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Military Adaptation in War: With Fear of Change Hardcover – October 10, 2011

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Williamson Murray (Author)
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4.3 out of 5 stars 7 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Cambridge University Press (October 10, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1107006597
  • ISBN-13: 978-1107006591
  • Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #388,507 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4.0 out of 5 starsInteresting, Highly Readable, and Fills a Gap in the Literature of Adaptation and Strategy in War
By Mark R. Jorgensen on December 17, 2011
Format: Hardcover
Professor Murray has been very busy these last ten years since his "retirement" from Ohio State University as I see he has co-authored numerous books on aspects of twentieth century warfare. I read all of his earlier books and appreciate his erudition and scholarship. Thus discovering this new book, and the other recent ones, was a pleasant surprise.

I am not familiar with another book like this one on a general analysis of adaptation and strategy by enemies in war, in that respect it is a novel contribution. Of particular interest to me were the three middle chapters dealing with World War II: the flawed adaptation of the Germans to the opening battles, the battle for the British Isles, 1940-1941, and the RAF's bombing campaign against Germany. And, to some extent, a better adaptation by the British in the latter two. All aspects of these chapters are factually correct and have the right, proportionate emphasis on the important factors.

This book may not be for the general reader, but if you are a student of strategy and war then you should find it interesting, enjoyable, and a stimulus to thinking about the subject.
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4.0 out of 5 starsVery good review of the subject
By Otavio Maia Chelotti on February 5, 2015
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
The book is essential reading on the subject of adaptation and flexibility in war. The main point the author makes is actually simple: each military creates and lives within a cultural milieu, which essentially has the power to blind most of its members to their own weaknesses and reduces their sense of reality. Add to this the well-known adage that no plan survives the first contact with the enemy, who will also be continuously adapting, and one has all too often a recipe for disaster, from outright defeat to higher casualty rates. To this, the best antidote, in the author's opinion, is to create a system of critical analysis and prompt feedback at a tactical and operational levels, as well as enabling frank discussion at strategic levels.
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4.0 out of 5 starsA good book. Well written with extensive footnotes and interesting insights.
By Virginian on February 3, 2013
Format: Hardcover
Professor Murray amply illustrates the huge cost of organizational inertia, and the difficulty of changing entrenched bureaucracies even under the tremendous pressure of impending national destruction.

I was particularly impressed with his examination of World War II, and the decades leading up to it.

He provides numerous examples detailing the difficulty of maintaining clear vision within a vast bureaucracy with many conflicting incoming information streams. The author provides some accolades for German collection of tactical (and some operational) lessons learned and implemented in the interwar period while pointing out their failure to integrate the larger strategic lessons. He provides ample evidence of organizational failure to learn and adapt among other belligerents as well.

The book offers many examples of key successes or failures on both sides that could have been avoided or magnified by better use of critical self-assessment and adaptation of new and emerging technology and methodologies. There is also a subtext of the high cost of sycophants in high places.

Professor Murray analyses the well-known unpreparedness, missteps, and missed opportunities by many of the Allied and neutral powers and numerous German strategic failures-of-vision in addition to the well-worn bromide of flawed planning for a cross-channel attack, or the misguided campaign into Russia. While every side had many similar failures only Germany had strategic aspirations to conquer Europe and Russia. As Professor Murray demonstrates they lacked a strategic vision and the integrated operational goals to achieve it.
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5.0 out of 5 starsAdaption vs Innovation
By Jon E. Jeckell on January 7, 2014
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Simply amazing. Williamson Murray differentiates military adaptation (what you do in war) from military innovation (which is done in peacetime to prepare for war) and uses several case studies to examine why some organizations succeed or fail at this. Moreover, the book shows that some organizations were very effective at one time or in certain conditions, but utterly failed under others. For example, the German Army was extremely good at critical, frank examination of the current operational environment and their performance within it to facilitate tactical adaptation. However, they failed to adapt at the operational or strategic level and failed to maintain their ability to adapt as the war progressed. He also demonstrated the interactive nature of war by revealing what appeared to be a stalemate was actually a result of both sides adapting to each other’s changes.
The book also contrasted the relationship between the British government’s partnership with its scientists, with the Nazi regime’s use of its scientists. Like the Soviet Union, the Nazis discouraged research into radio or information technologies for fear of malcontents stirring up the population.
Murray also does a great job of untangling the interdependency of doctrine, tactics, and technology, and how these fit within the operational, economic and strategic context. He emphasizes the role of technology within the larger system to achieve strategic ends.
My only complaint is that Murray sometimes reduces failures to lack of imagination or incompetence, rather than to systemic patterns of activity inherent in organizations. Organizations tend to optimize their performance against known conditions, even if they do so tacitly, and can become dysfunctional when conditions change. I’d love to see a mod of this using technology strategy or organizational theory in addition to the analysis he’s done here.
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