Customer Reviews

The Art of Maneuver: Maneuver Warfare Theory and Airland Battle

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Robert Leonhard is one of America's greatest military theorists. Unfortunately his presentation of ideas is not as clear and concise as it might be. He has valid ideas but his dry writing style prevents them from being conveyed effectively. This book is not an easy read.

For similar concepts in a more readable format I would recommend "Warfighting" by Hayden, "Maneuver Warfare Anthology" by Hooker, or "Maneuver Warfare Handbook" by Lind. Only after you have read these books will you benefit from reading Leonhard's book.

See also Leonhards excellent "Principles of War for the Information Age" which is significant and important (but suffers many of the flaws of this book). I feel that book is a more visionary and unique work by this important authour.

As a non-military person I approached this work with some trepidation, but within pages my fears were erased. This is a superbly written, well thought out book. Leonhard offers, step by step, the history of "maneuver" warfare, and explains how it has been ill applied in American arms. He goes on to provide a doctrine for it's application, and finally critiques the Army's performance in Panama and the Persian Gulf.

Leonhard's tactical sense is above reproach, and his explanations are offered in cogent, brief passages. This work is unique in my experience with military theory in that it is both easy to read, and important. Any serious student of military theory/history would do well to read this book to better understand both the past, and the future.

Oh, and if you pay careful attention, it just might improve your chess game as well...it did mine!

Instructors at various training institutions have been trying to educate me in the aspects of "Manouevre Warfare" for nearly ten years now, but it wasn't until I read this book that I began to understand it. The concepts and techniques that Mr Leonhard is trying to get across aren't new or original, as he implicitly states, but the genius he shows is in explaining it all so clearly and then applying it to modern situations. The style of writing was very easy to follow, and the book was, in the main, a joy to read. The more I read, the more the lights came on in my head.

While I couldn't say that I am now an expert on this approach to war (or even competent at it), understanding the principles behind it means I can begin to apply and practise them. This book is ideal reading for anyone in the senior lieutenant level, as a primer for the junior staff course(s) in your Army (Although instructors tend to preach manouvre and then practice attrition, it will still help you). It should be required reading for all officers who take their calling seriously, regardless of Corps. If nothing else, it will encourage debate, and that is always a healthy and desirable thing.

Highly recommended. I'm only sorry I can't get my own copy.

Leonhard discusses the art of neutralizing your opponent's strengths in detail, with numerous examples and analyses. He discusses three main techniques. Preemption is acting before your opponent expects an attack, catching him by surprise. Dislocation is acting in a way to avoid the enemy's strength, such as David attacking Goliath from out of Goliath's reach. Disruption is finding some critical enemy weakness, such as communications, or some position or assumption that supports morale, and attacking it fiercely. Leonhard explains these clearly and with plenty of examples.

Leonhard also provides numerous examples of what not to do, with detailed discussion of why such things are bad ideas. He strongly discourages attrition warfare, since it means we have to be superior in raw strength to prevail in a battle that will be bloody for both sides. He shows why not to engage the enemy when possible, and demonstrates how to seize opportunities to neutralize enemy forces without having to fight them. Most of his bad examples come from current U.S. Army thinking, although some of his good examples come from U.S. Army practice. This is not only a clear discussion of the practice of maneuver in warfare, but a spirited analysis of modern Army doctrine from a firm and understandable viewpoint.

The main failing of the book is Leonhard's insistence that maneuver is always the answer, and attrition never is, and his disregard of the dangers of maneuver. It is therefore not suitable as the first, or only, book to read about strategy. It makes an excellent second book, as it is a clear and compelling exposition of military maneuver.

The Art of Maneuver is an excellent work from the commander that we "well trained platoon leaders" affectionately referred to as "The Professor." This book is as timely now as when it was first published. If we try to gauge our success in Afghanistan (or any war) by counting body bags, we will be doomed to repeat our own history. Instead we must, as Leonhard teaches us, keep the enemy dislocated and operate inside his decision cycle. Excellent advise for officers of today and of the future from a seasoned officer who has studied his craft well.

