Emmel's Military Strategy

6a. With respect to the author’s conclusions (either specified or implied), I accept or agree with the following and why: His explanations of the struggle to keep the Marine Corps alive and the early development of amphibious doctrine make this book a great tool in understanding the modern Marine Corps.

The United States entered World War Two in late 1941, and right away they were thrown into a conflict that involved making important decisions that would affect generations of people, in the United States and elsewhere, for years to come. A most notable decision by the Allies, namely the United States and Great Britain, was the combining of the American and British military chiefs of staff. This joint collaboration was appropriately titled the “Combined Chiefs of Staff”. They worked together as one body, and made war planning decisions and strategized together. This type of alliance was an innovation in war planning for the time, and the decisions made collaboratively by the two powers contributed greatly to the Allied victory in 1945. The relationships involved and the disputes that came up are worth noting, specifically the question of the Allies opening up a second front in the west, particularly titled “Operation Sledgehammer”. The relationship between President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, as well as General George Marshall of the United States and General Sir Alan Brooke of Great Britain were the main actors involved in this undertaking, and they will be the main individuals discussed and analyzed for the purposes of this paper. Ultimately Operation Sledgehammer was delayed and no action was taken upon it. Even though it caused rifts between the USSR, for reasons that will be explained, and the Allies far into the future, in retrospect they may have been

In 2012, General Dempsey states “Mission Command is fundamentally a learned behavior to be imprinted into the DNA of a profession of arms.” The way Mission Command has evolved through the past years is indicative to the US Military adjusting to a new threat. The concept of Mission Command is not new, what is important is how General Dempsey states “Education in the fundamental principles of mission command must begin at the start of service and be progressively more challenging..” The General emphasizes the need for education at the start of the individual’s service. Additionally, this highlights the United States Army’s doctrinal adjustment to the new threat. During the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US faced an enemy whose creativity and adaptability are two of its greatest assets. The fast-paced situation changes in both of those AOs required tactical level leadership maintain the autonomy to “exercise disciplined initiative.” This type of initiative historically leads to mission success, specifically in fast-paced situations where a key to success is forcing the enemy to react.

Millett, Peter Maslowski, and William B. Feis describe the field of U.S military history. Millett is a research professor, an Ambrose professor of history and a director of the Eisenhower center at the University of New Orleans, and a professor Emeritus of Military History at the Ohio State University. Maslowski is professor Emeritus of History at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Feis is a professor of History at Buena Vista University of Storm Lake, Iowa. (Millett, A., Maslowski, P., & Feis, W. (2012).

The development of the allied military strategy in World War II (WWII) presented challenges for the U.S. and Great Britain as they worked together to defeat the Axis powers. First, this paper will review the environment at the time of WWII when Admiral Stark penned the “Plan Dog” memorandum and MAJ Wedemeyer’s War Defense Team put together the “Victory Plan”. Next, it will look at the advantages and disadvantages of coalition operations with supporting examples. Then, a review of two major meetings between U.S. and Great Britain will identify what strategic decisions were made and the effects they have on the war. Finally, this paper will explore the foundations of strategy (Clausewitz and Sun Tzu) by which the allied forces used and

After the military disaster in Dunkirk, the Allies desperately needed to free Europe from Nazi Germany. The French were not the only Allies in need as Stalin’s Soviet Russia was doing their best to defend against Hitler’s lightning fast blitzkrieg. The British, American and Canadian forces needed to get on the ground in France in order to push back the Germans. An Allied invasion would create a two front war similar to the one that led to Germany’s defeat during World War I. Allied forces would need to cross the English Channel from Great Britain to the northern coast of France and make an amphibious landing. Amphibious landings on the coast depended on factors to be just right. Supreme Allied Commander, United States Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Allied Ground Forces Commander, British General Bernard Montgomery, were in charge of the planning of this massive invasion codenamed Operation Overlord.

The Normandy Invasion may have been the single most important battle on the Western Front of World War II. Much planning went into the siege of these beaches that ensured a tough, but inevitable victory, as well as other factors, such as the exploitation of the Germans’ ignorance of the attack.

