How Armies Grow

How Armies Grow PDF Author: Matthias Strohn
Publisher: Casemate
ISBN: 1612006027
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Get Book Here

Book Description
This anthology of historical war studies looks at military expansion from the French Revolution to WWII—and the enduring lessons for today. In the years after the Cold War, many governments sought to reduce the sizes of their armed forces. Along with this general reduction came a shift in military doctrine away from conventional warfare and toward counterinsurgency operations. But in light of new geopolitical developments, the pendulum is swinging back. Once again, armies are growing in size. Now is the time to look back at the age of total war and the hard-won military lessons about the buildup, composition and use of large formations. It is these lessons from history that this book addresses. What does history tell us about military expansion? How did armies prepare and train for a major conflict in times of peace? How did the armies ensure that the doctrine and training used in a small army was adequate for a drastically enlarged army in the case of total war? All these questions were as relevant then as they are now. This anthology analyzes a number of case studies and provides insights into themes and topics that characterized the so-called ‘reconstitution’ of armies in their historical and social contexts.

How Armies Grow

How Armies Grow PDF Author: Matthias Strohn
Publisher: Casemate
ISBN: 1612006027
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Get Book Here

Book Description
This anthology of historical war studies looks at military expansion from the French Revolution to WWII—and the enduring lessons for today. In the years after the Cold War, many governments sought to reduce the sizes of their armed forces. Along with this general reduction came a shift in military doctrine away from conventional warfare and toward counterinsurgency operations. But in light of new geopolitical developments, the pendulum is swinging back. Once again, armies are growing in size. Now is the time to look back at the age of total war and the hard-won military lessons about the buildup, composition and use of large formations. It is these lessons from history that this book addresses. What does history tell us about military expansion? How did armies prepare and train for a major conflict in times of peace? How did the armies ensure that the doctrine and training used in a small army was adequate for a drastically enlarged army in the case of total war? All these questions were as relevant then as they are now. This anthology analyzes a number of case studies and provides insights into themes and topics that characterized the so-called ‘reconstitution’ of armies in their historical and social contexts.

The Rise of the G.I. Army, 1940–1941

The Rise of the G.I. Army, 1940–1941 PDF Author: Paul Dickson
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
ISBN: 0802147682
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 583

Get Book Here

Book Description
“A must-read book that explores a vital pre-war effort [with] deep research and gripping writing.” —Washington Times In The rise of the G.I. Army, 1940–1941, Paul Dickson tells the dramatic story of how the American Army was mobilized from scattered outposts two years before Pearl Harbor into the disciplined and mobile fighting force that helped win World War II. In September 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland and initiated World War II, America had strong isolationist leanings. The US Army stood at fewer than 200,000 men—unprepared to defend the country, much less carry the fight to Europe and the Far East. And yet, less than a year after Pearl Harbor, the American army led the Allied invasion of North Africa, beginning the campaign that would defeat Germany, and the Navy and Marines were fully engaged with Japan in the Pacific. Dickson chronicles this transformation from Franklin Roosevelt’s selection of George C. Marshall to be Army Chief of Staff to the remarkable peace-time draft of 1940 and the massive and unprecedented mock battles in Tennessee, Louisiana, and the Carolinas by which the skill and spirit of the Army were forged and out of which iconic leaders like Eisenhower, Bradley, and Clark emerged. The narrative unfolds against a backdrop of political and cultural isolationist resistance and racial tension at home, and the increasingly perceived threat of attack from both Germany and Japan.

How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything

How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything PDF Author: Rosa Brooks
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476777861
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 448

Get Book Here

Book Description
A former top Pentagon official, daughter of anti-war activists, wife of an Army Green Beret and human rights activist presents a scholarly examination of how a constant state of war is contrary to America's founding values, undermines international rules and compromises future security. --Publisher

The Evolution of US Army Tactical Doctrine, 1946-76

The Evolution of US Army Tactical Doctrine, 1946-76 PDF Author: Robert A. Doughty
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military art and science
Languages : en
Pages : 68

Get Book Here

Book Description
This paper focuses on the formulation of doctrine since World War II. In no comparable period in history have the dimensions of the battlefield been so altered by rapid technological changes. The need for the tactical doctrines of the Army to remain correspondingly abreast of these changes is thus more pressing than ever before. Future conflicts are not likely to develop in the leisurely fashions of the past where tactical doctrines could be refined on the battlefield itself. It is, therefore, imperative that we apprehend future problems with as much accuracy as possible. One means of doing so is to pay particular attention to the business of how the Army's doctrine has developed historically, with a view to improving methods of future development.

Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War

Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War PDF Author: Paul Scharre
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393608999
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Get Book Here

Book Description
Winner of the 2019 William E. Colby Award "The book I had been waiting for. I can't recommend it highly enough." —Bill Gates The era of autonomous weapons has arrived. Today around the globe, at least thirty nations have weapons that can search for and destroy enemy targets all on their own. Paul Scharre, a leading expert in next-generation warfare, describes these and other high tech weapons systems—from Israel’s Harpy drone to the American submarine-hunting robot ship Sea Hunter—and examines the legal and ethical issues surrounding their use. “A smart primer to what’s to come in warfare” (Bruce Schneier), Army of None engages military history, global policy, and cutting-edge science to explore the implications of giving weapons the freedom to make life and death decisions. A former soldier himself, Scharre argues that we must embrace technology where it can make war more precise and humane, but when the choice is life or death, there is no replacement for the human heart.

