Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/November 2020/Book reviews




 * By Nick-D

Osprey Publishing are best known for their books on military history, but occasionally also release works on contemporary military topics. This book, the 217th in Osprey's 'Elite' series, provides a portrait of the modern Russian Ground Forces and a history of its development since the end of the Cold War. It was written by Mark Galeotti, who is an expert on transnational crime and Russian security affairs.

This is a very successful little book. The fact that, unlike many Osprey authors, Galeotti is an expert in the topic the book covers lends it considerable authority. Despite having only 64 pages to work with, he succeeded in packing in a good summary of the organisational changes which have affected the Russian Army, how and why its performance collapsed after the fall of the USSR, and its current status. This includes some good analysis of the factors behind the Army's recovery from the early 2000s onwards. Importantly, Galeotti notes that this has included developing what is essentially a two-tiered force where about a third of units are assigned the best personnel and equipment so they can serve as an intervention force and while the remainder would be difficult to deploy. As is generally standard for Osprey, the book is well illustrated with photos and maps. While I'm often critical of the hand-drawn illustrations and paintings Osprey uses as they tend to be fanciful, those in this book are realistic and are integrated effectively into the text.

As is unfortunately common for Osprey, the book's main shortcoming is its length. Galeotti clearly knows his stuff, and the book feels like it would have benefited from more pages - this would have allowed, for instance, a better discussion of the Army's culture, the role of women and ethnic minorities and the changes to the Army's order of battle. These topics are covered briefly, but could have been usefully fleshed out.

All up, I'd recommend this book to anyone looking for an introduction to the modern Russian Army.

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 * By Hawkeye7

Recently there was another fight on Talk:World War II over the order of the leaders of the Big Four. (They've been getting ornery lately. Let's hope that things return to normal now that their political season is over.) In the course of this, someone recommended this book. I hadn't read it, but it sounded interesting, so I picked up a copy.

The thesis of this book is that the air and sea power of the Western Allies played the decisive role in World War II because they "kept the Germans and Japanese from moving". From the Wikipedia point of view, one need read no further than page 13 to find that the author concedes that this is not the consensus among historians by any means, and that the author is an unabashed revisionist and a WP:FRINGE dweller.

The notion that the war was won by superior technology and industrial capacity is not a new one. In fact, it was the orthodox position for a quarter of a century after the war. It fell into disfavour in the 1970s. The reason for this is simple: if wars are inevitably won by the side with greater resources, more advanced technology, and superiority at sea and in the air, then what the Hell happened in Vietnam? This led to a reappraisal of the role of the Soviet Union, and with the opening of archives in Russia, historians have been paying increasing attention to that aspect of the war.

There's a lot of interesting material on German production, and the relative amounts devoted to different weapons. The author notes how even during the most intense battles of 1943, the Germans and Japanese were able to replace material losses from new production. The book notes the debates at the time and since over the effectiveness of strategic bombing, and the correct means of employing it. What I'd find more interesting to read about is just where the concept of wars being won by equipment and technology came from, and how it propagated through the English-speaking world. It pre-dated the war, and in many ways became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This book tries to cover too much ground, and despite its size, there is nowhere new enough space to cover the issues adequately. The issue of industrial mobilisation was one that confronted every country, and the problem of determining what was best allocation of manpower and resources was an intractable one. In the end, most generals had to fight with what was on hand, adapting strategy to the available resources because the lead time for production was so much longer than the timespan of global strategy. Rarely was the best allocation arrived at; what was the best is still debated to this day.

A great deal of space is wasted on matters that are not germane to the author's argument. Moreover, when he moves into the realm of strategy, much of it is wrong. This is especially true of the discussion of the Pacific War. The reasons for the advance into the Mariana and Caroline islands are jumbled. I'm also getting really tired of the allegation that General MacArthur pushed for the invasion of Palau, which he did not. The claim that the 1st Marine Division was too badly damaged to participate in operations for months is incorrect: it returned to Guadalcanal to stage for the Battle of Okinawa, but this was delayed for a couple of months; the reasons why there was a delay between each campaign in the Pacific is not explained (probably because it was not understood). The assertion that the campaign in New Guinea only appeared less expensive than the ones in the Central Pacific because the Australians were taking most of the casualties so they were not counted is absurd, and does not add up. The idea that basing the B-29s in the Mariana islands obviated the capture of the Philippines and cutting off the sea lanes to Japan makes no sense. And there's a whole lot more but you get the idea.

In the end, that is the problem with writing about the Second World War: the technology and the issues are so complex. This book has a case to make, but the one to buy it is weak.

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