Paths of Innovation in Warfare: From the Twelfth Century to the Present

(Hardback)

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Innovation shapes wars, and twelve studies by former faculty members of West Points United States Military Academy examine specific cases of past and present military innovation. The complex, competitive, and dynamic environment that defines war drives combatants to seek solutions to potentially lethal problems. As some solutions prove effective, gain traction, and win emulation, they follow a path of innovation. The chapters address a broad array of innovations, including in weapon technology, strategy, research and development philosophy, organization of the military instrument, and leveraging maps for strategic goals. Geographically, the examples in this volume span four continents and the Mediterranean Sea, and chronologically they proceed from the twelfth century to the twenty first. Collectively, the studies point to the interconnected value of pursuing constructive solutions to challenges, networking interdisciplinary forms of knowledge, appropriately balancing expectations and capabilities, and understanding an innovation as a journey rather than as an episodic event.

Reviews

This very interesting and timely edited volume looks at pathways for innovations in warfare across history. As the authors describe, innovation is a process that is vital, but exceptionally challenging, to master. With chapters ranging from the Crusades to the Texas Rangers to Boko Haram, the contributors present a variety of perspectives on how innovations in weapons, tactics, and warfare occur. This book offers important and helpful lessons that should shape the way we think about innovation in warfare moving forward. -- Michael Horowitz, University of Pennsylvania
This stimulating, heterogeneous collection of case studies defines innovation broadly and explores it across a grand sweep of international history. It moves from medieval cartography during the Crusades and grand strategy in the American Revolution to racial integration of combat units and contemporary media warfare in Nigeria. Editor Nicholas Michael Sambaluk concludes the volume with conceptual threads that he finds running through the case studies. -- Alex Roland, Duke University
Nicholas Michael Sambaluk provides a range of fresh scholarship on a wide array of military innovationsdefining the term broadlyand forces us all to reconsider the very term innovation. Here one finds ideas, processes, institutions, and technologies, all in their full interaction with social and cultural forces. Innovation emerges not as a stroke of genius, but as a complex response to complex problems, from medieval mapmaking to the militarization of slaves and the invention of lawfare. There is much to digest here. -- Guy Berthiaume, Librarian and Archivist of Canada

Author Bio

Nicholas Michael Sambaluk is associate professor of strategy at Air University and author of The Other Space Race: Eisenhower and the Quest for Aerospace Security, named "Best Air Power History Book of 2016" by the Air Force Historical Foundation.