This monograph is meant to inspire military professionals to approach Prussian military history as a source of concepts with enduring relevance for modern armed forces. Reference point for the examination is the Bundeswehr (German armed forces) and...
In the aftermath of World War II, many Western armies studied the German Blitzkrieg success. They concluded that the German mission command philosophy was a cornerstone to lead and command troops in fluid and uncertain combat situations. This...
This collection of translations by Harry Bell from the German was undertaken in pursuance of the policy of making available in the English language the materials necessary for the study of the history of modern foreign wars. The focus of this book...
Gen. Helmuth von Moltke, the Chief of the Prussian General Staff during the Franco-Prussian War, defined Auftragstaktik as the actions a subordinate took in the absence of orders that supported the senior commander's intent. The use of mission...
Most important of the changes affecting today's Army, probably, is the manner in which the Army conceptualizes the performance of its primary missions-protecting and defending the Constitution and fighting the nation's wars. Current institutional...
Since the end of the Cold War, the worldview is that the United States is presently the only superpower. The expectation, within the Department of Defense (DOD) and the world's other military institutions, is that this status will exist for the...
This monograph explores the truism that "No plan survives first contact with the enemy". Why do commanders and staff officers continue to plan in great detail when the results of the Combat Training Centers and other events continue to reinforce...
The monograph analyzes maneuver and proposes these questions. What is maneuver? What is maneuver, in the Joint Vision (JV) 2010 sense, and what makes it dominant? To answer these questions, the monograph studies three stages in the evolution of...
The decentralized command and control system required to execute AirLand Battle Doctrine presents a significant challenge to tactical leaders. Incapable of predicting the critical place on the battlefield or occupying multiple vantage points...
The Army recognizes that a medium-weight contingency force would be well suited to meet national security requirements for the twenty-first century. This medium-weight force would have an ability to deploy more quickly than heavy armor formations,...
This monograph examines why many commanders continue to have problems writing effective commander's intent statements. Doctrine writers reintroduced "Commander's intent" to United States Army doctrine with the 1982 version of FM 100-5, Operations....
Surrendering the Initiative?: C2 on the Digitized Battlefield. Captain Jim Dunivan, U.S. Army; On the battlefield leaders make decisions in the midst of great uncertainty, demonstrating adaptability, independence, and creativity as they plan...
This anthology was inspired by its authors and the Soldiers and Marines they lead. Their experiences and reflections appear in this volume, a collection of battle studies that focus on leadership success, and failure, in the great campaigns of the...
Helmuth von Moltke’s alleged statement the U.S. Civil War was an affair in which two armed mobs chased each other around the country and from which no lessons could be learned underlines a grave misjudgment of this war in contemporary Germany....
Throughout the past 15 years, both the Western allies and the Russians have entered into a series of military engagements that have in one way or another spectacularly failed to achieve the results intended, namely a decisive military victory which...
This monograph examines whether a planned operation in a campaign should be executed unchanged, modified, or canceled. A campaign is a progression of sequential or simultaneous operations designed to accomplish a strategic objective. A campaign...
This monograph analyzes the manual wargaming portion of the U.S. Army's decision-making cycle in order to determine if the process deduces the optimum course of action. The monograph begins by examining game theory, which is the theoretical basis...
Historically, fog and friction have exacerbated the best laid battle plans of even the most intuitive wartime commanders. To mitigate these ever-present elements, the U.S. Army emphasizes the decentralized execution of AirLand Battle. Paramount to...
Railroads have played an important part in wars throughout modern history. Today, the contributions rail can make to America's national defense include U.S. commercial rail help with mobilization of military units stationed in the United States....