This textbook provides a thorough grounding in the vocabulary, concepts, issues and debates associated with modern land warfare. The second edition has been updated and revised, and includes new chapters on non-western perspectives and hybrid warfare.
Drawing on a range of case studies spanning the First World War through to contemporary conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, and Nagorno-Karabakh, the book explores what is unique about the land domain and how this has shaped the theory and practice of military operations conducted upon it. It also looks at land warfare across the spectrum of its conduct, including conventional campaigning, counterinsurgency, and peace support and stabilisation operations.
Key themes and debates identified and analysed include:
- the tensions between change and continuity;
- the role of technology in land warfare;
- the relevance of culture and context;
- the difficulties in translating theory into effective military practice;
- in-depth discussions on issues of immediate contemporary significance, including hybrid warfare, emerging military technologies, and the military reform processes of the US, Russian, and Chinese land forces.
This book will be essential reading for military practitioners and for students of land warfare, military history, war studies and strategic studies.
Introduction
Part 1: The development of land warfare
1. Land warfare in theory
2. The development of modern land warfare
3. Modern tactics
4. Modern operational art and the operational level of war
5. Land warfare: context and variation
Part 2: What is victory?
6. Counterinsurgency operations
7. Peace and stability operations
8. Hybrid warfare
Part 3: The future
9. Future land warfare
10. The paradigm army
11. Russia and China
Conclusion
Biography
Christopher Tuck is Reader in Strategic Studies, King’s College London at the United Kingdom Defence Academy. Prior to this, he was Senior Lecturer at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.
'The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has demonstrated that, contrary to some predictions, high-intensity land warfare is not just a historical phenomenon. Christopher Tuck's stimulating book is an excellent and timely introduction to land warfare, but it is far more than just a basic text; academics and military practitioners can learn much from it'.
Gary Sheffield, Emeritus Professor, University of Wolverhampton, UK
‘This book is a well-written, well-researched and wide-ranging exploration of land warfare. I think that it is excellent. Chris Tuck, whose style is always clear, engaging and eminently readable, explores and demystifies every aspect of warfare on land. Whether you read this book as an introduction to the subject (as a ‘primer’), or you come to it as a hardened professional soldier or experienced academic, you will find that it offers insight and understanding.’
Major General Dr Andrew Sharpe, CBE
'Christopher Tuck's book, Understanding Land Warfare, is a comprehensive addition to the existing academic literature focusing on historical and changing contemporary land warfare concepts.'
Safia Malik, Margalla Papers, Vol. 27,1 (2023)