Parts five and six bring together the personal and professional relationship between Marines themselves and the American public. These relationships, forged by the millions of men and women who have donned the Marine Corps uniform, are a result of training methods and careful selection. General Krulak gives the reader a taste of why Marines do what they have come to be known as America’s force in readiness. First to Fight has many good traits. The book, while easy to read and addictively interesting, never sugarcoats the intense conflicts between high level officials. General Krulak enhances the “official” record with personal accounts of events and people now legendary. His no-holds-barred approach to his writing makes General Krulak’s book both honest and educational. His explanations of the struggle to keep the Marine Corps alive and the early development of amphibious doctrine make First to Fight a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the modern Marine Corps. In parts of the book, General Krulak provides a mountain of detail. While these facts would be of great historical value for a reader who knows military structure and nomenclature, they tend to bog down the reader at points. The political volleys also tend to get tedious when the General describes the how the Marine Corps had to fight tooth and nail for institutional survival. These

In this paper I will focus on General Patton, George JR. (3RD Army Commander by JUL 1944) and how soldiers under his command advanced during this operation. First, I want to give a short biography about General Patton before getting into the details of Operation Cobra.

Exterior Lines of Operation (LOO) best characterizes General Schwarzkopf’s Operational Approach for Desert Storm. The Coalition operations converge on the enemy and XVIII Airborne Corps along with VII Corps used the envelopment firstly to cut lines of communication of the enemy and to destroy it in the Kuwait Theatre of Operation. In addition, the Coalition showed itself as a modern army with high-speed armor capabilities and total control of the air. It kept distance from the enemy since units remained outside of enemy artillery and multiple rocket systems range until the Ground Offensive Campaign began.

Preparing to return to the mainland, the four Marine officers paid their parting respects to the division commander, Major General J.L. Collins and his chief of staff, Colonel William P. Bledsoe. To their surprise General Collins chose to speak to his staff on how the Army was resolved to eliminate forever its deficiencies in amphibious matters and its dependency on Marines for amphibious expertise.

Matloff, Maurice and Snell, Edwin M. U.S. Army in World War II, The War Department, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1941-1942. 1953. Reprint, Washington, D. C.: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1999.

First, conflicts in Europe informed the US, the United Kingdom, Canada, and a smaller amount of troops in Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, New Zealand, Norway, and Poland to plan a surprise invasion on the Nazis otherwise known as D-day. At the time, Russia had fallen and Germany had the power to take over, so operations to stop the overpowered Nazis came into place. These counties were to plan a surprise invasion known as operation “torch” in French North Africa. Although Hitler was expecting an assault in Northwestern Europe in the Spring of 1942 the Allied troops knew that a successful invasion was key to winning the war. ”You are about to embark on the great crusade toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle.” (General Eisenhower 1). Furthermore, The Allied troops used thousands of resources such as aircraft and landing crafts to

Rommel quickly observed that the new section of the line had not been molested by German artillery and appeared to be unmanned. The common tactic of the war was a preemptive artillery bombardment prior to any major assault by ground troops. With this knowledge, Rommel assumed that the new enemy positions did not have a clue to his detachments proximity to their lines and noted that the situation presented was reminiscent of the early stages of the assault on Mount Cosna. Rommel now had the tactical advantage of surprise and did not want to waste this opportunity and placed his machine guns and infantry without raising the suspicion of the enemy. With his unit ready to conducted a frontal assault, Rommel noticed a hidden path leading towards the enemy line. Instead of risking an engagement with a fortified enemy with a frontal assault, Rommel decided to send a small assault party of eight troops to try in infiltrate the enemy position. As a leader he had complete trust in his units ability to complete the mission of taking the enemy positions without shots being fired. He gave this very order to the eight men and they successfully took a fixed position without a shot being fired. With the mission success, Rommel’s decision to not use the common tactic of a frontal assault saved lives of on both sides that would have been lost.

Krulak's telling of the Corps' history is among the sections which retains its relevance. At all points, Krulak's historical reporting is clear, straightforward and in the cases of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, strengthened by the author's firsthand and experience-driven accounts. Certainly, Krulak's experience is among the text's most important virtues. Indeed, this also informs the sense of protectiveness and resentment that sometimes emerges in the text as a product of what Krulak characterizes as a sort of relegation and isolation within the broader American defense scheme. In a sequence