Books by John Keegan and Paddy Griffith

Last spring, 1997

Having spent a fair amount of time reading military history here is my entirely personal and biased guide to books on the subject.

A History of Warfare by John Keegan

This book is right at the top of my list as one of the best books on the subject of war. The author, John Keegan, came into the 1990's as one of the most popular military historians. His most famous works prior to this book were "The Face of Battle" and "The Mask of Command". Then, in 1993 he produced this master piece. A distillation of everything that he had learned about war and warfare. It is a wonderful book, full of insights and wisdom.

Some details about Keegan's Arguments

In effect Keegan argues for two important positions: 1) War is fundamentally a bad thing and 2) Clausewitz was wrong. Considering that Clausewitz has been practically deified in the West for the last 100 years, and considering that war has been an essential tool of all human civilizations, Keegan has a tough row to hoe defending this positions.

This is my summary of Keegan's argument: The ultimate end of rational politics is to further the well being of political entities (p. 381). The nature of war is such that those who practice warfare in its most violent form will triumph over those who accept limitations on warfare (p. 21). The paradox is that war, when practiced in its ultimate form, does not leave behind living political entities. "True war" in the modern world results in destruction of political entities (both the victor and the vanquished). So, Clausewitz's famous maxim "war is the continuation of politics by other means" is basically flawed.

The logic of the arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States was such that both countries committed themselves to "mutual destruction" in the event of a war between them. One can hardly look back on this policy with anything other than dismay. The fact that we survived this phase of history is more a credit to innate human decency (especially in the form of Mr. Gorbachev) than it is a credit to the political and military leadership which created the situation.

Another interesting part of this book is the contrast between the "western" way of war (characterized by a quest for a decisive battle that will resolve the conflict through victory for one side and defeat for the other) and the "eastern/primitive" way of war (which places emphasis on deception, avoidance of battle, and the tactics of harassment). The western ideal of warfare logically leads to "total war", and total war, since the discovery of nuclear bombs, is likely to be suicidal.

I got the feeling from reading the book that Keegan was in a profound state of disillusionment. He has essentially dedicated his life to the teaching and study of war and now he has come to the conclusion that it all leads to madness. The arms races, the citizen armies, the great battles, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, where has all this taken us to? A world where we were committed to the killing of a billion people just to preserve our political forms? A world where the western way of war has produced two wars that bankrupted the rulers of the World in the 1800s and resulted in the deaths of millions?

This is not to say that war can be ended and that armies have no use. Military forces are still necessary for "rational" nations. At the very least, as insurance against "irrational" states. Rational states can also use military forces in an offensive fashion to "beat" on irrational states, to correct human rights abuses, to insure that the good of the world is protected. But war total war between "first world" nations, this we must avoid.

Forward into Battle by Paddy Griffith

If you read a lot of "popular" military histories the following question may occur to you (at least it did to me) "This stuff about generals ordering troops around and winning great victories is all well and good but how does it actually happen? What is really going on?" It turns out that it is a lot easier to say "Marshal X was a great general and that is why he won this battle against General Y" than it is to say "the point of the attack was the 5th infantry, and as they came out of the woods, a breeze blew off the smoke and they were clearly visible to the defenders. They were hit by accurate and deadly fire and not a man even reached 100 years of the defenders position. With this failure, the whole attack collapsed."

Paddy Griffith's books focus on the small but vital details of what drives battles. This is known as the study of tactics. To really understand wars and battles you must understand tactics. Tactics are the subtle details that change in large and small ways as each year goes by and new weapons are introduced, new social organizations appear, and as terrain changes (from fields to urban industrial landscapes).

"Forward into Battle" covers tactics from 1800 to the modern era while "Battle Tactics of the Civil War" offers a detailed analysis of combat in the American Civil War. I recommend them both highly.

Go on to the next page of books by Von Manstein, Van Creveld, Adan, and Von Senger und Etterlin.