MARGIN OF
VICTORY: Five Battles That Changed the Face of Modern War
Douglas MacGregor
Naval Institute Press, 2016,
270pp
ISBN 978161251968
Reading a book by retired US Army Colonel Douglas
MacGregor is a challenging experience. It is not necessary, however, to agree
fully with MacGregor to gain valuable insights from the research and analysis
behind his proposals.
In this book, MacGregor studies five battles to glean
lessons relevant to army reform in the 21st Century. He differentiates between wars
of decision, choice and observation,
focussing particularly on wars of decision, and seeks reforms to ensure that
the US is victorious in the first battle in such wars.
The first battle studied is Mons in 1914. MacGregor
attributes British success during the retreat from Mons through Le Cateau
largely to reforms implemented before 1912 by Richard Haldane, Secretary of
State for War. Despite budget constraints, where priority was given to the
Royal Navy, these reforms prepared the British Army (just) enough for a
continental war. Resistance within the Army diminished the effect of the
reforms, but MacGregor notes that sufficient remained to provide a margin of
victory when needed, despite deficiencies in British leadership.
The next study is on the Japanese capture of Shanghai
in 1937. MacGregor introduces General Ugaki Kazushige, who in the 1920s
attempted to move the Japanese Army from a focus on infantry numbers towards
greater mobility and firepower. Reaction to Ugaki’s proposals arose, however,
and opposition was more successful, delaying many reforms until the 1940s.
Shanghai was a battle between masses of infantry, with limited mobility and
fire support. While Haldane had given the British Army a margin of victory in
1914, opposition to Ugaki’s changes left the Japanese Army strong enough to
prevail in individual battles, but not able to win against China.
These first two case studies emphasised the need to
implement reform before a war, as more immediate priorities might constrain
implementation during one. In his next two case studies MacGregor introduces
command arrangements.
The third study, on the destruction of Army Group
Centre in 1944, differentiates between German military reforms between the
wars, which ‘focused on marginal, tactical changes to … [a] …World War I army’,
and Soviet reforms implemented during the war, which focused on ‘integrating
and concentrating combat power … for strategic effect’. MacGregor also compares
the polyglot German command system unfavourably with the integrated, joint,
Soviet system. The Soviet reforms were based on theoretical concepts developed
in the 1930s, but temporarily abandoned after Stalin’s purge of the Red Army. They
became the basis of the Reconnaissance-Strike Complex of the 1980s.
The fourth study is on the Egyptian crossing of the Suez
Canal during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. MacGregor compares Egyptian military
reforms, implemented with deep understanding of Egyptian culture with Israel,
which learned incorrect lessons from earlier wars. The Egyptians specifically
planned to counter known Israeli tactics. While the Israelis eventually
prevailed using maneuver, the victory was costly, in part because Israeli
supporting firepower and infantry were not closely integrated with tanks.
MacGregor considers that Israel’s unified military command structure provided
the necessary margin of victory.
MacGregor’s final case study is of the US Battle of 73
Easting, against Iraq in 1991. He sees the 1991 conflict as perhaps the
ultimate expression of World War I tactics. He considers this war a lost
opportunity to move ‘beyond industrial-age warfare to … highly mobile, joint,
integrated, aerospace and sensor dominated forces’. Instead, the US services
each fought their own wars, in their preferred manner. MacGregor notes that
airpower was not able to defeat the Iraqi army in the field, but did prepare
the way for the ground attack. He criticises the failure to combine the air and
ground efforts in an early joint operation, which might have produced a clear
victory.
The final chapter is the core of the book. In it, MacGregor
proposes a way forward for the US in the 21st Century. He sees little use for
light infantry (or even special forces) in conflicts with a peer or near peer
opponent, dismissing them as ‘[a]thleticism in uniform’. Rather, MacGregor
favours fully mechanized ground forces, operating with air support as a
strike/maneuver force under a joint and integrated command structure. Whether
such a force is affordable by any nation other than an economic giant is a question
for non-American readers to ponder.
One element of MacGregor’s thesis that is relevant to
Australia is defining the nation’s ‘core, existential interests’. MacGregor
does not see nation building/counterinsurgency in the Third World as core for
the US. Without US support, there can be little realistic belief that these
could be core functions for Australia.
JOHN DONOVAN
