Beyond vom Kriege: The Character and Conduct of Modern Warfare

Author: R.D. Hooker Jr

ISBN: 978-1-9407-711-7
Publisher: University of North Georgia UP
Year: 2022
Softcover
Pages: 346

R.D. Hooker Jr.’s Beyond vom Kriege: The Character and Conduct of Modern War is an ambitious attempt to reconsider the enduring influence of Carl von Clausewitz in light of the profound changes that have reshaped warfare since the nineteenth century. Hooker does not dismiss Clausewitz; rather, he asks whether a theoretical framework derived from the Napoleonic era remains sufficient for understanding contemporary conflict. The result is a provocative and generally persuasive study that combines military history, strategic theory, and the author’s extensive professional experience.

The book’s principal strength lies in Hooker’s willingness to challenge strategic orthodoxy without discarding its intellectual foundations. Clausewitz remains central to Western military thought because concepts such as friction, uncertainty, the political nature of war, and the interaction between purpose and military action retain obvious relevance. Hooker nevertheless argues that contemporary war has evolved in ways Clausewitz could not anticipate. Nuclear weapons, air and maritime power, irregular warfare, information technologies, cyber operations, space capabilities, precision strike, and increasingly sophisticated command systems have altered both the character and conduct of conflict. Beyond vom Kriege is strongest when examining how these developments complicate theories centred predominantly on conventional land warfare between states.

Hooker also brings considerable practical credibility to the discussion. His background as a soldier, strategist, and national-security practitioner gives the book a distinctly operational character. Rather than treating war as an abstract philosophical phenomenon, he continually connects strategic theory to the problems confronting commanders and policymakers. His discussions of military effectiveness, leadership, technology, force employment, and the relationship between tactical performance and strategic outcomes are particularly valuable. He repeatedly emphasizes a lesson demonstrated by recent Western interventions: battlefield superiority does not automatically translate into strategic success.

That practical orientation, however, also produces some of the book’s weaknesses. Hooker covers an enormous intellectual landscape, and individual subjects sometimes receive less sustained examination than their importance warrants. His treatment of Clausewitz can occasionally appear selective, emphasizing the limitations of On War more than the flexibility of Clausewitz’s underlying theory. Clausewitz’s conception of war as a dynamic interaction among political purpose, chance, violence, and human agency is sufficiently broad that some supposedly modern departures may represent extensions of his framework rather than evidence that strategic thought must move “beyond” it.

The book also tends to privilege the experience of the United States and Western militaries. This provides useful empirical grounding but somewhat narrows its applicability. Contemporary warfare increasingly involves actors operating from very different strategic cultures, political systems, technological positions, and conceptions of escalation. Greater engagement with Chinese and Russian military thought, proxy warfare, economic coercion, and competition below the threshold of conventional armed conflict would have strengthened Hooker’s broader theoretical claims.

Nevertheless, Beyond vom Kriege makes a worthwhile contribution to contemporary strategic thought precisely because it encourages readers to treat classical theory as a foundation rather than a doctrine. Hooker’s central message is persuasive: strategic theory must evolve alongside the changing instruments, domains, and political contexts of warfare while retaining those insights about human nature and political purpose that remain enduring. The book is therefore most valuable not as a replacement for Clausewitz, but as a challenge to read him critically. For military professionals and students of strategy, it offers a useful reminder that understanding war requires balancing enduring principles against continuous change.

Afghan Air Wars: Soviet, US and NATO Operations, 1979–2021

 

Author: Michael Napier
ISBN: 978-1-4728-5901-3
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
Year: 2023
Hardcover
Pages: 320

Michael Napier’s Afghan Air Wars: Soviet, US and NATO Operations, 1979–2021 is an ambitious examination of more than four decades of air operations over one of the most demanding environments in modern warfare. Covering the Soviet intervention from 1979 to 1989 and the subsequent US and NATO campaigns from 2001 to 2021, Napier examines how air forces attempted to compensate for difficult geography, dispersed ground forces, an elusive insurgent enemy, and the persistent limitations imposed by operating in Afghanistan. The result is a highly accessible study of airpower that is as much about the changing character of warfare as it is about aircraft and weapons.

Napier, a former RAF strike/attack pilot with operational experience, approaches the subject from a practitioner’s perspective. That background is particularly evident in his attention to aircraft capabilities, weapons employment, operational procedures, and the experiences of aircrews. The book is also exceptionally well illustrated, containing more than 240 photographs, many of them contemporary images of aircraft and operations. The visual presentation is one of the book’s major strengths and gives the reader an unusually tangible sense of the machines, bases, weapons, and people involved in the campaigns.

The structure of Afghan Air Wars is chronological. Following an introductory examination of Afghanistan and its physical environment, Napier devotes a substantial section to the Soviet experience before moving forward to the US and NATO intervention, the Taliban insurgency, the ISAF surge, and finally the 2015–2021 endgame. This organization works particularly well because it allows the reader to observe continuity and change across two very different military coalitions separated by roughly a decade of Afghan history.

