CIAO DATE: 04/2012
Volume: 13, Issue: 4
Summer 2011
Calgary Workshop on the History of Strategy (PDF)
John Ferris
This is a golden age for military history. Fifty years ago, the discipline had strength in official agencies and the popular market, but stood in an academic ghetto. Soon, it became even less fashionable. Many academics still view it as suspect. These experiences have made military historians defensive and afraid of marginalization, yet in fact their status has risen sharply. They retain their professional audience, rank among the largest components of popular history, and have bolstered their academic base. There are more military historians today than ever before, and more good ones.
Development of Operational Thinking in the German Army in the World War Era (PDF)
Gerhard Gross
This manuscript focuses on German command at the higher operational and strategic levels during the First and Second World Wars. It emphasizes the admiration which commentators often express for German operational qualities and analyses their development and performance between 1871-1945, explaining the roots of this behavior, and the strengths and weaknesses of the approach. Its characteristics are contextualized, noting the limits to the famous auftragstaktik (mission oriented command), which did not work quite as its supporters imagine. Both the success of German operations and the failure of its strategy, stemmed from the same central root, an attempt to achieve a continental hegemony which Germany was too weak to acquire, but insufficiently wise to avoid.
"Military Doomsday Machine"? The Decisions for War 1914 (PDF)
Holger Herwig
This manuscript analyses the decisions for war taken in the capitals of the major powers of Europe, during July and August 1914. The July crisis triggered the greatest and most destructive event of modern history. It has become central to theories about the outbreak of war in the fields of international relations and strategic studies. It assesses the major theories used, over the past century, to explain these decisions, and compares them to the evidence on the matter. It is argued that decisions for war were made by small groups of men in each capital, taken on instrumental grounds, based on realpolitik, deliberate—part of a move in a competition, which they thought they understood. The system worked as intended, but with effects no one expected.
Politics by other means: Canadian "Strategy" and the Italian Campaign, 1943 (PDF)
Christine Leppard
This manuscript addresses the decision of the Canadian government in 1943 to send a Corps to participate in the invasion of Italy. In the process, Canada divided its forces in Europe into two groups, so wrecking an established military and political principle, to keep all its soldiers in Europe under unified Canadian command. The author concludes that confusion, incompetence and crossed wires among Canadian politicians and generals produced this decision, allowing ephemeral political needs to compromise greater aims.
Tony Mullis
This article assesses the grand strategy of Anglo-American settlers in North America, toward Amerindians and expansion, from first encounter to final conquest and addresses one of the greatest and longest struggles over territory on earth between 1600 and 1900 from a unified, or a strategic, perspective. It argues that any grand strategy at all, let alone the same one, underlay these events. The assessment uses American culture and politics, to explain the roots for a behavior which often occurred below the surface of state: to show what Americans thought about war and Amerindians, and how they acted on these ideas and conquered a continent.
The Evolution of Strategic Thinking in World War I: A Case Study of the Second Battle of the Marne (PDF)
Michael Neiberg
This analysis compares the strategy, command and operations of the armies of Germany and the Allied and Associated Powers during the First World War, with particular focus on 1918. It shows the difficulties which both sides found in combining grand strategy, with what could be done operationally in the field. It shows that imperfect political consequences flowed from Ferdinand Foch‘s able and surprisingly humane approach to war. Foch was an officer who could learn, and the only one who commanded the western front effectively.
Strategy "in a microcosm": Processes of tactical learning in a WWI German Infantry Division (PDF)
Christian Stachelbeck
This is an assessment of command, learning and combat performance within one German formation during the First World War. The 11th Bavarian Infantry Division, is used as a marker for the experiences of normal German divisions during the war. This account, based on detailed empirical study, is an example of operational history at the divisional level. It isolates variables such as how command and training worked within the 11th Bavarian Infantry Division, how much autonomy commanders had, and how they adapted to changes in circumstances.
