New Book: Nothing less then Victory

[Oleksandr]

Nothing Less than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History
by John David Lewis

The goal of war is to defeat the enemy's will to fight. But how this can be accomplished is a thorny issue. Nothing Less than Victory provocatively shows that aggressive, strategic military offenses can win wars and establish lasting peace, while defensive maneuvers have often led to prolonged carnage, indecision, and stalemate. Taking an ambitious and sweeping look at six major wars, from antiquity to World War II, John David Lewis shows how victorious military commanders have achieved long-term peace by identifying the core of the enemy's ideological, political, and social support for a war, fiercely striking at this objective, and demanding that the enemy acknowledges its defeat.

Lewis examines the Greco-Persian and Theban wars, the Second Punic War, Aurelian's wars to reunify Rome, the American Civil War, and the Second World War. He considers successful examples of overwhelming force, such as the Greek mutilation of Xerxes' army and navy, the Theban-led invasion of the Spartan homeland, and Hannibal's attack against Italy--as well as failed tactics of defense, including Fabius's policy of delay, McClellan's retreat from Richmond, and Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. Lewis shows that a war's endurance rests in each side's reasoning, moral purpose, and commitment to fight, and why an effectively aimed, well-planned, and quickly executed offense can end a conflict and create the conditions needed for long-term peace.

Recognizing the human motivations behind military conflicts, Nothing Less than Victory makes a powerful case for offensive actions in pursuit of peace.

Looking like another awesome book by yet another Objectivist professor. I'll be getting it very shortly.

[musashi]

a war's endurance rests in each side's reasoning, moral purpose, and commitment to fight, and why an effectively aimed, well-planned, and quickly executed offense can end a conflict and create the conditions needed for long-term peace.

Ya know that same philosophy works in street fights too. These affairs usually go in one of two directions in my experience… “Short and Sweet” or “Long and Nasty”. I’ve been in plenty of both, and frankly I’d rather be on the loosing end of short and sweet, than the winning end of long and nasty.

I think there are examples where the quick hit has not been successful, the German Blitzkrieg to take over Western Europe – that meets the last half of Lewis’ criteria. The German reasoning and moral purpose had some questions.

The early Coalition wars lead by the French (Napoleon’s early wars after he ceased the Consul) come close to the criteria too. I’m unclear how his reasoning and moral purpose were deficient.

Interesting how each of these quick hitters ultimately were drawn into the “long and nasty” type affairs that ultimately unraveled them. Do you think that some form of abdication is a key action after success in the rapid conflict?

[Oleksandr]

I think there are examples where the quick hit has not been successful, the German Blitzkrieg to take over Western Europe – that meets the last half of Lewis’ criteria. . . .
Interesting how each of these quick hitters ultimately were drawn into the “long and nasty” type affairs that ultimately unraveled them.

Hmm, I don't follow. Do you mean here that Germans tried a quick approach and failed, and then the rest of WW2 was a "long and nasty" type of war which ended the war?

If so, that is correct only to the degree that commie-appeasing FDR refused to take any serious action until he was pushed into it by his 3rd re-election, for example, he put off D-day for a more than a year allowing Stalin to recover to start taking over Europe, etc. That ultimately led to some 50 years of Cold War and US having to battle in 3-4 different proxi-wars to combat the spread of Communism all over the globe.

I would hardly call that "unraveled" and by no means were FDR actions caused by the quick hit of Germans. Under proper moral leadership US could have quickly ended WW2 without supplying USSR with power, which would have prevented Cold War, Afganistan, etc, etc.

But alas, we took "long and nasty" approach.

[Kaelan]

FDR was dragged into the war when Churchill pointed out 2 factors to him.

1 - If Britain was defeated Germany would subsume control of the largest Maritime force in the world at the time.

2 – No British government = no repayment of War loans, bonds or purchase of American military hardware.

He also should have taken Churchill’s advice when the Nazi's were defeated - carry on rolling into the Russians! His argument was that we would most likely end up fighting them anyway, so it would be best to do so whilst we were military geared up to do it rather than fall back and let it evolve into a long protracted affair.

However, history has shown that winning a quick victory in war is possible, wining a the peace afterwards is somewhat harder, unless you’re willing to go Roman or Mongol and systematically butcher the population until they get the idea to go along.

[musashi]

I listen to quite a few of the Teaching Company’s lectures. Thomas Childers has a nice class on WWII. From what I recall he cast Germany with a sequence of perspectives. Of course initially as an uprising to economic and political repression. Later after the rapid success of the blitz he described a Germany attempting to find its way out of war and back across its western borders. Sort of a lull.

Then all that later stuff – shelling Britton, North Africa, Eastern expansion, and the rest of the world getting involved.

I was just thinking about that blitz and lull part.

[Oleksandr]

FDR was dragged into the war when Churchill pointed out 2 factors to him.
. . .

I disagree completely with that but this isn't a thread to debate this.

The Roosevelt Myth by J. Flint has an in-depth story of how FDR wanted the war to draw the attention away from his destruction of US economy.

[Oleksandr]

The author gave a lecture on a similar subject in 2005. It is currently available for free at Ayn Rand Institute website:

http://arc-tv.com/the-failure-of-the-ho ... #more-2436

With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, America has accepted a permanent, institutionalized state of siege on its own soil. But is this the correct strategy? In this lecture Dr. John Lewis examines several examples from history—including Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome—in which great nations, facing attack, have acted defensively rather than with bold offense. The results are clear: such a policy is suicidal. Rather than bracing against further attacks at home or spreading “democracy” abroad, America should destroy her enemies.