Special operations and strategy : from World War II to the War on Terrorism / James D. Kiras.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Kiras, James D., 1966-

Series:

• Cass series--strategy and history 1473-6403 ; 17.
• Cass series--strategy and history, 1473-6403 ; 17

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Special operations (Military science).

Physical Description:

xvii, 230 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2006.

Summary:

• Fed by layers of official secrecy, personal memoirs of operators, and hundreds of units and campaign histories, the mystique surrounding special operations forces has been enhanced by their success in Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite this wealth of literature special operations forces have been prone to misuse or misapplication: in particular how strategic operations achieve their strategic effects has not been well understood. This book examines how special operations, in conjunction with more conventional military actions, can achieve and sustain strategic effect(s) over time, and argues that the root of their effectiveness lies in understanding the relationship that exists between moral and material attrition at the strategic level through an examination of strategic theory and case studies.
• A pioneering work on special operations forces, this book uses two concepts from classic works of strategy, strategic paralysis and attrition, as a method of examining the effectiveness of special operations within a theoretical context. However, James Kiras argues that the path to strategic success is rarely so direct as a number of elements outlined by Clausewitz, including friction, fog of war, and uncertainty, conspire to prevent individual actions, however audacious from achieving their achieving their desired effects. In particular the author reassesses the famous "Dambusters" raid and its strategic effects on Nazi Germany and the Allied war effort and examines why the Special Air Service (SAS) was not used to greater effect in the Normandy campaign. In addition to these who historical case studies, this volume draws upon numerous special operations examples, both contemporary and historical, to illustrate how the unlikely pairing of special operations and attrition offers a better explanation of how strategic effects caused by special operations occur. This book will be of much interest to scholars of special forces, strategy and military history, as well as students at professional military colleges.

Contents:

• 1 Special operations and great raids 1
• 2 "Seeing 'black lights' before sinking into oblivion": theories of strategic paralysis 16
• 3 "A dark picture of destruction": special operations, the persistence of ideas, and dambusting 35
• 4 Death by a thousand cuts: special operations, attrition, and the nature of warfare 58
• 5 "Looting a burning house": the SAS in the campaign of attrition in Normandy, 1944 83
• 6 Conclusion: special operations and the nature of strategy 112.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [195]-223) and index.

ISBN:

• 0415702127
• 0203969642

OCLC:

62134733

Publisher Number:

• 9780415702126 (hbk.)
• 9780203969643 (ebk.)

Online:

Publisher description