Analyzing Change in the Conduct of War

The Dark Path: The Structure of War and the Rise of the West. Williamson Murray. Yale University Press. 488 pages. $40

Col. Nathan Finney

The Dark Path analyzes war from the 16th century to the present day, focusing on “the structure of war and the rise of the West,” as captured in the book’s subtitle. This book is the last by Williamson Murray, who died in 2023 after decades as a professor at Ohio State University, where he became one of the preeminent experts on modern Western military history.

Murray will be familiar to many, with his earlier book Military Innovation in the Interwar Period a staple in Army professional military education. Much like that work, The Dark Path places an emphasis on changes, the structures that underpin them and the “larger trends and developments that undergirded the conduct of war.”

Building on the idea of the tactical and technological revolutions in military affairs that were the focus of Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, Murray uses The Dark Path to describe larger military-social revolutions. For Murray, military-social revolutions have involved systemic changes that altered political frameworks, and therefore, military systems. These systemic changes built upon each other, resulting in the current Western-dominated military context—a context that is rapidly eroding.

The five military-social revolutions Murray identifies are the birth of the modern state and its professional militaries; the Industrial Revolution and the means to equip large armies; the French Revolution’s ideological support to continental-sized conflicts; the merging of the Industrial and French revolutions in the U.S. Civil War; and the culmination in the current system that pulls from all previous revolutions through the integration of technological advancement, financial capacity, ideology and a focus on total wars.

For Murray, the accumulation of these military-social revolutions made each subsequent war more deadly. This resulted in military leaders searching for easy success through decisive battles—and revolutions in military affairs—that would enable these decisive achievements.

Meanwhile, those revolutions established strategic and tactical dynamics that almost ensured quick victories were unachievable. This largely follows previous arguments by authors Cathal Nolan, Phillips Payson O’Brien and Adam Tooze. Murray’s addition to these previous arguments is salient today as soldiers and leaders increasingly focus on technological changes that can address challenging political-military dynamics. Ironically, as Murray notes, “ever more impressive and destructive weapons … seem largely counterproductive to the political and strategic purposes [of contemporary] wars.”

The Dark Path is Western-centric, an analytical choice to describe how Europe and its Western descendants like the U.S. fell into lethal competition that, in turn, drove constant innovation and adaptation in military technology as well as political and economic systems. It also remains within the tradition of trying to explain a “rise of the West” over non-Western nations as detailed by Williamson’s other books, as well as works by his Ohio State colleague Geoffrey Parker and Tonio Andrade, at Emory University in Atlanta.

However, without grappling with non-Western nations and militaries, along with the consistent interaction of the West and East in this broad period, the book leaves a recognizable gap in the resulting analysis.

The Dark Path is an enjoyable and quick read, particularly for those familiar with Murray’s previous books. Soldiers will benefit from engaging intellectually with his five military-social revolutions, as well as his argument that the inherent dynamics of the United States’ current political-military situation are not compatible with achieving decisive military success.

Col. Nathan Finney is a special assistant to the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Camp Smith, Hawaii. Previously, he was a U.S. Army Goodpaster Scholar at Duke University, North Carolina. He is a founder of The Strategy Bridge, the Military Writers Guild and the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum. He holds a doctorate in history from Duke.

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Neighbors Unite to Fight a Common Enemy

The Good Allies: How Canada and the United States Fought Together to Defeat Fascism during the Second World War. Tim Cook. Allen Lane. 576 pages. $30

By Brig. Gen. John Brown, U.S. Army retired

World War II was a watershed for Canada, the U.S. and relations between them. In this fine book, The Good Allies: How Canada and the United States Fought Together to Defeat Fascism during the Second World War, author Tim Cook—chief historian and director of research at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, Ontario—explores the wartime alliance between the two nations as it played out over time, the dramatic effects it had on the course of the war and how it has affected the world posture of each then and since.

American historians have tended to view World War II through the prism of the Anglo-American alliance, with the Canadians as mere auxiliaries to the British. Cook dispels this myopia.

Canadians were loyal allies to Great Britain throughout the war but valued their dominion status within the Commonwealth and strove to preserve autonomy. They initially hoped their war effort could be measured, but the fall of France in June 1940 presented them with an existential danger. The U.S. also was shocked by France’s defeat and ramped up its commitment to hemispheric defense.

