books on war strategies.

[Mystic Muse]

before you ask. this is for absolutely no particular reason. I'm just kind of interested in war strategies after reading erfworld and I though maybe some of you guys would know the best books centering on war strategy.

although it is entirely possible that nobody's ever read a book on war.

oh and not "the art of war." by sun tzu. already read it.

[Flickerdart]

Anything by Machiavelli, pretty much. The Prince, the Art of War, it's all good.

[pita]

A friend of mine highly recommended the Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
Also, Wikipedia.
EDIT-Thank you

[Myshlaevsky]

On War by Clausewitz is widely considered the Western (or at least European) counterpart to The Art of War.

[Mystic Muse]

thanks for the suggestions. just keep em coming.

[Fri]

A friend of mine highly recommended the Book of Five Rings by wotsisname... famous dead japanese samurai guy... referenced in almost any work containing samurai... GAH WHY DON'T I REMEMBER.
Also, Wikipedia.

...It's Musashi...

[Liffguard]

The Utility of Force (http://www.amazon.com/Utility-Force-Modern-World-Vintage/dp/0307278115/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1249561357&sr=8-1) by Rupert Smith.

Basically a book about the nature of war in the modern world and the blurring of the lines between the military and the political/civilian and the changes in not just the methods of war but also the very reasons for war. Very much worth reading.

[Surfing HalfOrc]

The Tiger's Way: A U.S. Private's Best Chance for Survival (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0963869566/smallwarsjour-20/103-5461000-6295861?creative=327641&camp=14573&link_code=as1), H. John Poole.

Good "on the ground" strategy and tips for the modern soldier.

Anything by David Weber.

It depends on what you're interested in. Sun Tzu and Carl von Clausewitz whote about war at the Macro level, but there are several good books at the Micro level.

[Kcalehc]

Just about any historical account of any battle. Depends what level you're looking at, an overarching planning/war level, a campaign level view, a battle, an engaement within a battle, platoon level tactics or even down to strategies for individual soldiers within a unit. But history shows many good examples of how it is done (and plenty of warnings about how it shouldn't be done too...).

Rommel and Montgomery's engagements in North Africa are good reading. The Falklands Islands war is interesting as a smaller war in a relatively enclosed battle space.

[Jimorian]

The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=263154). A strategy reference for modern asymmetrical warfare.

[Weezer]

Clausewitz On War is an amazing resource, slightly repetitive at time but very good nonetheless. If your interested in learning about mobile warfare, read an in depth analysis of Rommel's campaigns, both in WWI and in WWII. For guerrilla warfare, Che Guevera's Guerrilla Warfare is supposed to be very good, haven't read it myself though.

EDIT:
Probably your best bet is to read a good analysis of the great campaigners, Napoleon, Alexander, Caesar etc. and from that get a good idea of overall strategy.

[Om]

I found Stan Goff's Full Spectrum Disorder to be a very good analysis of the US military and its role in the world today. Ignore the overly philosophical introduction and epilogue and jump straight into his accounts of service across the world

You interested in books of operational history as well as military doctrine?


On War by Clausewitz is widely considered the Western (or at least European) counterpart to The Art of War.Not a great comparison, beyond levels of fame at least. On War is an infamously abstract study of war as a system. Sun Tzu's treatise is more of a manual, perhaps better compared to Jomini's works (for a contemporary of Clausewitz) or the Roman De Re Militari

But then I've always found Western authors to be less interested in the mechanics of war (outside specialist journals) than the various socio-economic factors that affect it. Even The Prince is less a study of war than an ideal society (or ruler), of which war plays only a part. Ditto Machiavelli's own Art of War which, alongside practicalities, deals heavily with the role of the military in society

[Telonius]

TheThan and Swordguy could probably be more helpful to you than I can... but "Genghis Khan and the making of the modern world" by Jack Weatherford had some helpful items. Some of the strategies the Mongols used are still applicable today.

[13_CBS]

I believe stuff by John Keegan (or was it Keagan?) can be handy, like The Face of Battle and whatnot.

[skywalker]

A friend of mine highly recommended the Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
Also, Wikipedia.
EDIT-Thank you

Note that Musashi is relatively small scale, and his ideas about larger-scale stuff are... Less well formed.


EDIT: Probably your best bet is to read a good analysis of the great campaigners, Napoleon, Alexander, Caesar etc. and from that get a good idea of overall strategy.