Divided Armies

Divided Armies PDF Author: Jason Lyall
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069119243X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 530

Get Book Here

Book Description
How do armies fight and what makes them victorious on the modern battlefield? In Divided Armies, Jason Lyall challenges long-standing answers to this classic question by linking the fate of armies to their levels of inequality. Introducing the concept of military inequality, Lyall demonstrates how a state's prewar choices about the citizenship status of ethnic groups within its population determine subsequent battlefield performance. Treating certain ethnic groups as second-class citizens, either by subjecting them to state-sanctioned discrimination or, worse, violence, undermines interethnic trust, fuels grievances, and leads victimized soldiers to subvert military authorities once war begins. The higher an army's inequality, Lyall finds, the greater its rates of desertion, side-switching, casualties, and use of coercion to force soldiers to fight. In a sweeping historical investigation, Lyall draws on Project Mars, a new dataset of 250 conventional wars fought since 1800, to test this argument. Project Mars breaks with prior efforts by including overlooked non-Western wars while cataloguing new patterns of inequality and wartime conduct across hundreds of belligerents. Combining historical comparisons and statistical analysis, Lyall also marshals evidence from nine wars, ranging from the Eastern Fronts of World Wars I and II to less familiar wars in Africa and Central Asia, to illustrate inequality's effects. Sounding the alarm on the dangers of inequality for battlefield performance, Divided Armies offers important lessons about warfare over the past two centuries—and for wars still to come.

The Other End of the Spear

The Other End of the Spear PDF Author: John J. Mcgrath
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1105056155
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 121

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book looks at several troop categories based on primary function and analyzes the ratio between these categories to develop a general historical ratio. This ratio is called the Tooth-to-Tail Ratio. McGrath's study finds that this ratio, among types of deployed US forces, has steadily declined since World War II, just as the nature of warfare itself has changed. At the same time, the percentage of deployed forces devoted to logistics functions and to base and life support functions have increased, especially with the advent of the large-scale of use of civilian contractors. This work provides a unique analysis of the size and composition of military forces as found in historical patterns. Extensively illustrated with charts, diagrams, and tables. (Originally published by the Combat Studies Institute Press)

Army Expansions

Army Expansions PDF Author: Barry M. Stentiford
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781940804620
Category : Military service, Voluntary
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Recent discussions about granting direct commissions as field-grade officers (major, lieutenant colonel, and colonel) to people with highly-desirable civilian experience are often couched in terms of "that was done during World War II." Responses that such wartime commissions were temporary commissions in the Army of the United States (AUS), rather than in the Regular Army (RA), are usually met with blank looks. During World War II, almost all Army commissions--the authorization from the government that gives a military officer the right to command--were temporary AUS commissions. The AUS commission saw continued use in limited numbers after the war, but has been in hiatus since the early 1980s. The AUS commission was the last of several types of temporary commissions the United States government used to expand the Army officer corps during wartime. The use of temporary commissions to provide enough officers to lead the quickly growing ranks was the standard practice during most of the major wars fought by the United States until after the end of the Vietnam War, varying only in the type of commission and method for raising additional wartime forces. Only since 1980 has the US Army sought to wage war without issuing some sort of temporary commission to expand the officer corps"--

American Military History Volume 1

American Military History Volume 1 PDF Author: Army Center of Military History
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781944961404
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 436

Get Book Here

Book Description
American Military History provides the United States Army-in particular, its young officers, NCOs, and cadets-with a comprehensive but brief account of its past. The Center of Military History first published this work in 1956 as a textbook for senior ROTC courses. Since then it has gone through a number of updates and revisions, but the primary intent has remained the same. Support for military history education has always been a principal mission of the Center, and this new edition of an invaluable history furthers that purpose. The history of an active organization tends to expand rapidly as the organization grows larger and more complex. The period since the Vietnam War, at which point the most recent edition ended, has been a significant one for the Army, a busy period of expanding roles and missions and of fundamental organizational changes. In particular, the explosion of missions and deployments since 11 September 2001 has necessitated the creation of additional, open-ended chapters in the story of the U.S. Army in action. This first volume covers the Army's history from its birth in 1775 to the eve of World War I. By 1917, the United States was already a world power. The Army had sent large expeditionary forces beyond the American hemisphere, and at the beginning of the new century Secretary of War Elihu Root had proposed changes and reforms that within a generation would shape the Army of the future. But world war-global war-was still to come. The second volume of this new edition will take up that story and extend it into the twenty-first century and the early years of the war on terrorism and includes an analysis of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq up to January 2009.

Toward Combined Arms Warfare

Toward Combined Arms Warfare PDF Author: Jonathan Mallory House
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428915834
Category : Armies
Languages : en
Pages : 235

Get Book Here

Book Description