The Soviet experience is particularly instructive. Soviet forces possessed overwhelming air superiority and considerable experience in conventional warfare. Yet Afghanistan imposed operational problems for which conventional Soviet strengths were often poorly suited: mountainous terrain, dispersed insurgent forces, rudimentary infrastructure, high-altitude airfields, and the difficulty of identifying targets severely complicated air operations. Helicopters became particularly important because they could provide mobility and close support where ground movement was difficult. The Mi-8 and Mi-24 became central components of Soviet operations, while fixed-wing aircraft provided strike and interdiction capabilities.

One of Napier’s important themes is that air superiority does not automatically translate into operational success. The Soviets could dominate the skies while still struggling to locate, isolate, and defeat an opponent operating within difficult terrain and among a sympathetic population. The Afghan campaign therefore illustrates the distinction between control of the air and the ability to generate decisive effects on the ground.

The comparison with the post-2001 Western intervention is one of the book’s most valuable features. The technological contrast is striking. US and NATO forces possessed sophisticated sensors, precision-guided munitions, advanced targeting pods, secure communications, extensive intelligence networks, aerial refuelling, and increasingly capable remotely piloted aircraft. Compared with the Soviet campaign, Western airpower represented a dramatic technological transformation.

Yet Napier demonstrates that technology did not eliminate the fundamental problems of operating in Afghanistan. Precision weapons could dramatically improve accuracy, but precision depends upon accurate identification of the target. Sensors could provide remarkable surveillance capabilities, but finding an insurgent who deliberately concealed himself remained difficult. Aircraft could remain on station longer and respond rapidly to troops in contact, but the tactical effectiveness of airpower remained dependent upon intelligence, command relationships, communications, and the ability of ground forces to exploit the effects generated from the air.

This provides one of the book’s most important lessons. The history of Afghanistan demonstrates that technological sophistication may change the manner in which airpower is employed without necessarily changing the underlying strategic problem. The Soviet and Western campaigns were separated by major advances in aviation technology, yet both encountered difficulties translating tactical airpower into lasting strategic results.

Napier is particularly effective when discussing the evolution of close air support and precision attack. The Western campaigns saw an extraordinary expansion in the ability of aircraft to locate and engage targets accurately and rapidly. The combination of targeting pods, precision-guided weapons, digital communications, and remotely piloted aircraft created an increasingly responsive air-ground system. Unmanned systems became especially important for persistent surveillance and precision strike, illustrating how Afghanistan helped normalize capabilities that have since become central to contemporary air warfare.

The book also demonstrates the importance of logistics and mobility. Afghanistan’s geography made air transport indispensable. Helicopters and fixed-wing transport aircraft were required not simply for combat but for resupply, casualty evacuation, troop movement, reconnaissance, and sustainment. Airpower therefore cannot be understood solely through the number of bombs delivered or targets destroyed. In Afghanistan, the ability to move and sustain ground forces was itself a major operational effect.

The greatest strength of Afghan Air Wars is consequently its breadth. Rather than concentrating exclusively on fighter operations or combat sorties, Napier presents airpower as an integrated system encompassing strike, close air support, reconnaissance, transport, evacuation, mobility, intelligence, surveillance, and remotely piloted operations. This makes the book useful not only to aviation enthusiasts but also to readers interested in operational art.

The final section, appropriately concerned with the benefits of hindsight, provides an opportunity to consider what the Afghan experience means for future air forces. Afghanistan demonstrates the conditions under which airpower produces useful military effects and the limits beyond which technological superiority cannot compensate for weaknesses in strategy, intelligence, political objectives, or ground-force capacity.

Ultimately, Afghan Air Wars is a valuable contribution to the literature on modern airpower. Its greatest contribution is the comparison it enables between two generations of warfare. Soviet pilots confronted mountains, insurgents, primitive infrastructure, and severe targeting difficulties with relatively conventional aircraft and weapons. Two decades later, Western air forces confronted many of the same fundamental challenges with precision weapons, advanced sensors, networked command systems, and remotely piloted aircraft. The technology changed dramatically; many of the underlying operational problems did not.

For students of airpower, Afghanistan therefore provides a particularly useful case study in the relationship between technology and operational effectiveness. Napier’s work shows that sophisticated aircraft and weapons can expand what air forces are capable of doing, but they do not remove the requirements for sound intelligence, appropriate force structure, effective air-ground integration, sustainable logistics, and realistic strategic objectives. Afghan Air Wars is consequently best read not merely as an illustrated history of aircraft in Afghanistan but as a study of how airpower adapted to an unusually difficult operational environment. It is informative, visually impressive, and rich in practical observations.