Grand Strategy, Culture, and Strategic Choice: A Review (PDF)
David McDonough
The Canadian debate on security matters has rarely been discussed in terms of either grand strategy or strategic culture. But it would be imprudent to prematurely discard such concepts, which if more fully incorporated into Canada’s own scholarly debate could potentially generate some useful dialogue with wider strategic studies literature. To better clarify these concepts, this review essay will provide an overview on both grand strategy and the explanations for strategic behaviour, with a particular emphasis on international relations theory and strategic culture. As it concludes, grand strategy offers a promising description not only for how a great power approaches strategic affairs, but also potentially for that of a middle power like Canada. And an explanation rooted in strategic culture, despite some lingering conceptual and methodological issues, still provides a good starting point to understanding the sources of grand strategy.
Duane Bratt
The rise of private security firms has become a high profile feature of international relations since the end of the Cold War. This was symbolized by the private military company Executive Outcomes operating in Africa in the 1990s and Blackwater operating in Iraq in the 2000s. However, these companies were not the only ones in existence; they were just the most visible. In fact, there were more American-based private security companies in Iraq than members of the United States Armed Forces. In addition, the privatization of security involves more than just the use of armed guards; it also involves the outsourcing of many military services, such as logistics, base management, and training. This transformation has raised a number of important questions for mature democracies: Has the state monopoly on collective violence been eroded? What is the extent of democratic control over military force? Should armies be made up of volunteers or conscripts?
Wood, C.E. Mud: A Military History, Washington D.C: Potomac Books, 2006. (PDF)
Adam Lajeunesse
The natural first impression when presented with a history of mud lies somewhere between amusement and curiosity. Have historians truly exhausted all other potential subjects and are now resorting to the study of moist dirt? Yet, if given more than brief consideration – and certainly after reading the book itself – the importance of mud to the history of warfare becomes obvious and undeniable. As Clyde Wood shows, the gooey substance has had a significant impact on the course of human conflict over the ages through its tendency to slow marching armies, wear down mechanized divisions and even ground air forces.
Matt Bucholtz
For decades historical research dedicated to the study of the German army, or Reichswehr, before the Second World War has been dominated by a single overriding question: How did the German army create Blitzkrieg? Studies, both popular and academic, have focused on German offensive doctrine and the leading figures responsible for its creation, in an attempt to understand the stunning German victories of the first half of the Second World War. While this has led to a fuller appreciation of the various characteristics of combined arms warfare, it has also generated a skewed vision of the German army that does not accurately portray its operation, activities, strategic outlook, and doctrinal breadth. Matthias Strohn’s work, The German Army and the Defense of the Reich provides a much-needed counter-weight to the existing ‘Blitzkrieg’ centric historiography of the Reichswehr between the First and Second World Wars.
Matt Bucholtz
Relying upon thousands of newly raised conscripts to augment the remaining professionals from the old monarchial army, Generals Kellermann and Dumouriez scored a decisive victory over the Duke of Brunswick and the forces of Prussia at the Battle of Valmy and thereby firmly established the foundation for the legacy of the volunteers of Year II and the military abilities of French citizen-soldiers. French victory at Valmy became the rationale for conscription laws across Europe in the following decades and served as the basis for a closer relationship between the military and society. Alan Forrest’s book, The Legacy of the French Revolutionary Wars: The Nation-in-Arms in French Republican Memory, masterfully traces the evolution of the myths of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era through over 150 years of French and European military and political development. It stands as a concise single volume investigation of the nineteenth and twentieth century French political landscape and military affairs, as well as the ever-contested field of civil-military relations, expressed through a work centred on memory and myth.
Miloš Dimić
The end of the Cold War was viewed by many as a time to usher in peace and stability throughout the world. As soon became apparent, however, the global crumbling of Soviet-style communism had precipitated an unforeseen period of fragility in the international system. Ethnic conflicts started to flare up in many parts of the world and the rapid spread of globalisation started to create a wealth gap, and thus, social tensions. The rise of American unilateralism in post-Cold War international affairs, combined with the momentous globalisation of the Third World (which is sometimes seen as either a direct or indirect product of American foreign policy), had precipitated a resulting rise in anti-American sentiment throughout many parts of the world. This development was particularly evident in the Middle East and other parts of the Muslim world and ultimately culminated in the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Critical Commentary (PDF)
Timo Leiter
Author's Response to Critical Commentary (PDF)
D.A. Neill