The Japan threat further stoked anxieties in both Canada and the U.S., so they pursued serious deliberations to defend their shared continent. This required adept triangulation, as the Canadians no more wanted to cede autonomy to the U.S. than they wanted to cede it to Great Britain.

Industrial mobilization for the U.S. to become an “Arsenal of Democracy” deepened the relationship. American industry leaned heavily on Canada for aluminum, uranium, hydroelectric power and much else. Production sprawled across the border, with manufactured products often drawing on components and labor from both sides. A Permanent Joint Board on Defence was established to coordinate defense matters, and other bilateral initiatives and agencies pushed along the economic and industrial cooperation thought necessary for victory.

Cook explores these subjects and others in 23 roughly chronological chapters, each of which focuses on an aspect of the shared experience. One, for example, addresses the outsized role the Royal Canadian Navy played in the Battle of the Atlantic in 1942, when the U.S. was unprepared and the British were on the ropes. Another chapter covers mammoth construction projects to knit together and defend western Canada and Alaska. A third drills into combined operations in Italy.

Each chapter is tightly written and ably develops its chosen topic. Strung together like pearls, the chapters provide a comprehensive historical account of the alliance and the war.

Cook gives ample attention to leadership and does especially well by then-Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. Never as flamboyant or media-prone as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill or U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, King proved a steady hand who led his party for almost 30 years and his country for over 20. His unassuming temperament was a good fit for the challenges he faced, preserving domestic harmony amid one crisis after another while also securing Canada’s position on the world stage.

Friendly relations with Roosevelt greatly benefited both nations. Artful relations with Churchill committed Canada to defend democracy without committing to restore the British Empire as Churchill remembered it. Alliance politics are complex; King handled complexity well.

I strongly recommend The Good Allies to all who are interested in World War II, alliance politics or the histories of the U.S. and Canada. Lessons to be learned from it have continuing relevance, as many of the issues and initiatives Cook describes remain with us today.

Brig. Gen. John Brown, U.S. Army retired, served 33 years in the Army, with his last assignment as chief of military history at the U.S. Army Center of Military History. The author of Kevlar Legions: The Transformation of the U.S. Army, 1989–2005, he has a doctorate in history from Indiana University.

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A Draftee Leader Shares His Vietnam Combat Experience

Life and Death in the Central Highlands: An American Sergeant in the Vietnam War, 1968–1970. James Gillam. University of North Texas Press. 328 pages. $19.95

By Timothy Heck

The outpouring of literature that emerged from the American war in Vietnam spans the war’s breadth and scope, from memoirs documenting the earliest days such as Philip Caputo’s A Rumor of War to its conclusion with Frank Snepp’s Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End Told by the CIA’s Chief Strategy Analyst in Vietnam, to fiction ranging from Graham Greene’s The Quiet American to John Del Vecchio’s The 13th Valley.

Enter to the mix James Gillam’s Life and Death in the Central Highlands: An American Sergeant in the Vietnam War, 1968–1970. Gillam’s work is a mixture of memoir and history that recounts his experience as an enlisted infantryman in the 4th Infantry Division.

Drafted after losing his educational deferment in the summer of 1968, Gillam attended basic training and later NCO training in the United States. It is at NCO training that Gillam’s story starts to fill out. There, he bonds with fellow soldiers who also are slated to lead young soldiers in Vietnam. The NCO academies were designed to quickly turn out small-unit leaders specifically for combat in Vietnam, bypassing the usual developmental growth from private to corporal and, with it, many of the traits sought in the NCO corps. For readers thinking about the stages needed to rapidly grow an Army in time of war, Gillam’s memoir should serve as a cautionary tale about the service’s training model.

Gillam’s deployment to Vietnam and participation in multiple combat operations during his tour make up most of the book. In these chapters, Gillam lays out his experience as a squad leader leading fellow draftees in an increasingly lost war. He documents, as expected, patrols, ambushes, encounters with civilians and service as a “tunnel rat.” It is here that his writing is most impactful and vivid. A reader might feel like a member of Gillam’s squad as he writes about the jungle, the heat and the fear.

