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Command in War
Many books have been written about strategy, tactics, and great commanders. This is the first book to deal exclusively with the nature of command itself, and to trace its development over two thousand years from ancient Greece to Vietnam. It treats historically the whole variety of problems involved in commanding armies, including staff organization and administration, communications methods and technologies, weaponry, and logistics. And it analyzes the relationship between these problems and military strategy.
In vivid descriptions of key battles and campaigns--among others, Napoleon at Jena, Moltke's Königgrätz campaign, the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, and the Americans in Vietnam--van Creveld focuses on the means of command and shows how those means worked in practice. He finds that technological advances such as the railroad, breech-loading rifles, the telegraph and later the radio, tanks, and helicopters all brought commanders not only new tactical possibilities but also new limitations.
Although vast changes have occurred in military thinking and technology, the one constant has been an endless search for certainty--certainty about the state and intentions of the enemy's forces; certainty about the manifold factors that together constitute the environment in which war is fought, from the weather and terrain to radioactivity and the presence of chemical warfare agents; and certainty about the state, intentions, and activities of one's own forces. The book concludes that progress in command has usually been achieved less by employing more advanced technologies than by finding ways to transcend the limitations of existing ones.
Library Binding
First published January 1, 1985
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About the author
Martin van Creveld
65 books128 followersMartin Levi van Creveld is an Israeli military historian and theorist.
Van Creveld was born in the Netherlands in the city of Rotterdam, and has lived in Israel since shortly after his birth. He holds degrees from the London School of Economics and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he has been on the faculty since 1971. He is the author of seventeen books on military history and strategy, of which Command in War (1985), Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (1977, 2nd edition 2004), The Transformation of War (1991), The Sword and the Olive (1998) and The Rise and Decline of the State (1999) are among the best known. Van Creveld has lectured or taught at many strategic institutes in the Western world, including the U.S. Naval War College.
- wikipedia.org
Van Creveld was born in the Netherlands in the city of Rotterdam, and has lived in Israel since shortly after his birth. He holds degrees from the London School of Economics and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he has been on the faculty since 1971. He is the author of seventeen books on military history and strategy, of which Command in War (1985), Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (1977, 2nd edition 2004), The Transformation of War (1991), The Sword and the Olive (1998) and The Rise and Decline of the State (1999) are among the best known. Van Creveld has lectured or taught at many strategic institutes in the Western world, including the U.S. Naval War College.
- wikipedia.org
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
September 7, 2013
The lionshare of the value of this book is the introduction and conclusion. There's much in there that Airmen will be able to understand considering their understanding of our flavor of command and control... particularly those of us who have played in a dynamic RED FLAG or USAFWS INT/ME exercise. I think its important that Airmen take from van Creveld, whom I believe is an over-stated scholar by many, that there are other means of command and control other than the 'technical means' that we tend to focus upon (meaning our abundant inattention by the Air service to organization and procedure). Airman leaders need to consider all three aspects equally in the design of their operations.
Indeed van Creveld is first in my mind for consideration of command and control when he says:
That's why this book is so important and why I say van Creveld is first in Mission Command.
Indeed van Creveld is first in my mind for consideration of command and control when he says:
Confronted with a task, and having less information available than is needed to perform the task, an organization may react in either of two ways. One is to increase its information-processing capacity, the other to design the organization, and indeed the task itself, in such a way as to enable it to operate on the basis of less information. These approaches are exhaustive; no others are conceivable. A failure to adopt one or the other will automatically result in a drop in the level of performance.(269)van Creveld plays a coy game here because, as he readily admits prior to this conclusion, in the clash of wills there will always be technical, organizational, and procedural shortfalls in the expression of the common operating picture. van Creveld truly favors, like many of us, the training and education necessary to operate in complex scenarios with less information. It is with this in mind where auftragstaktik, mission-type orders, and Mission Command can begin to truly thrive.
That's why this book is so important and why I say van Creveld is first in Mission Command.
August 26, 2017
An ambitious and well-written book that explores command throughout the ages, from the ancient world to a modern, computerised form of warfare. The sections on ancient Rome, Napoleon, and the IDF were all extremely insightful, and the book, despite spanning thousands of years and covering a dense subject, is a surprisingly easy read.
