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Fighting Talk Colin S. Gray

Fighting Talk By Colin S. Gray

Fighting Talk by Colin S. Gray


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Summary

While one can never guarantee strategic success, which depends on policy, military prowess, and the quality of the dialogue between the two, a strategic education led by the judgments in these maxims increases the chances that one's errors will be small rather than catastrophic.

The maxims are grouped according to five clusters.

Fighting Talk Summary

Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace, and Strategy by Colin S. Gray

Gray presents an inventive treatise on the nature of strategy, war, and peace, organized around forty maxims. This collection of mini-essays will forearm politicians, soldiers, and the attentive general public against many-probably most-fallacies that abound in contemporary debates about war, peace, and security. While one can never guarantee strategic success, which depends on policy, military prowess, and the quality of the dialogue between the two, a strategic education led by the judgments in these maxims increases the chances that one's errors will be small rather than catastrophic. The maxims are grouped according to five clusters. War and Peace tackles the larger issues of strategic history that drive the demand for the services of strategic thought and practice. Strategy presses further, into the realm of strategic behavior, and serves as a bridge between the political focus of part one and the military concerns that follow. In Military Power and Warfare turns to the pragmatic business of military performance: operations, tactics, and logistics. Part four, Security and Insecurity examines why strategy is important, including a discussion of the nature, dynamic character, and functioning of world politics. Finally, History and the Future is meant to help strategists better understand the processes of historical change.

Fighting Talk Reviews

[Gray] has sustained and enhanced a reputation as the English-speaking world's leading strategic thinker. Gray's work has always eschewed abstraction for empiricism. His theoretical studies never fall prey to wishful thinking or mirror-imaging. His strategic analyses incorporate strong historical elements. Fighting Talk, though unpretentious in structure, represents the distillation of a career's worth of study and reflection in these contexts. * The Journal of Military History *
Attributing his inspiration for this work to the seminal military thinker Carl von Clausewitz, Gray has come up with 40 maxims of military strategy that he believes cover most of the intellectually essential elements for the education of a strategist and presents them accompanied by short explanatory essays. They are grouped into sections on war and peace, strategy, military power and warfare, security and insecurity, and history and the future. * Reference & Research Book News *

About Colin S. Gray

Colin S. Gray is Professor of International Politics and Strategic Studies, and Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies, University of Reading, England. He is the author of nineteen books, more than three hundred articles, and several dozen reports for the government. His work is often cited in the fields of arms control, maritime strategy, nuclear strategy, and strategic culture.

Table of Contents

Preface Introduction: Getting the Big Things Right Enough Part I: War and Peace 1 The Contexts of War Are All Important 2 War Is About Peace, and Peace Can Be About War 3 It Is More Difficult to Make Peace than It Is to Make War 4 War Works!-But Always Has Unintended and Unanticipated Consequences 5 Peace and Order Are Not Self-Enforcing, They Have to Be Organized and Kept by Somebody 6 Not Only Polities, but Societies and Their Cultures Make War and Peace 7 Reason Reigns Over War, but Passion and Chance Threaten to Rule 8 There Is More to War than Warfare 9 Policy Is King, but Often Is Ignorant of the Nature and Character of War 10 War Is Always a Gamble Part II: Strategy 11 Knowledge of Strategy Is Vital: The Flame of Strategic Understanding Has to Be Kept Lit 12 Strategy Is More Difficult than Policy or Tactics 13 Bad Strategy Kills, but So Also Do Bad Policy and Tactics 14 If Thucydides, Sun-tzu, and Clausewitz Did Not Say It, It Probably Is Not Worth Saying 15 The Strategic Concept du Jour Will Be Tomorrow's Stale Left-Over, Until It Is Rediscovered, Recycled, and Revealed as a New Truth 16 The Enemy Too Has a Vote 17 Time Is the Least Forgiving Dimension of Strategy 18 Friction Is Unavoidable, but Need Not Be Fatal 19 All Strategy Is Geostrategy: Geography Is Fundamental 20 Strategy Is Not Wholly Military 21 The Impossible Is Impossible; It Is a Condition, Not a Problem for Which a Solution Has Yet to Be Found Part III: Military Power and Warfare 22 People Matter Most 23 Military Power Is Trumps in Politics 24 Military Excellence Can Only Be Verified by Performance in War 25 Military Excellence Cannot Guarantee Strategic Success 26 Victory in Battle Does Not Ensure Strategic or Political Success, but Defeat All but Guarantees Failure 27 There Is More to War than Firepower: The Enemy Is Not Just a Target Set 28 Logistics Is the Arbiter of Strategic Opportunity Part IV: Security and Insecurity 29 Bad Times Return 30 There Are Always Thugs, Villains, Rogues, and Fools Out There, as Well Some in Here, Who Mean Us Harm 31 Superthreats Do Appear 32 Prudence Is the Supreme Virtue in Statecraft and Strategy 33 Strategic History Punishes Good Intentions 34 Defense Costs Are Certain, but Security Benefits Are Uncertain and Arguable 35 Arms Can Be Controlled, but Not by Arms Control Part V: History and the Future 36 Nothing of Real Importance Changes: Modern History Is Not Modern 37 History Can Be Misused to Prove Anything, but It Is All That We Have as a Guide to the Future 38 The Future Is Not Foreseeable: Nothing Dates So Rapidly as Today's Tomorrow 39 Surprise Is Unavoidable, but Its Effect Is Not 40 Tragedy Happens Afterword: Cannon Lore Notes Bibliography Index

Additional information

NPB9780275991319
9780275991319
0275991318
Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace, and Strategy by Colin S. Gray
New
Hardback
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
2007-04-30
208
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
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