Robert H Scales

Scales on War is a collection of ideas, concepts, and observations aboutcontemporary war taken from over thirty years of research, writing, andpersonal experience by retired Major General Bob Scales. Scales’ unique styleof writing utilizes contemporary military history, current events, and hisphilosophy of ground warfare to create a very personal and expansive view ofthe future direction of American defense policies.Each chapter in the book addresses a distinct topic facing the upcomingprospects of America’s military, including tactical ground warfare, future gazing,the draft, and the role of women in the infantry. Fusing all of these topicstogether is Scales’ belief that, throughout its history, the United States hasfavored a technological approach to fighting its wars and has neglected itsground forces.Scales on War shows that, as a result of America’s focus on winning wars withtechnology rather than people, America’s enemies have learned how to winbattles by defeating such technology. As a well-known warfare expert, Scalesdemonstrates how only a resurgent land force of Army and Marine small unitswill restore America’s fighting competence.

In this unprecedented account of the intensive air and ground operations in Iraq, two of America’s most distinguished military historians bring clarity and depth to the first major war of the new millennium. Reaching beyond the blaring headlines, embedded videophone reports, and daily Centcom briefings, Williamson Murray and Robert Scales analyze events in light of past military experiences, present battleground realities, and future expectations.The Iraq War puts the recent conflict into context. Drawing on their extensive military expertise, the authors assess the opposing aims of the Coalition forces and the Iraqi regime and explain the day-to-day tactical and logistical decisions of infantry and air command, as British and American troops moved into Basra and Baghdad. They simultaneously step back to examine long-running debates within the U.S. Defense Department about the proper uses of military power and probe the strategic implications of those debates for America’s buildup to this war. Surveying the immense changes that have occurred in America’s armed forces between the Gulf conflicts of 1991 and 2003—changes in doctrine as well as weapons—this volume reveals critical meanings and lessons about the new “American way of war” as it has unfolded in Iraq.