My friends at the Land Warfare Centre last week published the first major rewrite of the Army Doctrine Publication since, I think, the first version came out in the mid-1990s.
Fascinating and informative Robert. Will look up the new doctrine but also search out BLH. I suspect my pile of shame will have to wait a little longer now!
Interested to see Liddell Hart coming back into the discussion. He - 'the captain who teaches generals' - was regarded as the cutting edge of military philosophy before his death by the late '60s. But his British followers in WW2- Auchinleck & Dorman-Smith at army level, and their div & bde commanders 1940-42 - were notoriously unsuccessful in practicing his indirect approach. His examples detailed in 'Strategy of the Indirect Approach' are somewhat selective (understatement alert!!) and while his hero Sherman used significantly different methods to his villain Grant, it's just not possible to claim that Grant had the options open to Sherman. However I do think L-H is an enormously important figure in that he demonstrates just how complex mil hist is, involving cultural and social factors as much as materiel, realistic practical management, and individual genius or competence.
That’s all true. My problem with BLH is that he tried to cram everything into his template. That said, his instincts were correct: he knew that the force-on-force inclinations of his peers was ultimately ruinous, but surprisingly he didn’t look to 1918 British (4th Army) experience as the basis for his ideas about warfighting. He thought that he could find the single template to solutions from a ‘science rather than art’ perspective without acknowledging that it was a bit of both.
A very instructive and thought provoking article. Does the defence of Mariupol show this approach isn’t always the most effective though. Ukraine were able to resupply and reinforce their forces throughout the battle up until the last few days. And how would it be applied to another Afghan type war?
I think it demonstrates that army’s need to determine what success looks like for them and, in that context, do everything in their power to undermine their enemy’s strengths. Ukraine have done this pretty well so far, in part because of Russian failings, but the war is now moving into another phase. I would suggest that Ukraine should allow the Russians to occupy the territory they want, and then attack them as insurgents. Russia won’t be able to subjugate the occupied areas of Ukraine as they did Chechnya, and a Ukrainian insurgency would be very uncomfortable for Russia over the long term. In respect of Afghan, I’m afraid we never articulated a sensible strategy. Indeed, I’m not sure we could have. We couldn’t simply occupy the country and ‘wish’ the people to become western liberals.
Fascinating and informative Robert. Will look up the new doctrine but also search out BLH. I suspect my pile of shame will have to wait a little longer now!
Interested to see Liddell Hart coming back into the discussion. He - 'the captain who teaches generals' - was regarded as the cutting edge of military philosophy before his death by the late '60s. But his British followers in WW2- Auchinleck & Dorman-Smith at army level, and their div & bde commanders 1940-42 - were notoriously unsuccessful in practicing his indirect approach. His examples detailed in 'Strategy of the Indirect Approach' are somewhat selective (understatement alert!!) and while his hero Sherman used significantly different methods to his villain Grant, it's just not possible to claim that Grant had the options open to Sherman. However I do think L-H is an enormously important figure in that he demonstrates just how complex mil hist is, involving cultural and social factors as much as materiel, realistic practical management, and individual genius or competence.
That’s all true. My problem with BLH is that he tried to cram everything into his template. That said, his instincts were correct: he knew that the force-on-force inclinations of his peers was ultimately ruinous, but surprisingly he didn’t look to 1918 British (4th Army) experience as the basis for his ideas about warfighting. He thought that he could find the single template to solutions from a ‘science rather than art’ perspective without acknowledging that it was a bit of both.
A very instructive and thought provoking article. Does the defence of Mariupol show this approach isn’t always the most effective though. Ukraine were able to resupply and reinforce their forces throughout the battle up until the last few days. And how would it be applied to another Afghan type war?
I think it demonstrates that army’s need to determine what success looks like for them and, in that context, do everything in their power to undermine their enemy’s strengths. Ukraine have done this pretty well so far, in part because of Russian failings, but the war is now moving into another phase. I would suggest that Ukraine should allow the Russians to occupy the territory they want, and then attack them as insurgents. Russia won’t be able to subjugate the occupied areas of Ukraine as they did Chechnya, and a Ukrainian insurgency would be very uncomfortable for Russia over the long term. In respect of Afghan, I’m afraid we never articulated a sensible strategy. Indeed, I’m not sure we could have. We couldn’t simply occupy the country and ‘wish’ the people to become western liberals.
Thank you Douglas