Offense Defense And War

An overview of offense-defense theory, which argues that the relative ease of offense and defense varies in international politics. Offense-defense theory argues that the relative ease of offense and defense varies in international politics. When the offense has the advantage, military conquest becomes easier and war is more likely; the opposite is true when the defense has the advantage. The balance between offense and defense depends on geography, technology, and other factors. This theory, and the body of related theories, has generated much debate and research over the past twenty-five years.This book presents a comprehensive overview of offense-defense theory. It includes contending views on the theory and some of the most recent attempts to refine and test it.

Jack Snyder's analysis of the attitudes of military planners in the years prior to the Great War offers new insight into the tragic miscalculations of that era and into their possible parallels in present-day war planning. By 1914, the European military powers had adopted offensive military strategies even though there was considerable evidence to support the notion that much greater advantage lay with defensive strategies. The author argues that organizational biases inherent in military strategists' attitudes make war more likely by encouraging offensive postures even when the motive is self-defense. Drawing on new historical evidence of the specific circumstances surrounding French, German, and Russian strategic policy, Snyder demonstrates that it is not only rational analysis that determines strategic doctrine, but also the attitudes of military planners. Snyder argues that the use of rational calculation often falls victim to the pursuit of organizational interests such as autonomy, prestige, growth, and wealth. Furthermore, efforts to justify the preferred policy bring biases into strategists' decisions—biases reflecting the influences of parochial interests and preconceptions, and those resulting from attempts to simplify unduly their analytical tasks.The frightening lesson here is that doctrines can be destabilizing even when weapons are not, because doctrine may be more responsive to the organizational needs of the military than to the implications of the prevailing weapons technology. By examining the historical failure of offensive doctrine, Jack Snyder makes a valuable contribution to the literature on the causes of war.

The importance of military factors in international relations may seem obvious, but the causal linkages are often difficult to define. Surveying a long sweep of history, and the ins and outs of offensive weaponry, George H. Quester offers an overview of how military technology has shaped our international system. Contemporary events have made this book as timely as ever. As Americans renew the debate on mi"ssile defense, and as the danger of nuclear-capable rogue states and their terrorist allies is evident as never before, the need to understand the differences between defensive and offensive weapons has taken on a new urgency. Quester shows that very careful analysis is required here, as some important elementary distinctions need to be drawn. His analysis covers naval and air warfare, as well as ground combat, and he deals with the offensive or defensive leanings of guerrilla warfare. Quester compares the post-World War II nuclear balance with military situations before 1945. Quester also ties in domestic economic, social, political, and scientific trends, and how they influence international politics. Quester considers when a military situation favors striking first in a crisis(an offensive situation), and when a nation may be better off waiting for the other side to begin a war(defensive). In his new introduction, Quester reviews the post-Cold War debate among political and military analysts as to the contemporary relevance of these concepts and offers a powerful rebuttal to those who would dismiss the offense/defense distinction as outmoded, illusory, or a function of propaganda. Above all, the book demonstrates that we can learn a great deal from our recent and not-so-recent historical experience with nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons and their proliferation make the area of international conflict more perilous than ever. This book will be of interest to military analysts and students of international affairs. George H. Quester is professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland. His books include Nuclear Monopoly, Deterrence Before Hiroshima (both available from Transaction), Nuclear Diplomacy, The Politics of Nuclear Proliferation, and American Foreign Policy: The Lost Consensus.

Do some technologies provoke war? Do others promote peace? Offense-defense theory contends that technological change is an important cause of conflict: leaders will be tempted to launch wars when they believe innovation favors attackers over defenders. Offense-defense theory is perhaps best known from the passionate and intricate debates about first-strike capability and deterrence stability during the cold war, but it has deeper historical roots, remains a staple in international relations theorizing, and drives modern arms control policymaking. In War and the Engineers, the first book systematically to test the logical and empirical validity of offense-defense theory, Keir A. Lieber examines the relationships among politics, technology, and the causes of war. Lieber's cases explore the military and political implications of the spread of railroads, the emergence of rifled small arms and artillery, the introduction of battle tanks, and the nuclear revolution. Lieber incorporates the new historiography of World War I, which draws on archival materials that only recently became available, to challenge many common beliefs about the conflict. The author's central conclusion is that technology is neither a cause of international conflict nor a panacea; instead, power politics remains paramount.

