War's Logic Strategic Thought and the American Way of War

Antulio J. Echevarria II reveals how successive generations of American strategic theorists have thought about war. Analyzing the work of Alfred Thayer Mahan, Billy Mitchell, Bernard Brodie, Robert Osgood, Thomas Schelling, Herman Kahn, Henry Eccles, Joseph Wiley, Harry Summers, John Boyd, William Lind, and John Warden, he uncovers the logic that underpinned each theorist's critical concepts, core principles, and basic assumptions about the nature and character of war. In so doing, he identifies four paradigms of war's nature - traditional, modern, political, and materialist - that have shaped American strategic thought. If war's logic is political, as Carl von Clausewitz said, then so too is thinking about war.

Introduction; Part I. First Principles and Modern War: 1. Alfred Thayer Mahan and Sea Power; 2. Billy Mitchell and Air Power; Part II. The Revolt of the Strategy Intellectuals: 3. Bernard Brodie, Robert Osgood and Limited War; 4. Thomas Schelling; War as Bargaining and Coercion; 5. Herman Kahn and Escalation; Part III. The Counterrevolution of the Military Intellectuals: 6. Henry Eccles and Reforming Strategic Theory; 7. J.C. Wiley and Strategy as Control; 8. Harry Summers and the Principles of War; Part IV. The Insurrection of the Operational Artists: 9. John Boyd, William Lind and Maneuver; 10. John Warden and Air Operational Art; Conclusion.

Antulio J. Echevarria II is Professor at the US Army War College and former Elihu Root Chair of Military Studies.