"All Gaul is divided into 3 parts..."

[Liffguard]

I believe stuff by John Keegan (or was it Keagan?) can be handy, like The Face of Battle and whatnot.

Whilst Keegan is definitely worth reading it's worth keeping in mind that he's a historian and he writes like one, so don't go in expecting manuals of strategy.

[Voshkod]

Kahn, On Thermonuclear War.

Alfred Thayer Mahan, in general, on sea power.

Jomini, Art of War

Clauswitz and Sun Tzu, as already noted.

[Swordguy]

I'm not going to give you a list of books by famous dead guys. Military strategy exists in a state inexorably to the technology and circumstances available at the time at which it's conceived. Without knowing what time period you'd like to discuss (WWI, Napoleonic, Modern Asymmetrical Warfare, Victorian Naval-era), any given recommendation is pointless.

Many of the timeless books on warfare - The Arts of War, On War, The Book of Five Rings and so forth are so general as to be useless. They're "duh"-level strategy: attempt to attack the flank; leave openings for retreat; if you can convince the enemy to surrender, it's better than fighting it out; and so on...or they're so specific to the time period as to be useless (Sun-Tzu's logisitical advice, for example, is specifically tailored to the circumstances of the ancient Chinese military...or has such helpful reminders as "don't run out of food". Duh.)

Thusly, if you have a specific time period or type of strategy you're explicitly interested in, I can offer advice. If not, your best best will be to go to Borders and buy out their "General Warfare" section until you decide to be more specific.

[skywalker]

Many of the timeless books on warfare - The Arts of War, On War, The Book of Five Rings and so forth are so general as to be useless. They're "duh"-level strategy: attempt to attack the flank; leave openings for retreat; if you can convince the enemy to surrender, it's better than fighting it out; and so on...or they're so specific to the time period as to be useless (Sun-Tzu's logisitical advice, for example, is specifically tailored to the circumstances of the ancient Chinese military...or has such helpful reminders as "don't run out of food". Duh.)

You would be surprised how many people do not find those things to be "duh"-level.

It also never hurts to have a reminder.

[Thane of Fife]

I'd recommend finding books and other sources on specific battles or campaigns in the periods that you're interested in.

But as Swordguy says, more details would be helpful.

[Dervag]

I'm going to recommend Basil Henry Liddell-Hart's work Strategy; it represents at least the beginnings of what I'm going to call, for lack of a better term, "post-Clausewitzian" military strategy.

======


Many of the timeless books on warfare - The Arts of War, On War, The Book of Five Rings and so forth are so general as to be useless. They're "duh"-level strategy: attempt to attack the flank; leave openings for retreat; if you can convince the enemy to surrender, it's better than fighting it out; and so on...or they're so specific to the time period as to be useless (Sun-Tzu's logisitical advice, for example, is specifically tailored to the circumstances of the ancient Chinese military...or has such helpful reminders as "don't run out of food". Duh.)To be fair, a lot of this stuff is "duh" level because people like Sun Tzu worked it out. Centuries of Darwinian processes have mostly weeded out any approach that produces commanders dumb enough to ignore Sun Tzu's precepts entirely, but for a very long time people did ignore them.

"Don't run out of food" is a very obvious thing that you'd think even Stone Age military leaders would be able to keep track of... but people were having trouble with that as recently as the Second World War. They're only obvious in an armchair sense, or to someone who has spent a lot of time and energy getting their stuff straight.

By way of analogy, Newton's First Law (if nothing pushes on a thing, it won't speed up or slow down) is extremely simple... but it wasn't obvious until after someone had already made a point of it and managed to convince all the numerous people who hadn't got the memo.

[Swordguy]

======

To be fair, a lot of this stuff is "duh" level because people like Sun Tzu worked it out. Centuries of Darwinian processes have mostly weeded out any approach that produces commanders dumb enough to ignore Sun Tzu's precepts entirely, but for a very long time people did ignore them.

"Don't run out of food" is a very obvious thing that you'd think even Stone Age military leaders would be able to keep track of... but people were having trouble with that as recently as the Second World War. They're only obvious in an armchair sense, or to someone who has spent a lot of time and energy getting their stuff straight.

