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by: Douglas A. Macgregor
List Price: $36.95Amazon.com's Price: $33.25 You Save: $3.70 (10%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 355.0209730905
EAN: 9780275957940
ISBN: 0275957942
Label: Praeger Paperback
Manufacturer: Praeger Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 302
Publication Date: January 30, 1997
Publisher: Praeger Paperback
Sales Rank: 551573
Studio: Praeger Paperback
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
This work proposes the reorganization of America's ground forces on the strategic, operational and tactical levels. Central to the proposal is the simple thesis that the U.S. Army must take control of its future by exploiting the emerging revolution in military affairs. The analysis argues that a new Army warfighting organization will not only be more deployable and effective in Joint operations; reorganized information age ground forces will be significantly less expensive to operate, maintain, and modernize than the Army's current Cold War division-based organizations. And while ground forces must be equipped with the newest Institute weapons, new technology will not fulfill its promise of shaping the battlefield to American advantage if new devices are not merely grafted on to old organizations that are not specifically disigned to exploit them. It is not enough to rely on the infusion of new, expensive technology into the American defense establishment to preserve America's strategic dominance in the next century. The work makes it clear that planes, ships, and missiles cannot do the job of defending America's global serurity interests alone. The United States must opt for reform and reorganization of the nation's ground forces and avoid repeating Britain's historic mistake of always fielding an effective army just in time to avoid defeat, but too late to deter an aggressor.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Vital for understanding military transformation
Army officer Douglas Macgregor wrote "Breaking the Phalanx" as far back as 1996, but ten years on, his work looks amazingly prescient in predicting the course of transformation undertaken by the U.S. military and especially the U.S. Army since 2001.
"Breaking the Phalanx" does a superb job of capturing the essentials of the discussion within military and political circles as of 1996 about how to transform the U.S. Army for the demands of land warfare in the information age, a transformation ... Read More
Rating: - Thoughts have stood test of time
Interesting to note that COL MacGregor's book has been retrieved from the basement of the Pentagon and is being reread in light of our recent operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. It took a lot of courage to write this book since thinking outside the box is talked about, but acting outside the box is rarely done in the Army. In Iraq we still wanted to employ WWII force structures on the modern battlefield. However, we've also learned (maybe) that the much celebrated deep attack by Army Aviation was a failure.
Rating: - Visionary
Colonel MacGregor's thoughts on transforming the military and making it better organized to respond to future threats (many of these "future threats" are upon us today) are outstanding. We need the agility and force tailoring that Colonel MacGregor proposes - sooner rather than later.
An excellent read for anyone who takes the profession of arms seriously.
Rating:  - A new Mold, an Old Mold
Future historians of American military doctrine may well identify this book as the fulcrum point of American military thought and force structure at the turn of the 21st Century. This is not a collection of war stories or a diatribe against what is wrong with the "system" today. This book looks at the future, and offers a plan. It is easy to be a naysayer, but Colonel MacGregor, to his great credit, did not take the easy way. Readers should be warned that there is some effort required to read and digest this ... Read More
Rating: - Deep thought for the wealthy end of the spectrum
This an excellent book and the author should be applauded for applying some long overdue deep thought (especially at the time of writing) to practical problems 1st world armies face in the coming decades - with shrinking budgets, less manpower and greater technology driven specialisation. The first two-thirds of the book are extremely relevant to people involved in the military across the world, however, in the last chapters the book narrows its focus to a discussion of uniquely American problems and current defence ... Read More
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