Victory in War: Foundations of Modern Military Policy

William C. Martel

Dec 2006 · Cambridge University Press

About this ebook

For millennia, policymakers and statesmen have grappled with questions about the concept of victory in war. How long does it take to achieve victory and how do we know when victory is achieved? And, as highlighted by the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, is it possible to win a war and yet lose the peace? The premise of this book is that we do not have a modern theory about victory and that, in order to answer these questions, we need one. This book explores historical definitions of victory, how victory has evolved, and how it has been implemented in war. It also subsequently develops the intellectual foundations of a modern pre-theory of victory, and discusses the military instruments necessary for victory in the twenty-first century using case studies that include US military intervention in Panama, Libya, Persian Gulf War, Bosnia/Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

About the author

William C. Martel is Professor of National Security Affairs and Alan Shepherd Chair of Space Technology and Policy at the Naval War College. He received his doctorate in international relations from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), and was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow and MacArthur Scholar at the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. A member of the professional staff of the RAND Corporation in Washington, he directed studies on proliferation, US governmental process for managing proliferation, and research and development. His scholarly works include Strategic Nuclear War (Greenwood Press, 1986), How to Stop a War (Doubleday, 1987), The Technological Arsenal (Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001).