Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm: The Evolution of Operational Warfare

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: Despite all of the new technology, the rules of warfare always remain the same. In Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm, Citino analyzes every major military campaign from WWII to the present. The details are amazing. Most history books just tell you what happened, Citino tells you how. Every major battle is broken down into divisions and corps with a complete description of their objectives, capabilities, and commanders. His narrative tone makes book the enjoyable and entertaining while at the same time, informative and stimulating. This book is a must read for anyone interested in topics such as 20th century history, military history, or modern war studies.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: Despite all of the new technology, the rules of warfare always remain the same. In Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm, Citino analyzes every major military campaign from WWII to the present. The details are amazing. Most history books just tell you what happened, Citino tells you how. Every major battle is broken down into divisions and corps with a complete description of their objectives, capabilities, and commanders. His narrative tone makes book the enjoyable and entertaining while at the same time, informative and stimulating. This book is a must read for anyone interested in topics such as 20th century history, military history, or modern war studies.

Rating:
Summary: an execellent military history of the last sixty years
Review: Robert Citino has written an excellent military history that has descibed the development of combined arms warfare. The first section of the book, Citino compares the military doctrines of the United States, Germany, Britain, and Russia during the Second World War. Citino believes that German military doctrine was severely flawed since it was mainly adaptable to wars in Western and Central Europe and did not make logicistical provisions for the campaigns in North Africa and Russia. Citino also praises Russian military doctrine for being able to plan for the mass encirclements of the German army in 1943-1945, but criticizes the Russians for lacking personal intiative in combat. Citino also criticizes the British for only attacking with tanks and showing no personal intiative on the battlefield. However Citino praises the American for being flexible and massing their forces on a single point during Operation Cobra.
The second part of the book, Citino praises the personal freedom allowed officers to conduct battle in the Israeli and Indian armies and writes about the lackluster performance of the Iraqi and Iranian armies that lacked competent officers. In the closing chapters of the book, Citino believes that the victory in Operation Desert Storm was due to superior firepower as well as tactics while Operation Iraqi Freedom was dangerously based on the assumption of internal rebellion and was eventually won by the use of armor. I would reccomend this book for anyone who believes that technology can replace officership and armor.