Waging War – Conversations on the Operational Art

A two-voice reflection on war and strategy, the like of which France has not seen in a long time. Why, throughout the centuries, have generals won so many victories that did not bring an end to the conflict? Why did the blood shed serve the objectives assigned by political authority to its armies so poorly? Why, to take one example among a thousand, were the finest armies in the world reduced, between 1914 and 1918, to a face-off as desperate as it was sterile in the mud of the trenches? Waging War provides the keys to this impasse and shows that a forgotten Soviet thinker, Alexander Svechin, pointed the way out.
Jean Lopez leads Benoist Bihan to expound his thinking on this worthy heir of Clausewitz — his life, his thought and his work — a reflection matured over fifteen years and nourished by formidable erudition. Along the way, the two companions take us on a journey through twenty-five centuries of conflict, revisiting battles said to be decisive and the actions of those presented as great captains.
The work does not confine itself to being historical and critical. By dissecting Svechin's work, it sets out the solution — the operational art — so that combat becomes fully useful to strategy and harmonises with tactics. Original in its approach, powerful in its arguments, pleasant to read thanks to its dialogued form, this work is wholly original and should leave its mark on military thought.
The objective? Nothing less than the renewal of strategic thinking — a field appreciated by the general public but one that needed dusting off and bringing within everyone's reach by striking the right balance between theory and history.