Evolution of Modern Warfare
Graduate Students of International Studies
YonseiUniversity
Fall 2009 (ISA6101) Instructor: Prof. Jae-Chang Kim
Class Hour: Fri. 15:00-18:00 Room: New Millennium B/D # 202
Course Concept
This course is to introduce students to traditional strategic theories and practices in majorwars so that they can establish an analytical foundation for understanding how modern warfare has been evolved.
The course consists of two parts: first, basic strategic theories of famous strategists; second, major wars that the world experienced. The focus of this course is also on the relationship between a nation’s political interests and objectives on the one hand and the way military force has been used in an attempt to serve them on the other.
(The contents of the syllabus will be subject to modification.)
Requirements and Grading:
- Class Participation: 10%
- Mid-term exam: 40%
- A Review Essay: 20%
- Final Exam: 30%
Books recommended to purchase:
Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986)
Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, trans. (Peinceton: Princeton University Press, 1984);
Sun-Tzu, The Art of Warfare, Roger T. Ames trans. (New York: Ballantine Books, 1993);
B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy (New York: Praeger, 1967)
Course Outline
Week 1 (Sep. 4): Introduction
Overview of the Course: Beginning of Modern Warfare
Week 2 (Sep. 11): Carl Von Clausewitz
Reading assignment:
Michael Howard, Clausewitz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 22-58
Further Readings:
Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, trans. (Princeton University Press, 1984), Book I, II, III; Ch.1-10, 16; IV, Ch.1-3; VI, Ch.1-6; VII, Ch.1-5; VIII, pp 75-123, 127-203, 216-219, 225-229, 357-359, 479-483, 524-528, 577-640
Week 3 (Sep. 18): Sun Tzu and his key teachings
Reading assignment:
Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Roger T. Ames, trans. (New York: Ballantine Books, 1993) Ch.1-13, pp. 101-172
Week 4 (Sep. 25): Liddell Hart and Mao Tse Tung
Reading assignments:
B. H. Liddel Hart, Strategy (New York: Praeger, 1967), p. 319-p. 360; Selected Military Writing of Mao Tse Tung (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1972), Ch.1, 2, 3, 4, 5., p. 179-249 (
Week 5 (Oct. 2): Reserved (Chusok)
Week 6 (Oct. 9): Peloponnesian War
Reading assignments:
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, trans., by Rex Warner (New York: Penguin Books, 1972), Book One: 35-87; 143-151; Book Two: 156-165; Book Three: 194-212; 236-245; Book Four: 265-278; 334-347; Book Five: 400-408; Book Six: 414-429; 447-449; 465-470; Book Seven: 525-537
Richard Crawley tr.(
Week 7 (Oct. 16): Napoleon and the Revolution in War
Reading assignments:
Peter Paret ed., Makers of Modern Strategy: from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 123-142
Week 8 (Oct. 23): American Civil War- The First Total War
Reading assignments:
James McPherson, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), Ch.1: The Second American Revolution, pp. 3-22, Ch.4, Lincoln and the Strategy of Unconditional Surrender, pp. 65-91; Ch.7: Liberty and Power in the Second American Revolution, pp. 131-152; Bruce Catton, The Civil War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1960), Ch.XIV, The Politics of War, pp. 202-217; Ch.XV, Total Warfare, pp. 218-231
Further Readings:
James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (New York: Ballantine Books, 1988), Ch.10, pp. 308-338
Week 9 (Oct. 30):Midterm Exam
Week 10 (Nov. 6):World War One
Reading assignments (A):
German Unification: Gordon Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), Ch.5, War and Diplomacy in the Period of Unification, pp. 180-216
Reading assignments(B):
WW-I: John Keegan, The First World War (New York: Knopf, 1998), Ch.1-3, (“A European Tragedy.” “War Plans,” “The Crisis of 1914,” pp. 3-70
Further Readings:
Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), Ch.11,“Gunther E. Rothenburg, “Moltke, Schlieffen, and the Doctrine of Strategic Envelopment,” pp. 296-325
Week 11 (Nov. 13): A. Military Transformations During the Interwar Period
and Blitzkrieg
Reading assignments:
James Corum, The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans Von Seeckt and German Military Reform (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1992), Ch.2, 6, “Von Seeckt and Rethinking Warfare,” “The Development of German Armor Doctrine,” pp. 25-50, 122-143
Further Readings:
Millett and Murray, Military Effectiveness, Vol. II, Ch.1-2, 4, 7-8, “The Soviet Armed Forces in the interwar Period,” “The French Armed Forces, 1918-40,” “The British Armed Forces, 1918-39,” “Military Effectiveness of Armed Forces in the Interwar Period, 1919-1941: A Review,” pp. 1-69, 98-130, 256-268
