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.
この記事は History of War の Issue 116 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は History of War の Issue 116 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
NAUMACHIA TRUTH BEHIND ROME'S GLADIATOR SEA BATTLES
In their quest for evermore novel and bloody entertainment, the Romans staged enormous naval fights on artificial lakes
OPERATION MANNA
In late April 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were starving as Nazi retribution for the failed Operation Market Garden cut off supplies. eet as In response, Allied bombers launched a risky mission to air-drop food
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?
SALAMANCA
After years of largely defensive campaigning, Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley went on the offensive against a French invasion of Andalusia
HUMBERT 'ROCKY'VERSACE
Early in the Vietnam War, a dedicated US Special Forces officer defied his merciless Viet Cong captors and inspired his fellow POWs to survive
LEYTE 1944 SINKING THE RISING SUN
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
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
Einstein, Oppenheimer and the race to beat Hitler to the bomb. How a science project in the desert helped win a war