The operational art of war iv reviews2/25/2023 The origins of modern American operational art can thus be found in the military educational institutions of the interwar years" (xvi, 16). He concludes that "the story of modern American operational art is the story of joint operations-land, air, and sea…. Yet, Matheny "would argue that … did develop operational art during the interwar period, 1919–1940, and practiced it to great effect during World War II" (xiv). Historical studies remain sparse and only late in the twentieth century did the US Army officially recognize the operational level of war in its doctrine. He posits that, while we have several working definitions of operational art as bridging tactics, logistics, and strategy, we lack a clear-cut sense of how it has been applied in the past. In World War II, this meant "projecting, conducting, and sustaining large-scale military operations on a global scale" (xiii). Matheny proceeds from George Marshall's recognition of early 1942 that the United States needed to carry the war to the enemy. But his book is also an intriguing study of how officers and instructors at war and staff colleges interpreted the American experience on the Western Front in 1918 in preparing future senior leaders to think deeply about joint and combined operations, and how those former students rose to the challenge of World War II. Matheny (US Army War College), a retired Army officer, also points out that, if operational art is an orphan, maritime operational art has been entirely overlooked and the picture is similar with regard to airpower. By locating the origins of operational art in nineteenth-century Europe, it provides an important corrective to the existing literature, which has concentrated on the Soviet Union and Germany. Matheny's Carrying the War to the Enemy offers a significant analysis of how the US military fought in the Second World War at the strategic and operational levels and how it learned to conduct joint and combined operations overseas.
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