experience, and carefully constructs the new rules for the future of military engagement, the ways we can fight and win in an age of entropy: one where corporations, mercenaries, and rogue states have more power and ‘nation states’ have less. With examples from the Roman conquest, World War II, Vietnam, Afghanistan and others, he tackles the differences between conventional and future war, the danger in believing that technology will save us, the genuine leverage of psychological and ‘shadow’ warfare, and much more. McFate’s new rules distill the essence of war today, describing what it is in the real world, not what we believe or wish it to be.

Author : Bevin Alexander
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 13,85 MB
Release : 2011-07-18
Category : History
ISBN : 0393342794

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"With the planet no longer cleanly divided into 'us' and 'them,' leaders are distracted by a thousand conflicting claims and ambitions. We inhabit a much more disorderly world. Disputes within and between nations are frequently violent, divisive, and dangerous..." --from The Future of Warfare

Author : Herman Hattaway
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
Page : 788 pages
File Size : 27,42 MB
Release : 1991
Category : History
ISBN : 9780252062100

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Covers the essential factors which shaped the battles and ultimately determined the outcome of the Civil War.