Reviews for Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle

The average rating for Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-08-07 00:00:00 Anan Hiri A persuasive book in its broad contention that doctrine is more important than firepower, the understanding being that any nation able to have a modern doctrine can also put up a respectable amount of firepower. While compelling, I still found the book a bit too convenient. It needed more examples. For instance, does it predict success at El Alamien? What about the Eastern Front? The Vietnam War?

Review # 2 was written on 2019-05-28 00:00:00 Richard Taylor Biddle clearly argues his "force employment" theory, contra Off-Def systems thinking and RMA. He then presents three persuasive case studies, three operations, from WWI, WWII, and the Gulf War. (He also offers a statistical chapter and an appendix, but that sort of talk goes over my head.) Although RMA dominates especially American popular understanding of war, what he's talking about is the modern continuation of the fundamental historical truth of employment over materiel. Reading this, I thought of the Greek phalanx, as well as Rome's maniple and Marian legionary reforms to that phalanx, how they demonstrated the relative inferiority of sheer numbers and the importance of soldier superiority. This is the classic story, of which Biddle does well to remind us.