The best I've read wasn't a strategy book per se.
1776 - http://www.amazon.com/1776-David-McCullough/dp/0743226712 by David McCullough was full of useful insights on General George Washington and how he used his smarts to defeat the enemy. He wasn't a great strategist, but very pragmatic (like counting the number of shoes on the feet of his “army’ to asses their battle readiness) and willing to take risks. It book was also entertaining as Hell.
Ask HN: good books about military strategy?
51–60 of 68 posts
Re: Ask HN: good books about military strategy?
#52I can't think of any books, but you can find good descriptions of strategy used in famous battles on wikipedia. Some interesting battles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ilipa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Alesia
This one kept me up one night: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae -- and I almost never read history/military books.
Theres a downloadable Stanford lecture on Hannibal, wich is great; the archeologist guy who gives the talk was involved in a student expedition across the Alps, with a real elephant!
Re: Ask HN: good books about military strategy?
#53I used to have a lot more time for non CS reading and actually made an Amazon list on this topic back in 2005: http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/2INJSM38... 1. On War (Everyman's Library (Cloth)) by Carl Von Clausewitz 2. Leadership: The Warrior's Art by Barry R. McCaffrey 3. Small Unit Leadership: A Commonsense Approach by Dandridge M. Malone 4. The Defense of Hill 781: An Allegory of Modern Mechan…
To those, I would add this:
MODERN WARFARE
A French View of Counterinsurgency by Roger Trinquier
Re: Ask HN: good books about military strategy?
#54> for some reason I have wondered about this (maybe for strategy game development...). It's OK, you can be honest here. Your Kraut blood is imbuing you with an inexplicable and overwhelming drive to invade Poland. Reclaim your heritage!
Uhm, honestly, I consider that comment really inappropriate. Someone asks about books and you tell him that he must be a Nazi. Note for future reference in dealing with Germans: jokes where you call them a Nazi == not funny.
Don't mention the war!
Re: Ask HN: good books about military strategy?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you want to understand the context behind all other books on military strategy written since Clausewitz (any book written in the last hundred years), you must read Clausewitz. If you want to understand why the US Army was so dead set on failing to anticipate the next war and continued to train for symmetric war until very recently, you must read Clausewitz. If you want to understand why the new Army and Marine Cor…
FM 3-24 MCWP 3-33.5 COUNTERINSURGENCY DAVID H. PETRAEUS http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24.pdf
I think you will find the Chicago Press version a bit more readable:
http://www.amazon.com/Marine-Corps-Counterinsurgency-Field-M...
Re: Ask HN: good books about military strategy?
#56I would recommend: 1) The Art of War by Niccolò Machiavelli (read by Napoleon) 2) Certain to Win by Chet Richards (talks about OODA loop by John Boyd)
I second "Certain to Win".
Game theorists might define a strategy as an approach to optimal decision-making while you are surrounded by other actors whose actions interact with yours. Chess strategies are a good example.
The author of Certain to Win, Chet Richards, takes a different approach. He defines strategy as "a scheme for creating and managing plans." It is a means to generate, act upon, and discard plans. Strategy is how you "plan to plan." OODA loops are a good example of this approach.
Re: Ask HN: good books about military strategy?
#57I used to have a lot more time for non CS reading and actually made an Amazon list on this topic back in 2005: http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/2INJSM38... 1. On War (Everyman's Library (Cloth)) by Carl Von Clausewitz 2. Leadership: The Warrior's Art by Barry R. McCaffrey 3. Small Unit Leadership: A Commonsense Approach by Dandridge M. Malone 4. The Defense of Hill 781: An Allegory of Modern Mechan…
Have you read all of these?
Re: Ask HN: good books about military strategy?
#58Hmmm, guess no-one here is in the military? The (American) military branches all publish their own reading lists, updated annually, that'd be a great starting point.
http://www.af.mil/library/csafreading/
http://www.history.army.mil/reference/csalist/csalist.htm
and the National Defense University has a big compilation:
http://www.ndu.edu/library/readinglist/PMReadingList.html
Re: Ask HN: good books about military strategy?
#59Have you read Clausewitz On War? That was one of my favorite books last year. This is more general than you are looking for and it stops a bit short of air war but it helped me to put historical events into a global context. The outline of history; being a plain history of life and mankind. Rev. and brought up to date by Raymond Postgate and G.P. Wells. With maps and plans by J.F. Horrabin. Wells, H. G. 1866-1946. (H…
If you want to understand the context behind all other books on military strategy written since Clausewitz (any book written in the last hundred years), you must read Clausewitz. If you want to understand why the US Army was so dead set on failing to anticipate the next war and continued to train for symmetric war until very recently, you must read Clausewitz. If you want to understand why the new Army and Marine Cor…
You might also want to read Nagl's book: "How to Eat Soup with a Knife." (who knows how that period/quotation thing works...)
Anyways, he covers insurgencies fought unsuccessfully by Americans and successfully by the British, and why they succeeded and failed. Nagl doesn't come out and say the reasons are X, Y, Z. It's more here are important events A, B, C and here are important structural and cultural facts about the militaries that can help explain them.
Another book to read is "A Savage War of Peace." It describes the Algerian insurgency during French rule. While Petraeus based his strategy in Iraq on the French's strategy, it is also relevant due to the strong similarity between what happened with the French populace and what is happening with our own.
Re: Ask HN: good books about military strategy?
#60War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today by Max Boot. Just published in 2006.
http://www.amazon.com/War-Made-New-Technology-Warfare/dp/159...
I don't agree with the guy's politics, but his view on the melding of technology and military history is pretty interesting.
"My major conclusion? Simply that it's not enough to acquire first-class technology. You also need the right organizational structure, training, and leadership to take advantage of that technology. Today, the U.S. is the undisputed leader in high-tech hardware, but our government bureaucracy is still designed to fight mirror-image adversaries from the Industrial Age--not nimble, decentralized foes like Al Qaeda." -- Max Boot
See also: http://www.cfr.org/publication/10313/war_made_new.html