★★ As the affairs of states continue to evolve into a complex web of interdependence, cooperation, and competition, pressure mounts on states to effectively employ the tools of statecraft to attain their political objects. The contention of this essay is that Carl von Clausewitz implicitly defined grand strategy in his magnum opus, On War, as the... Continua a leggere →
★★★ Experiences from the Invasion Battles of Normandy A. Preliminary Remarks 1. Experiences fulfill their purposes only when they are quickly brought to the attention of the troops. This happens from time to time through the medium of individual teletype messages. 2. The following experiences summarize what has happened so far. It is left to the... Continua a leggere →
★★★ Questionnaire presented by US interrogators to Generalfeldmarschall (General Field Marshal) Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW, Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces), concerning German plans for counter attacking against the Allies after the Invasion of Normandy. Question: 1. What were the successive plans considered by the OKW: a) 6 Jun... Continua a leggere →
★★★ Questionnaire presented by US interrogators to Chief of the Operations Staff of OKW, Alfred Jodl, concerning German plans for counter attacking against the Allies after the Invasion of Normandy. Invasion and Normandy Campaign 1. Question: What was Hitler’s personal influence on the construction and installation of the coastal defenses in the West? How far... Continua a leggere →
★★★ Interrogation of Generalleutnant [Lieutenant General] Rudolf Schmetzer concerning the construction of German defenses in Normandy, France. A) Fundamentals 1) Commands and organization of fortress engineers The sector corresponded exactly to the extent of command of the LXXXIV. Gen.Kdo [Generalkommando - Corps Headquarters], the coastal front of which reached from a point northeast of Caen to the border between... Continua a leggere →
★★★ No plan survives contact with the enemy. —Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke the Elder Sixty-four years after Moltke’s observation, two mid-level German commanders, faced with the herculean task of changing the course of history on an early June 1944 morning, failed in their duties. In using structured and qualitative analysis to examine German... Continua a leggere →
★★★★ A cross-channel attack to initiate the European Campaign remained the linchpin of American strategy for taking the war to Germany and defeating its armies in the field. This approach remained the centerpiece of Allied strategy despite the feared casualty rate from a dedicated German resistance, and the fact that the nei-ther the British allies... Continua a leggere →
★★★ In 2001, the United States invaded and occupied Afghanistan, and eventually spent over a trillion dollars, as it and its allies killed some 170,000 Afghan citizens. Twenty years later, the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in defeat. Why was America there? Thucydides reminded us in The Peloponnesian War some 2,500 years ago that, war’s “three…strongest motives [are] fear, honor, and... Continua a leggere →
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