The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars

by Barry R. Posen

Overview

Barry R. Posen explores how military doctrine takes shape and the role it plays in grand strategy-that collection of military, economic, and political means and ends with which a state attempts to achieve security. Posen isolates three crucial elements of a given strategic doctrine: its offensive, defensive, or deterrent characteristics, its integration of military resources with political aims, and the degree of military or operational innovation it contains. He then examines these components of doctrine from the perspectives of organization theory and balance of power theory, taking into account the influence of technology and geography.

Looking at interwar France, Britain, and Germany, Posen challenges each theory to explain the German Blitzkrieg, the British air defense system, and the French Army's defensive doctrine often associated with the Maginot Line. This rigorous comparative study, in which the balance of power theory emerges as the more useful, not only allows us to discover important implications for the study of national strategy today, but also serves to sharpen our understanding of the origins of World War II.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801416330
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	09/24/1984
Series:	Cornell Studies in Security Affairs
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.06(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Barry R. Posen is Ford International Professor of Political Science and director of the Security Studies Program at MIT. He is the author of Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany between the World Wars (winner of the Furniss Award and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award) and Inadvertent Escalation: Conventional War and Nuclear Risks, all from Cornell.

Table of Contents

Preface

1. The Importance of Military Doctrine
2. Explaining Military Doctrine
3. The Battles of 1940
4. France
5. Britain
6. Germany
7. Conclusions

Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

This is a scholarly and conceptually ambitious work which seeks to explain how military doctrine takes place and its role in 'grand strategy.' The core of the study examines military doctrines in the interwar period, discussing the German blitzkrieg and British air defense system as successes, and the French army's Maginot Line doctrine as a great failure. Posen develops many intriguing ideas and theoretical insights, and debates those of his academic peers, in a rich volume that has to be studied as well as read.

Foreign Affairs

This is a scholarly and conceptually ambitious work which seeks to explain how military doctrine takes place and its role in 'grand strategy.' The core of the study examines military doctrines in the interwar period, discussing the German blitzkrieg and British air defense system as successes, and the French army's Maginot Line doctrine as a great failure. Posen develops many intriguing ideas and theoretical insights, and debates those of his academic peers, in a rich volume that has to be studied as well as read.

-- "Foreign Affairs"

From the Publisher