Week 12 (Nov. 20): World War II <to be modified>
Reading assignments:
John Keegan, The Second World War (New York: Penguin Books, 1989), Part One: 54-87; Part Two: 127-141; 173-208; Part Three: 240-250; 251-267; Part Four: 310-319; Part V: 536-545; 588-595
Further Readings:
Millett and Murray, Military Effectiveness, Vol. III: The Second World War (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1988), Ch.5: The Effectiveness of the German Military Establishment in the Second World War, pp. 180-220, Ch.8: Military Effectiveness in the Second World War, pp. 277-319, Ch.9: Challenge and Response at the Operational and Tactical Levels, 1914-45, pp. 320-340, Ch.10: The Political and Strategic Dimensions of Military Effectiveness, pp. 341-364
Week 13 (Nov. 27): The Cold War
Terry L. Deibel and John Lewis Gaddis eds., Containing the Soviet Union : A Critique of US Policy (New York: Pergamon-Brassey’s), Ch.2: pp. 15-19; Ch.5. Containment and the Strategic Nuclear Balance, pp. 78-99; Ch.7: Containment and the Shape of World Politics, pp. 120-135, Ch.8: The “X” Article and Contemporary Source of Soviet Conduct, pp. 139-153.; David Alan Rosenberg, Reality and Responsibility: Power and Process in the Making of United States Nuclear Strategy, 1945-68, in the Journal of Strategic Studies, pp. 35-52
Further Readings:
John Gaddis, Russia, the Soviet Union, and the United States (New York: Wiley, 1978), Ch.6 & 7; John Mueller, “The Essential Irrelevance of Nuclear Weapons,” and Robert Jervis, “The Political Effects of Nuclear Weapons,” International Security, 13:2 (Fall 1988), pp. 80-90; Yuen F. Khong, “The Lessons of Korea and the Vietnam Decision of 1965,” in George W. Breslauer and Philip E. Tetlock, eds., Learning in US and Soviet Foreign Policy (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 302-349
Week 14 (Dec. 4): Chinese Use of Force during the Cold War
Reading assignment:
Jonathan R. Adelman and Chih-Yu Shih, Symbolic War: The Chinese Use of Force 1840-1980 (Taipei: Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University, 1993), Ch.10: Korean War, pp. 171-192, Ch.11: The Quemoy Crisis, pp. 193-200, Ch.12: The Sino-Indian War, pp. 201-209, Ch.13: The Sino-Soviet Border Conflict, pp. 210-220, Ch.14: The Sino-Vietnam War, pp. 221-230
Further Readings:
Melvin Gurtov and Byong-Moo Hwang, China Under Threat: The Politics of Strategy and Diplomacy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, ), Ch.2, 3, 4, 5, pp. 25-186; Harlan W. Jencks, “China’s Punitive War on Vietnam: A Military Assessment, Asian Survey, Vol. XIX, No. 8, Aug. 1979; Thomas J. Christensen, “Threat, Assurances, and the Last Chance for Peace: The Lessons of Mao’s Korean War Telegrams,” International Security, vol. 17, No. 1, (1992); Yufan Hao and Zhai Zhihai, “Chinese Decision to Enter the Korean War: History Revisited,” The China Quarterly, No. 121 (March 1990)
Week 15-A (Dec. 11):Regional Wars after the Cold War
Reading assignment:
Norman Cigar, “Iraq’s Strategic Mindset in the Persian Gulf War: Blue Print for Defeat,” Journal of Strategic Studies 15: 1 (March 1992): pp.1-29; Stephen Biddle, “Victory Misunderstood: What the Gulf War Tells Us about the Future of Conflict,” International Security 21: 2 (Fall 1996): pp. 139-79; Thomas G. Mahnken and Barry D. Watts, “What the Gulf War Can (and Cannot) Tell Us about the Future of Warfare,” International Security 22: 2 (Fall 1997): pp. 151-162
Week 15-B (Dec. 18):Post Modern Militaries & Future War
Reading assignment:
Eliot A. Cohen, “A Revolution in Warfare.” Foreign Affairs 75: 2 (March/ April 1996): 37-54; Lawrence Freedman, “The Changing Forms of Military Conflict,” Survival 40: 4 (Winter 1998-99): pp. 39-56.; Mandelbaum, M., “Is Major War Obsolete?,” Survival, vol. 40, No. 4 (Winter 1998/ 1999)
Further Readings:
Charles C. Moskos, “Toward a Postmodern Military: United States as a Paradigm” in Charles C. Moskos, John Allen Williams, and David R. Segal, eds., The Postmodern Military: Armed Forces after the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 14-31; Michael Howard, “Military Science in an Age of Peace,” Journal of the Royal United Services Institute 119: 1 (March 1974): pp. 3-11.; Martin Van Creveld, The Transformation of War: The Most Radical Reinterpretation of Armed Conflict since Clausewitz (New York: The Free Press, 1991), Ch.7, pp. 192-227; Jeffery R. Barnett, Future War: An Assessment of Aerospace Campaigns in 2010 (Alabama: Air University Press, 1996,) Ch.1, pp. 1-20; Kurt M. Campbell and Michele A. Flournoy, To Prevail: An American Strategy for the Campaign against Terrorism (Washington, D.C.: The CSIS Press, 2001), Ch.1-5, pp. 1-63
Week 16 (Dec. 18): Final Exam or Final Report
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