How do we plan under conditions of uncertainty? The perspective of military planners is a key organizing framework: do they see themselves as preparing to administer a peace, or preparing to fight a future war? Most interwar volumes examine only the 1920s and the 1930s. This new volume goes back, and forward in time, to draw on a greater expanse of history in order to tease out lessons for contemporary planners. These chapters are grouped into four periods: 1815-1856, 1871-1914, 1918-1938, and post-Second World War. They progress from low-tech to high-tech concerns, for example, the first period examines armies, while the second period examines navies, the third asseses navies combined with air forces, and finally for the Kaiser chapter explores nuclear issues and decision-making.

This documentary sourcebook of actual U.S. war plans traces the nation's political and strategic goals from the contemplation of war against Japan and Germany in November of 1938 to Eisenhower's March 1945 plan for the defeat of Germany and the conquest of Japan. For the first time, the major strategic - e.g., ABC-1 and Rainbow 5 - and operational - e.g., Torch, Husky, Plan Dog, Fortitude, and Cartwheel - war plans of the U.S. military pertaining to WWII are presented in one volume. Ross sets each plan in its strategic and operational context with an explanatory and analytical introduction.

The U.S. military is one of the largest and most complex organizations in the world. How it spends its money, chooses tactics, and allocates its resources have enormous implications for national defense and the economy. The Science of War is the only comprehensive textbook on how to analyze and understand these and other essential problems in modern defense policy. Michael O'Hanlon provides undergraduate and graduate students with an accessible yet rigorous introduction to the subject. Drawing on a broad range of sources and his own considerable expertise as a defense analyst and teacher, he describes the analytic techniques the military uses in every crucial area of military science. O'Hanlon explains how the military budget works, how the military assesses and deploys new technology, develops strategy and fights wars, handles the logistics of stationing and moving troops and equipment around the world, and models and evaluates battlefield outcomes. His modeling techniques have been tested in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the methods he used to predict higher-than-anticipated troop fatalities in Iraq--controversial predictions that have since been vindicated. The Science of War is the definitive resource on warfare in the twenty-first century. Gives the best introduction to defense analysis available Covers defense budgeting Shows how to model and predict outcomes in war Explains military logistics, including overseas basing Examines key issues in military technology, including missile defense, space warfare, and nuclear-weapons testing Based on the author's graduate-level courses at Princeton, Columbia, and Georgetown universities

April 2020This book is an attempt to look at 21st century warfare as if Sun Tzu were alive today and guided by the concept of information dominance (zhixinxiquan) in keeping with China's grand strategy: winning without fighting. "Informationized operations (信化战 or xinxi hua zuozhan)" add a dimension that Sun Tzu never anticipated, but much of the thinking he demonstrated can be applied in a very practical sense to modern conflicts. This is not just a discussion of hacking into an adversary's computer systems to determine capability and intent, but the opponent's ability to use information strategically to shape the battle-space in a manner that increases the likelihood of victory with the least risk of discovery. Mastery of "integrated network electronic warfare (INEW)" is important because the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has not engaged in a major conflict since 1979, and its combat experience in high-tech war under informationized conditions is virtually nil. The Strategic Support Force (SSF), is the branch of the PLA with primary responsibility for space, electronic, and cyber warfare. The Informatization Department in the PLA's General Staff Department (GSD) is responsible for developing, constructing, operating, and maintaining the PLA's nation-wide command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4ISR) system. The Technical Department (also known as the 3rd Department) oversees a vast infrastructure for monitoring communications traffic from collection sites inside China, possibly from embassies and other facilities abroad, and perhaps from space-based assets in the future. This is roughly the equivalent of the United States' National Security Agency (NSA). The Electronic Countermeasures and Radar Department (also known as the 4th Department) is responsible for radar-related joint operational requirements development and electronic countermeasures (ECM). Its priorities appear to include satellite jamming, counter-stealth radar systems and disrupting adversary communications, navigation, synthetic aperture radar, and other satellites. The Strategic Planning Department is also a new addition to the GSD, having been created in 2011. It is believed that it signifies a serious PLA effort to envelop traditional and cyber-related war fighting capabilities, plans, and policies into a unified effort. Recent changes in the GSD's structure certainly suggest that the PLA is making organizational adjustments aimed at integrating C4, ISR, ELINT, SIGINT, ECM, cyber, etc. into an organic whole with the goal of developing a robust capability for integrated network electronic warfare (INEW) tailored to exploiting U.S. weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The wartime use of the GSD elements most directly involved in INEW would be orchestrated by the Operations Department (also known as the 1st Department in terms of protocol order). This department is responsible for current military operations, including management of the PLA's Joint Operations Command Center (in the Xishan suburb of western Beijing), airspace surveillance and air traffic control (ATC), border defense, and survey and mapping, hydrological, and meteorological support to current operations. (Its American counterpart is the Joint Staff J-3.) The Training Department is engaged in the building of new types of combat forces. It optimizes the size and structure of the various services and arms, reforms the organization of the troops so as to make operational forces lean, joint, multi-functional and efficient. The PLA works to improve the training mechanism for military personnel of a new type, adjust policies and rules regarding military human resources and logistics, and strengthen the development of new- and high-technology weaponry and equipment to build a modern military force structure with Chinese characteristics.