Williamson Murray, War, Strategy, and Military Effectiveness (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011)
Overview: This work is a collection of essays that span Murray’s career and interact with multiple debates in the field of military history.
Central Thesis: The primary argument in this book is that history represents the essential component for thinking about the future. It is possible to learn from the path so long as the last war is studied honestly and thoroughly. Because war is such a complex endeavor, only understanding history can provide a path for preparing for the future.
Scope of Book: This book is a collection of 13 essays that address issues involved in the conduct of strategy and military operations.
- The first two chapters address the validity of Thucydides and Clausewitz to future planning, and how these two writers have written the “most serious and valuable examinations of human conflict.” (7)
- The third chapter addresses the technological hubris of American planners who in the mid-1990s pondered if new technology might remove friction/ambiguity/uncertainty from war.
- Chapter four argues that technology will not change the principles of war, and in fact the very idea of principles is fraught as war is a non-linear phenomenon and the principles of war reduce human conflict to simply aphorisms and dismiss its chaotic nature.
- Chapter five examines culture and subculture as a determining factor in military effectiveness, and especially military learning.
- Chapters six and seven look at the history of strategic planning to look at current problems. Chapter six describes how strategic planning developed and play an increasing role in war to bring political and operational aims together. “Only a coherent, historically based strategy can open up a successful path to the future through the shoals of the present.” (9)
- Chapter seven looks at how red teaming helps prepare for war, and the necessary cultural components to make it most useful.
- Chapter 8 describes most historians view the First World War as an entirely new phenomnenon but argues that patterns of war developed immensely between 1815 and 1914 thanks to the manpower revolution, industrial revolution, and the bureaucratic revolution as seen in the Crimean War and American Civil War. The Franco-Prussian War incorrectly validated conceptions of quick decisive victory divorced from strategic reality.
- Chapter 9 and 10 deal with the impact of air power in World War II and the 1991 Gulf War. Murray argues that the Combined Bomber Offensive was, despite its problems, effective. Chapter 10 argues that despite the Gulf seemingly validating air power theory, the Gulf War teaches that airpower wont win a war alone, that the ground campaign was absolutely necessary.
- Chapter 12 warns about inflating the role of technology and argues that the US needs to renew its emphasis on cultural knowledge.
- The final chapter examines the morality of World War II and Murray emphasizes the human aspect of war and that the evil actions of the axis powers justify sacrifices made by soldiers and civilians to bring those regimes to their demise.