The Evolution of Strategy

A comprehensive survey of the development of strategic thought over two millennia, ranging across land, sea, air and nuclear warfare.

Part I. Introduction: 1. What is strategy?; Part II. Long-Term Constants: 2. Warfare and mindsets from antiquity to the middle ages; 3. Warfare and mindsets in early modern Europe; 4. Themes in early thinking about strategy; Part III. The Napoleonic Paradigm and Total War: 5. The age and mindset of the Napoleonic paradigm; 6. The Napoleonic paradigm transformed: from total mobilisation to total war; 7. Challenges to the Napoleonic paradigm vs. the culmination of total war; Part IV. Naval and Maritime Strategy: 8. Long-term trends and early maritime strategy; 9. The age of steam to the First World War; 10. The World Wars and their lessons for maritime strategists; 11. Maritime strategy in the nuclear age; Part V. Air Power and Nuclear Strategy: 12. War in the third dimension; 13. Four schools of air power; 14. Nuclear strategy; Part VI. Asymmetric or 'Small' Wars: 15. From partisan war to people's war; 16. Counterinsurgency; Part VII. The Quest for New Paradigms after the World Wars: 17. Wars without victories, victories without peace; 18. No end of history: the dialectic continues; 19. Epilogue: strategy making vs. bureaucratic politics; 20. Summaries and conclusions.