Conflict: the evolution of warfare from 1945 to Ukraine

This article is from Military History Matters issue 137

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REVIEW BY GRAHAM GOODLAD

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted the appearance of several books, setting the war in its historical context. This is the first study, however, to view the conflict in the long-term perspective of military history since 1945. It is an ambitious undertaking by a partnership between two authors from very different backgrounds. General David Petraeus was a senior US army commander and is an acknowledged authority on counterinsurgency, who also served for a year as director of the CIA. Andrew Roberts is a historian best known for his biographies of Napoleon and Churchill, and his writings on the Second World War, who was recently appointed a Conservative member of the British House of Lords.

In Conflict, the pair have set out to describe and analyse the nature of warfare over almost eight decades. In the compass of a 500-page volume, they have not attempted a comprehensive history but have concentrated on wars that they regard as possessing broader significance; for example, in the development of tactics or weaponry. There are one or two surprising choices – South Ossetia and Rwanda are covered but not the 1979 Sino-Vietnam War, after which the poor performance of the People’s Liberation Army stimulated a major programme of Chinese military modernisation. Nonetheless, the authors cover the great majority of the post-1945 conflicts that one would expect to find, from Korea and Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The big picture

The book’s central theme is that of strategic leadership. Whether exercised by political or military figures, Petraeus and Roberts argue, it is understanding of the big picture that determines a protagonist’s chances of battlefield success. They identify four characteristics that an effective leader must demonstrate: a grasp of the overall strategic situation; an ability to communicate; being able to implement a plan; and to know how to refine and adapt ‘big ideas’ so that they can be applied again in different circumstances.

The authors’ chosen exemplars include both well-known and less-familiar leaders. General Matthew Ridgway, who stabilised the situation in Korea in 1951, is given higher marks than his flamboyant, erratic predecessor, Douglas MacArthur. The US-led coalition victory in the first Gulf War is largely credited to the partnership of President George Bush Senior, field commander General Norman Schwarzkopf, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Colin Powell. Sometimes the breadth of the project means that we are left wanting a fuller explanation of the part played by key individuals. David Ben-Gurion, for example, is commended for his role in the Israeli war of independence as ‘the personification of a great strategic leader’ – yet he receives little more than half a page, remaining a somewhat shadowy figure.

The authors’ desire to point up clear-cut, widely applicable lessons can on occasion run the risk of oversimplifying complex reality. In their summing up of the Chinese Civil War, they state that its main significance lies in the success of guerrilla forces against larger armies backed by a Western government. Yet in their own foregoing account of the war, Petraeus and Roberts rightly highlight as key factors the limited nature of US support and the corruption and incompetence displayed by the Nationalists. Their narrative also underlines the importance of two urban sieges that were unrelated to guerrilla warfare.

Overall, however, the impression is of a book that is remarkable in its scope and scholarship. It rises above a series of discrete campaign studies to illuminate the broader nature of warfare. Writing of post-1945 colonial conflicts, for example, the authors highlight the importance of an effective ‘hearts and minds’ strategy. They contrast the success of British counterinsurgency in Malaya, under the leadership of Generals Briggs and Templer, with the failed French attempt to retain control of Algeria and the debilitating US experience in Vietnam.

Another strength is the authors’ ability to draw connections between similar scenarios across the period. They draw attention, for instance, to the perils of undertaking surprise attacks, from North Korea’s invasion of its southern neighbour in 1950 to Russia’s assault on Ukraine: the difficulty of sustaining initial success; the provocation of the other side into mounting an overwhelming response; and the surrender of the moral high ground.