War, like death and taxes, seems eternal but is it inevitable? Do nations simply blunder into it? What is victory and how is it achieved?
The author of this original and lively study answers these and other perennial questions about War and Warfare (not the same thing) that scholars often ignore.
Pike explains how strategy fuses objectives and action, how war leaders invariably (and literally) lose the plot; how the relationship between generals and politicians is key.
He looks at nuclear war and provides some provocative insights; he argues that Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) – while a hideous concept – provides strategic stability.
He also highlights the absurdity and folly of past wars – football wars, wars about pigs or ears – but stresses that wars, a last resort once diplomacy has failed, are lost by those blinded by hubris, irresolution or simple strategic confusion.
This is the first volume in a trilogy ‘Making Sense of War’.
Part two of the trilogy ‘War in Context’ is also available from Brown Dog Books
Makingsenseofwar.com
Christopher Pike is an expert on war and warfare, and has been studying military history for 50 years. He believes that victory in battle is not the key to a lasting peace. What matters is understanding war’s constraints, defining aims and knowing when goals have been achieved. Organised violence, so often futile, is a last resort. Napoleon and Hitler are two examples of men failing to grasp war’s risks, war’s fallibilities, and their own limitations.
Pike’s sceptical and analytical philosophy shines through the pages of his three volume Making Sense of War. He is an alumnus of the Department of War Studies, King’s College, London, where his focus was on war and politics.
He also holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration. He was elected to the Council of the Society for Army Historical Research, where he organised and delivered lectures, including a major seminar at Apsley House, London, on Waterloo and the Iron Duke.
He lives in London and Norfolk and is a frequent visitor to the battlefields of Europe, seeing the lie of the land and the ‘Other Side of the Hill’ for himself. He has written many penetrating strategic backgrounds for battlefield tour guides.
One reader wrote: ‘Pike’s notes on why the Bulge was fought, why Arnhem failed, why the Somme was such slaughter was more penetrating (and digestible) than a hundred books.’