March 9, 2021
لا احب الحرب ولا احب الدعاة اليها رغم تكراري لهذة الجملة
الا أني لا انفك القراءة عنها ..الحرب لا تقوم بارتجال تام
بل بدراسة تامة و خطط محكومة ..كرهت سيرة الصهاينة
بدور البطل في احتلال فلسطين مما دعاني لترك الكتاب
وعدم اكماله ،لم يكن لي المزاج الازم لقراءته حالياً ربما
في المستقبل لي معه لقاء
الا أني لا انفك القراءة عنها ..الحرب لا تقوم بارتجال تام
بل بدراسة تامة و خطط محكومة ..كرهت سيرة الصهاينة
بدور البطل في احتلال فلسطين مما دعاني لترك الكتاب
وعدم اكماله ،لم يكن لي المزاج الازم لقراءته حالياً ربما
في المستقبل لي معه لقاء
June 30, 2022
Исследования по развитию командования в войнах, с Древнего Мира до Вьетнама. Конкретные кейсы Наполеона, Мольтке, Даяна и прочих. Примеры тщательно исследованы и описаны, но практических выводов на мой взгляд маловато, для такого масштабного труда
February 16, 2015
Command in War is an extremely ambitious work of military history, a study of command over millennia and six major types of war, using case studies from antiquity, Napoleon's battle of Jena-Auerstedt, the Prussian-Austrian War, World War I, Israeli battles in 1967 and 1973, and Vietnam, to examine the organization, processes, and technologies of command.
The theory is extremely robust, if somewhat idiosyncratic and limited in scope. Van Creveld is interesting in how information is taken in by commanders and used to manage uncertainty, so that orders may be given to forces to destroy the enemy. The first and last chapters are particularly well-constructed, containing Van Creveld's general theories on the best organization of an armed force: tactically flexible, self-sufficient units, with just enough formal structure to manage their logistical needs, and loosely controlled with robust informal back-channels. All the technique and technology of modern command, control, and communications is of little help.
The case studies are more uneven in quality. The sections on ancient warfare and Napoleon are strongest. I have come to agree with Van Creveld that strategy before Napoleon was non-existent. The best that a commander could do was guess to place himself at the decisive point of a battle and bull through with sheer physical force. The limitations of horse couriers made actual control of a campaign from a central point impossible. The staff, such as it was, would consist of the commander's household and a Quartermaster General in charge of scouting, selecting where to camp, the baggage train, and all the millions of details that made up the army. Napoleon's staff was still bound to him personally (though by charisma rather than feudal obligation), but Napoleon standardized some procedures of strategic intelligence and was the first to successfully direct multiple independent formations towards a single strategic end, although even the master of warfare ("the most competent man who ever lived" by Van Creveld's estimation) forgot to give orders to a third of his forces at a crucial battle and essentially blundered into the enemy. Likewise, the Prussian General Staff was far less powerful and formalistic than common history suggests--more informal sinews that occasionally managed to bring divided corps together than autocratic masters of battle.
This book gives a good sense of the imaginative and elegant letters and brave cavalrymen that characterized Napoleon's campaigns, and the rising tide of paperwork and schedules that entirely failed to manage the chaos of trench warfare. Where it is weakest is in the modern sections. Radio-based mobile warfare is clearly new in its relative independence from fixed lines of communication and physical space, yet the treatment of the 1973 Yom Kippur War is reduced to incoherence and the psychology of the various Israeli commanders, when it could've been the most robust part of the book. Van Creveld has a better perspective on the Vietnam War, where colonels in helicopter turned the 'directed telescope of command' into a paralyzing instrument of over-control, and statistical methods directed the army into doing what could be measured rather than what mattered. The heart of modern warfare; fast-moving combined arms operations linked through the 'hot medium' of voice radio, is sadly absent from the book.
For what it's worth, the nods towards the visible future of command, via technologies like Blue Force Tracker and streaming video via drone, seem to have turned out to be mostly right, which is an worthy bit of foresight. The conclusion, that the problems of command are intractable, that centralization is as harmful to military operations as chaos, and that the burden of technology may be greater than the benefits, are likely eternal truths.
The theory is extremely robust, if somewhat idiosyncratic and limited in scope. Van Creveld is interesting in how information is taken in by commanders and used to manage uncertainty, so that orders may be given to forces to destroy the enemy. The first and last chapters are particularly well-constructed, containing Van Creveld's general theories on the best organization of an armed force: tactically flexible, self-sufficient units, with just enough formal structure to manage their logistical needs, and loosely controlled with robust informal back-channels. All the technique and technology of modern command, control, and communications is of little help.
