BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost’

OPINION:

THE ALLURE OF BATTLE: A HISTORY OF HOW WARS HAVE BEEN WON AND LOST

By Cathal J. Nolan

Oxford University Press, $34.95, 728 pages

Not all great battles are decisive and not all decisive battles are great. For example, during the American Civil War, Gettysburg was a great battle as were Antietam and Shiloh; however, none of them were decisive. On the other hand, Vicksburg was fought on a much smaller scale, but it doomed the South economically and militarily by cutting the Confederacy in half. This is one of the points made in by Cathal Nolan in “The Allure of Battle.” Mr. Nolan’s main point is that decisive battles are rarer in history than is commonly believed. Some battles have been decisive in winning small, short wars, but the goal of a decisive battle at the beginning of a short and victorious war is as often a mirage masking long and bloody conflicts that are much more common.

I tend to like books I agree with and I liked this one. Mr. Nolan’s contention is that true world-history-altering great battles are actually quite rare. The twin land-sea battles of Plataea and Salamis probably saved Greek/European civilization from Eastern domination while the more famous Battle of Marathon was merely a temporary check on Persian aspirations. Mr. Nolan would argue that, had the coalition lost at Waterloo, Napoleon would have been destroyed elsewhere due to his lack of a grand strategy beyond his naked lust for glory. Mr. Nolan would also argue that Japan’s defeat was inevitable even if it had won at Midway. Nonetheless, both Waterloo and Midway are considered decisive by many, if not the majority, of modern historians. Similarly, Mr. Nolan believes that the German invasion of the Soviet Union would have failed even if Moscow had been taken in 1941. German logistics was too inept and its manpower base too small to match Russian men and material massing beyond the Urals.

The search for decisive battles in short wars has been the holy grail of modern generals since the Napoleonic era. As Mr. Nolan points out, the vast majority of modern wars start out as planned short wars highlighted by a quick and decisive victory by the initiating actor. The Wars of German Unification are the models that many war colleges use. Every would-be strategist wants to be a Bismarck. Scratch most soldiers aspiring to be general officers too deep and you will find a Von Moltke waiting to get out. Even Clausewitz, the high deity of decisive battle, had his doubts at the end, although they weren’t fully articulated before he died.

If Mr. Nolan had been writing during the great military reform debates of the 1970s and ’80s, he’d have been labeled an “Attritionist” as he baldly postulates that attrition in war is not necessarily bad, but sometimes unavoidable. “Maneuverists,” on the other hand, are decisive battle-short war advocates. For a while the more radical maneuver warfare advocates became a virtual cult. That period ended in 2003 when the short and glorious invasion of Iraq morphed into a dreary insurgency highlighted by attrition.

Mr. Nolan, who directs the International History Institute at Boston University, would likely reject any Attritionist label in favor of being called a Realist. History is on his side. All nine of the 20th century’s major conventional wars (if you count World War I in Europe and Japan as separate wars; eight if you do not) were envisioned as short wars culminating in decisive battles. Only the 1967 Six Day War and Operation Desert Storm turned out to be the short conflicts envisioned by their planners.

Mr. Nolan points out that modern resource bases if backed up by national will can overcome a seemingly decisive and disastrous first blow by the enemy. Despite the loss of France and early debacles in Russia, the World War II allies hung on to win a brutal war of attrition. Similar events transpired in the Pacific after the Pearl Harbor coup by the Japanese.

This is a good book, but it would be better if it was 150 pages shorter. We get too much detail about battles that are irrelevant to the author’s intended audience of non-military historians. There is also quite of bit of repetition. For example, we hear several times that the Austrian Grand Duke Franz-Ferdinand was unpopular with his subjects; interesting, but off the main theme.

Despite the above criticisms, this is a book that military planners and general/flag officers should read, and it should be required reading for anyone assigned to the National Security Council. Most military professionals like to think of themselves as maneuver warriors; this book shows the dark side of maneuver warfare.

• Gary Anderson is an adjunct professor at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.