ebooks Making Sense of War: The Second World War and the Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution by Amir Weiner in History

Description

In war; do mass and materiel matter most? Will states with the largest; best equipped; information-technology-rich militaries invariably win? The prevailing answer today among both scholars and policymakers is yes. But this is to overlook force employment; or the doctrine and tactics by which materiel is actually used. In a landmark reconception of battle and war; this book provides a systematic account of how force employment interacts with materiel to produce real combat outcomes. Stephen Biddle argues that force employment is central to modern war; becoming increasingly important since 1900 as the key to surviving ever more lethal weaponry. Technological change produces opposite effects depending on how forces are employed; to focus only on materiel is thus to risk major error--with serious consequences for both policy and scholarship. In clear; fluent prose; Biddle provides a systematic account of force employment's role and shows how this account holds up under rigorous; multimethod testing. The results challenge a wide variety of standard views; from current expectations for a revolution in military affairs to mainstream scholarship in international relations and orthodox interpretations of modern military history. Military Power will have a resounding impact on both scholarship in the field and on policy debates over the future of warfare; the size of the military; and the makeup of the defense budget.