War's Logic
Strategic Thought and the American Way of War

Surveys how American strategic theorists have understood the nature and character of war in the twentieth century.

Antulio J. Echevarria II (Author)

9781107091979, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 February 2021

300 pages
15 x 23 x 2 cm, 0.6 kg

'An articulate, penetrating, refreshing, intellectually satisfying, unvarnished and well researched treatise that captures, through compelling, essential biographies, the evolving American Way of War. A fabulous and engaging book.' Patricia M. Shields, Editor-in-Chief of Armed Forces & Society

Antulio J. Echevarria II reveals how successive generations of American strategic theorists have thought about war. Analyzing the work of Alfred Thayer Mahan, Billy Mitchell, Bernard Brodie, Robert Osgood, Thomas Schelling, Herman Kahn, Henry Eccles, Joseph Wiley, Harry Summers, John Boyd, William Lind, and John Warden, he uncovers the logic that underpinned each theorist's critical concepts, core principles, and basic assumptions about the nature and character of war. In so doing, he identifies four paradigms of war's nature - traditional, modern, political, and materialist - that have shaped American strategic thought. If war's logic is political, as Carl von Clausewitz said, then so too is thinking about war.

Introduction
Part I. First Principles and Modern War: 1. Alfred Thayer Mahan and Sea Power
2. Billy Mitchell and Air Power
Part II. The Revolt of the Strategy Intellectuals: 3. Bernard Brodie, Robert Osgood and Limited War
4. Thomas Schelling
War as Bargaining and Coercion
5. Herman Kahn and Escalation
Part III. The Counterrevolution of the Military Intellectuals: 6. Henry Eccles and Reforming Strategic Theory
7. J.C. Wiley and Strategy as Control
8. Harry Summers and the Principles of War
Part IV. The Insurrection of the Operational Artists: 9. John Boyd, William Lind and Maneuver
10. John Warden and Air Operational Art
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Theory of warfare & military science [JWA], International relations [JPS], Military history [HBW], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], History of the Americas [HBJK]