Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (review)

Stephen Biddle's Military Power deserves serious attention from military historians. Military Power makes a powerful argument that has redefined thinking within political science and policy circles on why armies win battles. Biddle argues that the outcome of battles revolves around force employment, meaning "the doctrine and tactics by which armies use their material in the field" (p. 2). The modern system of force employment was born in the First World War. It is based upon reducing exposure to firepower and applying combined arms tactics. Armies that have failed to adopt the modern system of force employment stand to lose battles against armies that do. This argument directly contradicts popular strands of thought that hold that material/numerical or technological superiority drive victory. The book's argument has been at the center of debates between Biddle and other scholars (including Lawrence Freedman, Martin van Creveld, and Eliot Cohen), most notably in the Journal of Strategic Studies and International Security.

Biddle uses multiple approaches to prove his point—historical case studies, large-n statistical analysis, computer simulation, and formal mathematical modeling. Fortunately, Biddle is a sufficiently able writer that the quantitative aspects of the work can be easily understood. The case studies are Operation Michael, Operation Goodwood, and Operation Desert Storm. They are solidly written and convincingly show that force employment rather than material/numerical or technological superiority led to success. Biddle fully reviewed the historical literature and backed it with archival research. My only mild comment is that he might have cited David French's Raising Churchill's Army, the definitive work on British Army doctrine in the Second World War, in dealing with Operation Goodwood.

Certainly, Military Power presents numerous points that scholars will contest. How can the development of tanks and airplanes not be considered central to the modern system of force employment? Is force employment the best explanation for German defeat in the 1918 Spring Offensives and the Battle of Normandy? Is the Battle of 73 Easting representative of the causes of Iraqi defeat in Operation Desert Storm? Does the outcome of battles matter today when terrorism and insurgencies seem to have overtaken conventional battles in significance? Yet none of these points detract from the fact that Biddle's work is innovative, thought-provoking, and well-researched.

The key point to remember when reading Military Power is that Biddle is discussing the outcome of battles, not wars. Biddle explicitly states as much in his title and the first line of the book: "What causes victory and defeat in battle?" (p. 1). Though of less scholarly interest than the outcome of wars, one can hardly argue that the outcome of battles such as France in 1940, Stalingrad, or the 1950 Chinese offensive over the Yalu do not have a great impact on politics and society.

In conclusion, Biddle has produced an outstanding work that addresses a question central to historians, political scientists, and policy-makers. Undergraduate and graduate students, as well as military officers, should become familiar with this book.