The case studies are more uneven in quality. The sections on ancient warfare and Napoleon are strongest. I have come to agree with Van Creveld that strategy before Napoleon was non-existent. The best that a commander could do was guess to place himself at the decisive point of a battle and bull through with sheer physical force. The limitations of horse couriers made actual control of a campaign from a central point impossible. The staff, such as it was, would consist of the commander's household and a Quartermaster General in charge of scouting, selecting where to camp, the baggage train, and all the millions of details that made up the army. Napoleon's staff was still bound to him personally (though by charisma rather than feudal obligation), but Napoleon standardized some procedures of strategic intelligence and was the first to successfully direct multiple independent formations towards a single strategic end, although even the master of warfare ("the most competent man who ever lived" by Van Creveld's estimation) forgot to give orders to a third of his forces at a crucial battle and essentially blundered into the enemy. Likewise, the Prussian General Staff was far less powerful and formalistic than common history suggests--more informal sinews that occasionally managed to bring divided corps together than autocratic masters of battle.
This book gives a good sense of the imaginative and elegant letters and brave cavalrymen that characterized Napoleon's campaigns, and the rising tide of paperwork and schedules that entirely failed to manage the chaos of trench warfare. Where it is weakest is in the modern sections. Radio-based mobile warfare is clearly new in its relative independence from fixed lines of communication and physical space, yet the treatment of the 1973 Yom Kippur War is reduced to incoherence and the psychology of the various Israeli commanders, when it could've been the most robust part of the book. Van Creveld has a better perspective on the Vietnam War, where colonels in helicopter turned the 'directed telescope of command' into a paralyzing instrument of over-control, and statistical methods directed the army into doing what could be measured rather than what mattered. The heart of modern warfare; fast-moving combined arms operations linked through the 'hot medium' of voice radio, is sadly absent from the book.
For what it's worth, the nods towards the visible future of command, via technologies like Blue Force Tracker and streaming video via drone, seem to have turned out to be mostly right, which is an worthy bit of foresight. The conclusion, that the problems of command are intractable, that centralization is as harmful to military operations as chaos, and that the burden of technology may be greater than the benefits, are likely eternal truths.
March 12, 2017
Usually books focus on an outstanding or brilliant commander such as Alexander, Rommel, Manstein, or Eitan. The subject of this book was not the commander, but the structure of command. Napoleonic, British during the Somme campaign, Imperial Germany during the last 1918 offensive, Israeli during the Six-Day and Yom Kippur war, and finally our own during the Vietnam; command structures with their associated pros and cons were diagnosed. An enormous span of over 100 years of conflict.
The structure of command was heavily influenced by current technology, or lack thereof. Structure and technology also drove the training of the commanders and how they interacted with subordinate and superior commands. I found some discussion very interesting and well-discussed. I found the discussion on Vietnam very abrupt and would have welcomed more content.
Overall a fine discussion of command.
The structure of command was heavily influenced by current technology, or lack thereof. Structure and technology also drove the training of the commanders and how they interacted with subordinate and superior commands. I found some discussion very interesting and well-discussed. I found the discussion on Vietnam very abrupt and would have welcomed more content.
Overall a fine discussion of command.
January 17, 2021
Written in the 80's by one of the foremost operational thinkers of our time, this book is still relevant to discussions and issues of command of land forces today. Recommend to my friends in command and on operational level military staffs.
December 24, 2023
This book looks at Western land warfare from the point of view of what professionals often call C3 (command, control, and communications) on the battlefield from about 1800 to about 1975. He offers as illustrative examples Jena, Koeniggraetz, the Somme, Germany's 1918 offensive, the Yom Kippur War, and Vietnam. Conclusions: The style of command should be tailored to the mission and the troops. A method that works splendidly in one situation may be a failure in another. Uncertainty in war is ineradicable., consequently personal observation and personal interactions between people who know each other are extremely important. The advance of technology has not fundamentally changed the problem of command. To increase performance in the face of lack of information it does not work to focus entirely on gathering and processing more information--too much effort gets diverted to a vain attempt to understand things perfectly and the system collapsed under its own weight. Neither does it work to simplify tactics to the point where no understand is required, though Frederick the Great tried. What works is to make subordinate unites independent and flexible so that they can take advantage of the situation as it develops.
Before 1800 it was mostly inside the commanding general's head, since he could see everything himself. But starting with Napoleon armies were too big for this, so staffs were found necessary to gather information, plan, and control everything. Up through WWI communications on the battlefield relied on runners and mounted couriers, though telegraph, telephone, and radio gradually became available at higher levels. A common theme is the importance of a "directed telescope," i.e. a means for the commander to get a close personal look at a particular part of the battle--usually this was a staff officer making a personal visit. Starting in WWII commanders were able to move closer to the front to see things for themselves--they got their reports by radio and did not have to stay in the rear where they could be found by messengers. Vietnam saw the emergence of systems analysis and battlefield control from afar, and "attempts to achieve cost-effectiveness led to one of the least cost-effective wars known to history" (p. 260).
