Military Adaptation in War
With Fear of Change

Addresses how military organizations confront the problem of adapting under the trying, terrifying conditions of war.

Williamson Murray (Author)

9781107006591, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 10 October 2011

352 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.5 cm, 0.61 kg

'… an important work for those interested in the events it covers, as well as for anyone concerned with how armed forces tick.' A. A. Nofi, www.strategypage.com

Military Adaptation in War addresses one of the most persistent problems that military organizations confront: namely, the problem of how to adapt under the trying, terrifying conditions of war. This work builds on the volume that Professor Williamson Murray edited with Allan Millett on military innovation (a quite different issue, though similar in some respects). In Clausewitzian terms, war is a contest, an interactive duel, which is of indeterminate length and presents a series of intractable problems at every level, from policy and strategy down to the tactical. Moreover, the fact that the enemy is adapting at the same time presents military organizations with an ever-changing set of conundrums that offer up no easy solutions. As the British general, James Wolfe, suggested before Quebec: 'War is an option of difficulties'. Dr Murray provides an in-depth analysis of the problems that military forces confront in adapting to these difficulties.

Preface
1. Introduction: the background to military adaptation
2. The historical framework of adaptation
3. Complex adaptation: the Western front 1914–1918
4. Flawed adaptation: German adaptation and the opening battles of World War II
5. The battle for the British Isles: June 1940–May 1941
6. Adaptation in the air war: RAF bomber command and Luftwaffe's air defenses (15 May 1940 to 7 May 1945)
7. The 1973 Yom Kippur War
8. Conclusion: adaptation and the future.

Subject Areas: Military history [HBW], History of the Americas [HBJK]