Milstack Snowy Day Special
6 January 2024
Milstack showcases the best articles, videos, and podcasts on military subjects I engaged in a particular week (Milstack Saturday), month (Milstack Monthly), or year (Milstack Annual). At first, all of the items mentioned in each Milstack had appeared in blogs hosted by Substack (whence the ‘stack’ in Milstack). Recently, however, I decided to cast a wider net.
Speaking of wider nets …
When, a few days ago, YouTube began to recommend videos from The New Enlightenment with Ashley, I thought that the algorithm had fumbled the proverbial ball. However, rather than serving up a hearty helping of pachouli-scented woo-woo, the most recent program on the channel, about the tension between abstract plans and on-the-ground-knowledge, offered observations of considerable interest to enthusiasts for the work of John Boyd, the maneuver warfare tradition, and, in particular, the command-and-control taxonomy of Martin Samuels.
Speaking of which …
You can find a mature explanation of this schema in the most recent book-length product of the prolific pen of Dr. Samuels Piercing the Fog of War. For an introduction to this approach, along with an early version of the typology, take a look at ‘Understanding Command Approaches’, which appeared in the Journal of Military Operations in 2012.
Speaking of operations …
If you are looking for a deep dive into an institution caught between the demands of central planning and the desire to preserve the discretion of the holders of on-the-ground knowledge, take a look at Holding Out: The German Army and Operational Command in 1917. Written by Tony Cowan, a retired diplomat who has spent much time in the dark corridors of high-level bureaucracy, the book provides, among many other things, the best description of the web of competing institutions at the top of the armies of the German Empire.
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