Military Theory

War is armed conflict among men, in which a political unit attempts to achieve objectives by means of organized force against other men.

While the study of military theory is obviously useful to understanding both warfighting itself and also history, some of its principles are more broadly applicable provided that important differences in context are recognized. For example, organized but unarmed conflict among political units, as often happens in politics, is one application.

Business is not war. Business differs from war in that capitalism is reliant on mutual respect for rights and businesses are fundamentally productive; war results from the absence of rights and is fundamentally destructive. Yet, business shares with warfighting the necessity to organize men to achieve objectives, sometimes in competition with or against the opposition of other men.

Even more distantly, any endeavor to achieve goals despite obstacles, including inanimate ones, shares some characteristics with warfighting.

In each of these cases, the study of war is useful because of its stripping away of non-essentials.

• Warfighting by U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Department of the Navy, FMFM 1. This book, the authoritative Marine Corps doctrine, in 88 pages identifies the principles and values underlying effective warfighting.
• Strategy by B. H. Liddell Hart. This is the crowning achievement of the great military theorist. He analyzes the history of human warfare, analyzing every significant battle and from these identifies the principles determining success or failure in war.
• The Landmark Thucydides by Crawley, translator; editted by Strassler. A classic translation of Thucydides's account of the Peloponnesian war, supplemented with excellent footnotes and numerous topical maps. (more:
  • about Thucydides
  )