His reflections on the intensity of close-quarters killing are the book’s strongest sections without turning into a glorification of ultraviolence. Instead, Gillam presents his life in a front-line combat unit in a straightforward manner. He exchanges clothes with a dead soldier, plans his first ambush and thinks about killing his company leaders. In reflecting on his first combat, Gillam describes his performance as ranging from “cowardice to near competence.” Indeed, he says his performance during his tour could never be “described with adjectives like excellent or brave for the whole time I was in Vietnam.”

Gillam became a historian after the war, and he supplements his personal memoir with elements of traditional history to effectively tell a more complete story of Vietnam. Sadly, though, there are numerous factual errors that closer editing should have captured, including misspellings, misidentification of weapons and incorrect attributions.

Gillam’s gift of prose, historian’s reflection on context and engaging experiences bring this book together in a manner that truly reflects his opening lines: “This book is the product of all the pieces of the puzzle that I call my identity.” While not on the same level as some of the books mentioned in the opening paragraph of this review, Life and Death in the Central Highlands is a valuable contribution to understanding the draftee leader’s role during the war in Vietnam.

Timothy Heck is a supervisory historian with Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington, D.C. Previously, he was a joint historian with the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint History and Research Office. He is the co-editor of both volumes of On Contested Shores: The Evolving Role of Amphibious Operations in the History of Warfare, and co-editor of Armies in Retreat: Chaos, Cohesion, and Consequences.

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Big Events in the War for Independence

From Trenton to Yorktown: Turning Points of the Revolutionary War. John Maass. Osprey. 272 pages. $30

Ricardo Herrera

Turning points, decisive battles and conclusive wars have long drawn historians’ and readers’ attention, much as decision points and decisive action, their doctrinal counterparts, have focused that of commanders and planners. For popular audiences, pivotal moments bring drama and clarity. They heighten the significance of a battle or war upon which all seemingly rested.

Employing the trope of decisive battle simplifies and brings order to the messy, often uncomfortable and always contingent nature of battle and history. Which battles were decisive, however, remains ever-contested ground.

John Maass has entered the fray in From Trenton to Yorktown: Turning Points of the Revolutionary War. Maass, a historian at the National Museum of the United States Army at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, argues that five turning points constituted the critical moments that changed the “trajectory” of the American War for Independence. Maass examines the Battles of Trenton and Princeton, both in New Jersey; the Saratoga, New York, campaign; the Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, encampment; the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina; and the Yorktown, Virginia, campaign in five engaging chapters. These five events, he contends, were the most important in the struggle for American independence.

From Trenton to Yorktown begins with an introduction that examines the idea of decision and how historians have employed it or inveighed against it. Maass’ discussion is learned, wide-ranging and worthy of reflection and debate. Next, he shifts his attention to the turning points. Each chapter mixes narrative with judicious analysis, including other historians’ assessments of the events.

Maass is careful throughout to locate the actions in their larger operational and strategic contexts, relating how the battles, campaigns and the encampment at Valley Forge fit within the larger pattern that developed.

An important subtext of the book is the story of George Washington’s development as a strategic thinker and actor. Over the course of his military career, Washington never rose above a middling tactician, but he proved a deft student of strategy. He learned how to balance his aggressiveness and risk-taking with caution and even restraint. Moreover, the Virginian demonstrated how a military commander was also a political actor. His dealings with the Continental Congress remain a model of conduct.

In the journey from Trenton to Yorktown, Maass takes readers from despair to triumph, and from disappointment to joy, as he examines the five turning points of the American Revolution. His writing is clear, his grasp of the sources sure, and his judgments are thoughtful.

Toward the end of the book, Maass notes that determining which events were crucial in the war is a “subjective pursuit.” Yet, after weighing the evidence for other candidates, he concludes that the “campaigns and battles of Trenton, Princeton, Saratoga, Guilford Courthouse and Yorktown, along with the winter encampment at Valley Forge” were the ones that led “to ultimate American victory.” The debate, like history, will not end, and toward this end, Maass has made a worthy contribution.

Ricardo Herrera is visiting professor of military history at the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. He is the winner of two Distinguished Writing Awards from the Army Historical Foundation and the 2016 Moncado Prize from the Society for Military History. He is the author of Feeding Washington’s Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778 and For Liberty and the Republic: The American Citizen as Soldier, 1775–1861.