John Boyd's famous OODA Loop is not mentioned, probably because it had not yet become well-known.
Before 1800 it was mostly inside the commanding general's head, since he could see everything himself. But starting with Napoleon armies were too big for this, so staffs were found necessary to gather information, plan, and control everything. Up through WWI communications on the battlefield relied on runners and mounted couriers, though telegraph, telephone, and radio gradually became available at higher levels. A common theme is the importance of a "directed telescope," i.e. a means for the commander to get a close personal look at a particular part of the battle--usually this was a staff officer making a personal visit. Starting in WWII commanders were able to move closer to the front to see things for themselves--they got their reports by radio and did not have to stay in the rear where they could be found by messengers. Vietnam saw the emergence of systems analysis and battlefield control from afar, and "attempts to achieve cost-effectiveness led to one of the least cost-effective wars known to history" (p. 260).
John Boyd's famous OODA Loop is not mentioned, probably because it had not yet become well-known.
December 29, 2019
"To look at old facts through new glasses, then to make use of the facts in order to gain a better understanding of those glasses -that, after all, is just what makes history worthwile."
This is the sort of book I'm always looking for. Phrases worth of quotation on every page, combined with a very clear structure and repetition that adds to the point everytime in a new way. On top of that, the book has you take on perspectives you never thought off before.
Amazing how he links the societal characteristics to the command systems and warfare through the centuries. For the first time, I clearly see how management is an essential part of organising a combat post. War is not something that stops all approaches of the business world from being relavent, not even at the level of a Company commander controlling his attack squads.
How you divide the inevitable uncertainty among the chain of command (decision threshold) in the eternal quest for certainty in war will determine your needed flow of information & if your command systems is not capable of handling the appropriate flow, one is faced with only two options in face of uncertainty: centralizing or decentralizing.
How WW1 was characterized by scientific management & Vietnam by statistical system analysis is madness, but a clear consequence of societal developments. You're left to ask yourself what changes today would determine our paradigm?
As a big fan of the personal side of command, leadership, it was refreshing to read a book that explicitely excluded this in the question of command. This way, Van Creveld clearly demonstrated the importance of management in designing the most effective organization in any given situation. In this, the book even made sense of my education at the Royal Military Academy for the moment.
I added more books of Martin Van Creveld to my list, I'm impressed. Next up, I will read "The Face of Battle" of John Keegan, since it has more or less the same broad historical scope (Agincourt - Waterloo - Somme), but adds to those battles the perspective of the foot soldier, whereas I just viewed those battles from the HQs.
This is the sort of book I'm always looking for. Phrases worth of quotation on every page, combined with a very clear structure and repetition that adds to the point everytime in a new way. On top of that, the book has you take on perspectives you never thought off before.
Amazing how he links the societal characteristics to the command systems and warfare through the centuries. For the first time, I clearly see how management is an essential part of organising a combat post. War is not something that stops all approaches of the business world from being relavent, not even at the level of a Company commander controlling his attack squads.
How you divide the inevitable uncertainty among the chain of command (decision threshold) in the eternal quest for certainty in war will determine your needed flow of information & if your command systems is not capable of handling the appropriate flow, one is faced with only two options in face of uncertainty: centralizing or decentralizing.
How WW1 was characterized by scientific management & Vietnam by statistical system analysis is madness, but a clear consequence of societal developments. You're left to ask yourself what changes today would determine our paradigm?
As a big fan of the personal side of command, leadership, it was refreshing to read a book that explicitely excluded this in the question of command. This way, Van Creveld clearly demonstrated the importance of management in designing the most effective organization in any given situation. In this, the book even made sense of my education at the Royal Military Academy for the moment.
I added more books of Martin Van Creveld to my list, I'm impressed. Next up, I will read "The Face of Battle" of John Keegan, since it has more or less the same broad historical scope (Agincourt - Waterloo - Somme), but adds to those battles the perspective of the foot soldier, whereas I just viewed those battles from the HQs.
March 18, 2024
For those of us tasked with the salvage operation in Ukraine, the classic study “ Command in War,” by historian Martin Van Creveld notes that an organization, when "confronted with a task, … having less information than is needed to perform the task," has two options. "One is to increase its information-processing capacity, the other to design the organization, and indeed the task itself, in such a way as to enable it to operate on the basis of less information."