By way of analogy, Newton's First Law (if nothing pushes on a thing, it won't speed up or slow down) is extremely simple... but it wasn't obvious until after someone had already made a point of it and managed to convince all the numerous people who hadn't got the memo.

Well, all true, but the OP said he wasn't interested in Sun-Tzu and the like. I interpreted that to mean he had at least a moderate understanding of the general principles of strategy and logistics as described by said Chinese general, Clausewitz, et al.

Which in turn means that he's best served by applying those principles to specific instances, which are determined by time period and available technology. Thus the request for further clarification.

[Shirocco]

Everything i've read by Bernard Cornwell so far. His dark ages material (lords of the north) and the Sharpe novels are full of great stuff.

Strategy? Not so much. But flavour and tactics by the ton.

[Mystic Muse]

ah sorry for being unclear. I meant war in a time period completely devoid of guns and war in general is okay too.

I meant not the art of war by sun Tzu because I already read it.

[Falconer]

I would recommend Infantry Attacks, written by none other than Erwin Rommel himself. It's pretty good.

[Swordguy]

ah sorry for being unclear. I meant war in a time period completely devoid of guns and war in general is okay too.


Ahhh...now THAT makes a difference! The vast majority of military works are from the period after Frederick the Great reorganized and revolutionized warfare and wrote it down (so, post 1745ish) for his generals ("Military Instructions for Generals"). As a reference, de Saxe's "Mes Rêveries" was written earlier, but published later, in 1757-8, iirc. Needless to say, this postdates firearms being a staple on the battlefield by some time, so you're actually excluding a vast body of work. That makes out lives easier in recommending stuff.

The thing is, there's very few extant works relating to strategy pre-Renaissance. And most modern works aren't about strategy, they're about a particular battle or campaign or war, and so discuss strategy only in a limited perspective. That doesn't make them useless, it just means that you'll have to read "between the lines" somewhat to get the most out of them.

So here's a good pre-gunpowder starting list that I can personally recommend from my library, in semi-historical order:

-The Art of War - Sun-tzu
-The Art of the Five Rings - Musashi
-A History of Warfare - John Keegan (chapters 1-4, specifically)
-Cavalry Operations in the Ancient Greek World - Gaebel
-With Arrow, Sword, and Spear: A History of Warfare in the Ancient World
-Prehistoric Warfare in the American Southwest - LeBlanc
-The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare - Sabin
-The military institutions of the Romans (aka De Re Militari) - Vegitus
-Norse Warfare: Unconventional Battle Strategies of the Ancient Viking - Sprague
-Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century - Rogers
-Neglected Heroes: Leadership and War in the Early Medieval Period - Gore
-Medieval Sieges & Siegecraft - Hindly
-Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World: Equipment, Combat Skills and Tactics - Bennett (not strategy per se, but still quite useful)
-The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War - Murray
-The Medieval Military Revolution: State, Society and Military Change in Medieval and Early Modern Europe - Ayton
-Strategy: Second Revised Edition - B.L. Hart
-The Prince - Machiavelli


That should be enough to get you started and keep you busy for a while. :smallbiggrin:
..........................................

Also, the Roots of Strategy series is great; they're collected volumes of some of the better books. Roots of Strategy Vol 1, for example, contains Sun-tzu (Art of War), Vegetius (Military...the Romans), De Saxe (Mes Rêveries), Frederick the Great (Military...Generals), and Napoleon ("Maxims"). There's 4 volumes, iirc, though the fourth is primarily about maritime power. I've only ever seen them in print at museums and military installations (Ft. Jackson and Annapolis), but I'm pretty sure Amazon carries them. They'd be a great start to your collection.

EDIT: D'oh! I forgot about The Strategikon, about Byzantine warfare. It's an immense pain in the ass to find a copy, at least in my experience (I got it before Amazon existed, though). Here's a webpage that discusses it: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/strategikon/strategikon.htm (The Strategikon). Good luck!

EDIT2:BBCode on the link above isn't working for some reason. Sorry.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Yeah, I was going to recommend to Strategikon. There are various other partial military manuals from the ERE, I know, but none are as full.

[Decoy Lockbox]

May I suggest The Big Book of War by W.Z. Brannigan? I've noticed that it has yet to be reccomended in this thread. The writing is a bit obtuse, but overall I found it quite insightful.

[TheBST]

I'm just kind of interested in war strategies after reading erfworld

Sounds like somebody missed the point.