What causes war? How can military conflicts best be prevented? In this book, Stephen Van Evera frames five conditions that increase the risk of interstate war: false optimism about the likely outcome of a war, a first-strike advantage, fluctuation in the relative power of states, circumstances that allow nations to parlay one conquest into another, and circumstances that make conquest easy. According to Van Evera, all but one of these conditions—false optimism—rarely occur today, but policymakers often erroneously believe in their existence. He argues that these misperceptions are responsible for many modern wars, and explores both World Wars, the Korean War, and the 1967 Mideast War as test cases. Finally, he assesses the possibility of nuclear war by applying all five hypotheses to its potential onset. Van Evera's book demonstrates that ideas from the Realist paradigm can offer strong explanations for international conflict and valuable prescriptions for its control.

This book discusses the existing literature on military doctrines in general, and offensive doctrines in particular, as well as on causes of their stagnation and sources of innovation. It provides the backdrop for an analytical historical review of Israel's offensive military doctrine.

This paper focuses on the formulation of doctrine since World War II. In no comparable period in history have the dimensions of the battlefield been so altered by rapid technological changes. The need for the tactical doctrines of the Army to remain correspondingly abreast of these changes is thus more pressing than ever before. Future conflicts are not likely to develop in the leisurely fashions of the past where tactical doctrines could be refined on the battlefield itself. It is, therefore, imperative that we apprehend future problems with as much accuracy as possible. One means of doing so is to pay particular attention to the business of how the Army's doctrine has developed historically, with a view to improving methods of future development.

NOW AN HBO® DOCUMENTARY FROM AWARD-WINNING DIRECTOR JOHN MAGGIO • “An important—and deeply sobering—new book about cyberwarfare” (Nicholas Kristof, New York Times), now updated with a new chapter. The Perfect Weapon is the startling inside story of how the rise of cyberweapons transformed geopolitics like nothing since the invention of the atomic bomb. Cheap to acquire, easy to deny, and usable for a variety of malicious purposes, cyber is now the weapon of choice for democracies, dictators, and terrorists. Two presidents—Bush and Obama—drew first blood with Operation Olympic Games, which used malicious code to blow up Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, and yet America proved remarkably unprepared when its own weapons were stolen from its arsenal and, during President Trump’s first year, turned back on the United States and its allies. And if Obama would begin his presidency by helping to launch the new era of cyberwar, he would end it struggling unsuccessfully to defend the 2016 U.S. election from interference by Russia, with Vladimir Putin drawing on the same playbook he used to destabilize Ukraine. Moving from the White House Situation Room to the dens of Chinese government hackers to the boardrooms of Silicon Valley, New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger reveals a world coming face-to-face with the perils of technological revolution, where everyone is a target. “Timely and bracing . . . With the deep knowledge and bright clarity that have long characterized his work, Sanger recounts the cunning and dangerous development of cyberspace into the global battlefield of the twenty-first century.”—Washington Post

Two classic works of military strategy that shaped the way we think about warfare: The Art of War by Sun Tzu and On War by Karl von Clausewitz, together in one volume “Civilization might have been spared much of the damage suffered in the world wars . . . if the influence of Clausewitz’s On War had been blended with and balanced by a knowledge of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.”—B. H. Liddel Hart For two thousand years, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War has been the indispensable volume of warcraft. Although his work is the first known analysis of war and warfare, Sun Tzu struck upon a thoroughly modern concept: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” Karl von Clausewitz, the canny military theorist who famously declared that war is a continuation of politics by other means, also claims paternity of the notion “total war.” On War is the magnum opus of the era of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. Now these two great minds come together in a single volume that also features an introduction by esteemed military writer Ralph Peters and the Modern Library War Series introduction by Caleb Carr, New York Times bestselling author of The Alienist. (The cover and text refer to The Art of War as The Art of Warfare, an alternate translation of the title.)