The government's current fixation on technology focuses on the first option, while John Boyd or George Patton would have argued for the second.
Van Creveld’s study relies on a number of case studies. The case studies are uneven in quality. In the Age of Napoleon, the best a commander could do was to place himself at the decisive point of a battle. Limitations of technology made control of a campaign impossible. The staff, for the most part, was unprofessional.
Radio-based mobile warfare is clearly new in its independence from fixed lines of communication, and physical space is now a reality. The treatment of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and Vietnam are reduced to incoherence and chaos. Van Creveld’s perspective on the Vietnam War, where helicopter commands turned their 'directed telescopes’ into a design to further the metrics then available. In short, statistical methods directed the army into doing what could be measured rather than what mattered.
Van Creveld's work is important, but irrelevant; few care.
The government's current fixation on technology focuses on the first option, while John Boyd or George Patton would have argued for the second.
Van Creveld’s study relies on a number of case studies. The case studies are uneven in quality. In the Age of Napoleon, the best a commander could do was to place himself at the decisive point of a battle. Limitations of technology made control of a campaign impossible. The staff, for the most part, was unprofessional.
Radio-based mobile warfare is clearly new in its independence from fixed lines of communication, and physical space is now a reality. The treatment of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and Vietnam are reduced to incoherence and chaos. Van Creveld’s perspective on the Vietnam War, where helicopter commands turned their 'directed telescopes’ into a design to further the metrics then available. In short, statistical methods directed the army into doing what could be measured rather than what mattered.
Van Creveld's work is important, but irrelevant; few care.
November 1, 2025
Martin van Creveld’s, 1985 command in war is still relevant today. Communications and information technology do not solve alone the challenge of uncertainty in war. His historical analysis suggests to delegate decision authority to the lowest threshold, to create self-contained units, to complement regular reporting with active search of information by higher headquarters, without impeding the lower echelons and to maintain structures enabling informal communication.
March 15, 2018
asd
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 30, 2019
Läste den egentligen för länge sedan. Den var ok och gav lite saker att tänka på.
January 12, 2023
Written in 1985 but still timely.
November 7, 2024
Great book, clear and simple evolution of command methods in war, great inteoduction into Napoleonic and Moltke's command styles and systems
October 8, 2020
Creveld has something to say in his book, mainly when he writes that Moltke's "... plans were sufficiently flexible to accommodate errors; that is, a large safety margin was left to ensure that mistakes would not develop into catastrophes." (p.121). Something every project manager knows today.
As someone from Austria, I was particularly impressed by his citation of Alfred Graf von Schlieffen, the German chief of staff (* 28. Februar 1833 in Berlin; † 4. Januar 1913): "Viel leisten - wenig hervortreten - mehr sein als scheinen" (p.147). -> 5 Stars.
And his remarks when he reflects on command "To make certain of every one of a vast multitude of details, then, each of which must be coordinated with all others to achieve optimum results - that is the ultimate purpose of any command system" make this book quite interesting to read. For people who take to Clausewitz, Sun Zi and Musashi might this one be worth a try.
As someone from Austria, I was particularly impressed by his citation of Alfred Graf von Schlieffen, the German chief of staff (* 28. Februar 1833 in Berlin; † 4. Januar 1913): "Viel leisten - wenig hervortreten - mehr sein als scheinen" (p.147). -> 5 Stars.
And his remarks when he reflects on command "To make certain of every one of a vast multitude of details, then, each of which must be coordinated with all others to achieve optimum results - that is the ultimate purpose of any command system" make this book quite interesting to read. For people who take to Clausewitz, Sun Zi and Musashi might this one be worth a try.
July 14, 2015
A very interesting look at command in war over the centuries, and a good breakdown of several famous campaigns in history from that perspective. This book provides a unique perspective on some well-known battles and how their command structure influenced decisions and the outcomes of the campaigns.
August 7, 2012
Be prepared for some detailed mapwork regarding his account of the Jena and Konnigratz campaigns. Van Creveld was the first guy who taught me the tremendous nuance and complexity that goes into any process of warfighting.
June 28, 2015
An exceptional work on organizational management, leadership, and culture. The examples are military case studies and the command and control challenges for commanders over history; however, this work will ring true and insightful for anyone faced with challenges of leading large organizations.
June 8, 2014
I found the earlier chapters better than the later ones with clearer analysis.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews