War is a complicated and destructive force that has consumed and bedevilled humanity for many thousands of years. Many commanders across history have made terrible decisions on how to conduct warfare, leading to innumerable military and civilian deaths and failures of geopolitical objectives that have led to more conflicts.
In his upcoming book How to Fight a War, conflict scholar and former British Army officer Dr Mike Martin takes the reader through the hard but elegant logic required to fight conclusive interstate wars that solves geopolitical problems and reduces the risk of future conflict. In cool and precise prose, he outlines how to orchestrate military forces, from infantry to information and from strategy to tactics.
Dr Martin, who is a senior visiting research fellow at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, discusses the importance of strategy, why land warfare is more decisive than its air and sea counterparts, his view on the most successful armed forces in military history and how nuclear weapons changed the nature of how powerful nations fight each other. He also reveals why he is convinced Ukraine will win its current war with Russia and how artificial intelligence will determine the course of military operations in the 21st century.
At a fundamental level, why do human beings fight wars?
People generally say that religion or ideology cause wars. Certainly they are involved, but there is a much deeper layer. At a very fundamental level humans fight to achieve status or belong to cohesive social groups. These two drives are profoundly rooted in our psychology, having been developed by evolution over millions of years.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der Issue 116-Ausgabe von History of War.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der Issue 116-Ausgabe von History of War.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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In their quest for evermore novel and bloody entertainment, the Romans staged enormous naval fights on artificial lakes
OPERATION MANNA
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GASSING HITLER
Just a month before the end of WWI, the future Fuhrer was blinded by a British shell and invalided away from the frontline. Over a century later, has the artillery brigade that launched the fateful attack finally been identified?
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After years of largely defensive campaigning, Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley went on the offensive against a French invasion of Andalusia
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Early in the Vietnam War, a dedicated US Special Forces officer defied his merciless Viet Cong captors and inspired his fellow POWs to survive
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One of the more difficult island campaigns in WWII's Pacific Theatre saw a brutal months-long fight that exhausted Japan’s military strength
MAD DAWN
How technology transformed strategic thinking and military doctrine from the Cold War to the current day
BRUSHES WITH ARMAGEDDON
Humanity came close to self-annihilation with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Broken Arrows’ and other nuclear near misses
THE DEADLY RACE
How the road to peace led to an arms contest between the USA and USSR, with prototypes, proliferation and the world’s biggest bomb
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