Robert Leonhard's work, The Art of Manuever:manuever-warfare Theory and Airland Battle, was a good introduction for myself to the theory of manuever-warfare. For some time since the tenth grade through an Army stint and four years of college history classes I was lacking names and theories to what I had been witness to while reading military histories from Caesar's Gallic Wars to Hackworth's About Face. I am thankful to Leonhard for those terms: manuever, attrition and dislocation. An important consideration of manuever-warfare that Leonhard included was the effectiveness of artillery. A weakness that jumped out at me from the start was Leonhard's assertion that Western civilization never practiced Manuever warfare. The author believes that only in the East was manuever-warfare practiced. Immediately Hannibal's sixteen year campaign in Italy during the Second Punic War came to mind. Time and again Hannibal demonstrated classic manuever-warfare as he literally destroyed Roman armies larger than his own. Scipio Africanus answer to Hannibal was to defeat Hannibal with his own understanding of manuever-warfare. Caesar's campaigns in Gaul was another demonstation of manuever warfare in the West. Ironically while praising the Orient for Tsun-Zu's, The Art of War, the only example of war practiced in China taht Leonhard gives is a Chinese General NOT practicing manuever warfare. Leonhard did not convince me that China was the home of manuever-warfare. The U.S. Army was quite smitten with Tsun-Zu during the latter 1980's and one has to wonder if Leonhard was the instigator or a follower of that infatuation. This objection aside this book would be one to include on my bookshelf....Von Mellenthin, (author;Panzer Battles) claims that at towards the end of 1944 onward the Soviets had developed quite a few effective armored-manuever generals. Wehrmacht generals trace Nazi Germany's defeat on the Eastern Front to Hitler's decision to swing the army towards the Caucaus oil fields away from Moscow(not on Soviet attrition warfare.)...

This book is certainly fascinating and well written. But it contains no magic blueprint.

On the contrary, like most other diehard maneuver enthusiasts, Mr Leonhard draws VERY selectively upon history to "prove" that the maneuverist approach is essentially the only viable means of prosecuting modern warfare. As a professional, well-published academic historian who specialises in Wehrmacht operations, I can tell you that the Wehrmacht was generally NOT maneuverist and SELDOM permitted the much-vaunted Auftragstaktik. And don't forget that the Wehrmacht got whipped by the attritionalist Soviets.

And as for both the German defeat of France in 1940 and the Israelis' marvellous warfighting in 1967 (both hailed by Leonhard as paradigms of maneuverist perfection): oh come on. The battlefields were not two-dimensional, as Leonhard would have us believe from his failure to mention airpower, but three-dimensional. AIRPOWER provided virtually all the preconditions for victory in both 1940 and 1967.

I know this stuff is "sexy", to use modern vernacular, but it's not yet tested. The Gulf War? Gimme a break. If that was maneuver warfare, then why again did it only occur after a 38-day pounding by AIRPOWER, involve virtually no preemption, and provide only average disruption and dislocation? And why was there so little directive control? Etc. etc.

This book is unique among the maneuver theory books I've read, as it examines seriously Soviet Maneuver doctrine. This examination of how maneuver can be conducted through "command push" rather than "recon pull", is enlightening, and provides an excellent complement to the German Maneuver Doctrine which is advanced in most MW literature.

He first defines the key terms in maneuver theory (preemption, dislocation, disruption) and then discusses their application throughout history, using the story of David and Goliath to particularly good effect.

My only complaint with this book is that it is written not as an academic study of maneuver, but to persuade the US Army to adopt a Maneuver-centric doctrine.

This authoritative work shines a harsh light on what is the greatest failing of the modern US Army, namely the poorly conceived and structurally flawed operational doctrine AirLandBattle. AirLandBattle was conceived as a politically expedient approach with which to fight a ground war in West Germany, and by holding to the idea that NATO needed to defend a finite territory against superior numbers, they allowed some very shoddy operational thinking to make its way into official doctrine. The Cold War over, the problems remain. In chapter after chapter, Leonhard provides evidence that the US Army has fallen away from the concepts which make mobile warfare so devastatingly effective, as the emphasis has shifted away from dislocation and winning through maneuver towards the mindless and ultimately pointless strategy of high-tech attrition.

If you are new to maneouvre warfare this is a good starting point. Leonhard synthesises thought and doctrine without making it a result of his personal experience solely - but his personal experience lends caution and credence to the points he raises. I found the book generated an interest to follow up on some of the other authors he mentioned, the historical basis of maneouvre (Napoleon etc). There is not too much jargon and no painful acronyms that stop you in full reading flow. I wish he had addressed more the differences between light infantry and dismounted infantry - a distinction not made often enough.