Thread by @PhillipsPOBrien

Ok, some people have asked for a summary of my views on war (why my analysis of the Ukraine war has been so pointed), so I thought I would make this thread with reference to my research (where possible free or library access material).

My view of war is in many ways profoundly boring. War is a struggle about the control of communications--which run from the raw materials needed to produce a good until that good is delivered to the battlefield.

It argues that the focus on bravery/cowardice of destruction/tragedy while compelling as a human story, tells us nothing of value about why wars are won and lost.

My most well known book outlined this thesis for World War II, and is entitled How the War was Won (Cambridge Univ Press, 2015). Its brutally long at 250,000 words so dont read it unless your a masochist. Here is a brief summary. voxeu.org/article/how-wa…

If you want to see the book, here is the amazon link. From the start it argues that battles distort our understanding of what is important in the war. That control of communications and the air/sea war were far more important than the land war. amazon.com/gp/product/B00…

It was controversial because it has been accused of diminishing the importance of the Eastern Front. I dont believe thats true--the Eastern Front was important, it just got a surprisingly small amount of war production. Here are two screen shots from the introduction.

I also wrote a synthesis work on the logistics of the war, which discusses the things we are seeing in Ukraine today (the need to coordinate rail and road (trucks and trains) to supply a large modern army. You should be able to get online library access. cambridge.org/core/books/abs…

Basically, if you dont put alot of effort into building and maintaining your logistics, doesnt matter how great your army is or how snazzy your uniforms are. You will lose.

Finally for a grand strategic perspective, Ive written a biography of FDR's chief of staff in WWII, and the highest ranking US military officer in the war, Admiral William Leahy.

Leahy (along with FDR) had a communications based understanding of strategy, as opposed to the battle-centric vision of George Marshall. Leahy was also far more influential than Marshall--while Roosevelt lived. Here is a free summary. historynet.com/roosevelts-rig…

You might have heard of Leahy as that strange military man who did not want to drop the atom bomb or invade Japan--and that is true. He saw no point in either, believing Japan was defeated in 1945 because it had lost control of its communications.

Here is a link to the bio if you want to see more. Again its a bit wordy, but hopefully not too boring. amazon.com/gp/product/B07…

So my view of war is that its about the control of communications (movement) and requires highly professional, motivated and high morale personnel (actually these are symbiotic qualities). It is about the operation of complex systems.

What we have seen so far in Ukraine is a Russian inability to operate the systems they would need to succeed and the Ukrainians able to operate the systems they need to stop them--often by disrupting Russian communications. Sorry for the length!

I’ve also done alot of my current research on the present and future of air power, as AirPower is one of my specialties . Here is a link to a conference with podcasts on the subject. isws.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/events-and-con…

The inability of the Russians to gain control of the air, was such a fundamental failing of modern complex systems warfare, that it also instantly called into question their overall war fighting ability in my analysis

Final piece of research, a free access team-written article in the Journal of Strategic Studies. Discusses how management studies literature and the concept of strategy as practice holds out important lessons for how strategic studies discusses strategy. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

It indicates (I hope) that Ive had some longer concerns than this war with how the strategic studies community conceptualizes its work. Management studies (or organizational studies) can actually teach us alot. If we are willing to listen.

Think I need to update this thread as some have intimated my research is about doing war better. Actually, as I hope Ive made clear in other threads, my research points out that war is almost always a disaster, because its really hard and spins out of control.

In particular the side launching the war normally unleashes a disaster on itself and a humanitarian catastrophe on others. So the impact of the research will hopefully be--dont attempt to go to war. You wont like the results.