Ground Combat: Puncturing the Myths of Modern War

A challenge to common assumptions about the future of land warfare Ground Combat reveals the gritty details of land warfare at the tactical level and challenges today's overly subjective and often inaccurate approaches to characterizing war. Ben Connable's motivation for writing the book is to offer an evidence-based approach to examining the future of war. Connable created and analyzed an original dataset of more than four hundred global ground combat cases, showing that there was an evolutionary rather than revolutionary shift in the characteristics of ground combat from World War II through the early 2020s. Despite advances in military technology, tanks, artillery, and infantry remain central to how war is waged on land. This book asks readers to stop and think about the implications of these findings for force planning and future predictions about military-technical revolutions. This book sets an essential evidentiary baseline for military officers, policymakers, and scholars who think about the future of modern war.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: American Forecasts of War and Ground Combat Chapter 3: World War II Ground Combat Case Examples Chapter 4: World War II Ground Combat Characteristics Chapter 5: Interval Cases—1945-2002 Chapter 6: Interval Period Ground Combat Characteristics Chapter 7: Modern Ground Combat from 2003 through 2012 Chapter 8: Modern Ground Combat from 2013 through 2022 Chapter 9: Observed Characteristics of Modern Ground Combat Chapter 10: Conclusions on Ground Combat and on War Appendix: Methodology and Source Insights Selected Bibliography Index About the Author

About the Author :
Ben Connable, PhD, is an award-winning research leader, a retired US Marine Corps intelligence and foreign area officer, a former senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, and an adjunct professor in Georgetown University's Security Studies program.

Review :
Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, Ground Combat: Puncturing the Myths of Modern War is an original, seminal, and groundbreaking study of extensive and meticulous scholarship. Ground Combat will fill a void in any collection of essential books on warfare....[Connable's] study and understanding of ground combat aligns with the study and understanding of so many retired senior Marines. Connable adeptly blends qualitative historical case analysis, coded data from 423 modern ground combat incidents, and critiques of doctrine, modeling, and strategic discourse....[He] gives us the intellectual vocabulary to process this moment. Ground Combat sets an evidentiary baseline and a new, detail-oriented standard for conflict research and policymaking.