Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War by Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch

Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War by Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch attempts to explain why military disasters happen. The authors suggest that most given reasons for failure are simplistic. This seems to be somewhat of a straw man. In any event they use business theory to show that most disasters have multiple causes. Which is something that I thought good military historians always did but apparently not.

Most of the book is made up of case studies. The studies are from the Gallipoli campaign through the 1973 Yom Kippur war. The studies are well researched and are pretty convincing. This is a new edition which in the last chapter talks about the American failure in Iraq to understand how to do counterinsurgency.

An interesting book certainly providing a new way to look at failure in war. Recommended.

Is available through Abebooks.