What Should I Read on Military Innovation?

Sam Seitz

I’m attempting to compile a foundational set of literature on military innovation and organizational evolution in transitional periods (after an RMA, great power war, etc.). Below is a list of what I have so far (only books at this point), but please alert me to any other relevant academic articles/books.

Audra Wolfe, Competing with the Soviets: Science, Technology, and the State in Cold War America (Baltimore, M.D.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013).

Barry Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984).

Byron Farwell, Mr. Kipling’s Army: All the Queen’s Men (New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton, 1987).

Chris Demchak, Military Organizations, Complex Machines: Modernization in the U.S. Armed Services (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991).

Colin Jaundrill, Samurai to Soldier: Remaking Military Service in Nineteenth-Century Japan (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2016).

David C. Evans, Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941 (Annapolis, M.D.: Naval Institute Press, 2012).

David Clay Large, Germans to the Front: West German Rearmament in the Adenauer Era (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1995).

David Edgerton, Warfare State (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2005).

David Johson, Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. Army, 1917-1945 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998).

Deborah Avant, Political Institutions and Military Change: Lessons From Peripheral Wars (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994).

Dima Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US, and Israel (Palo Alto, C.A.: Stanford University Press, 2010).

Dima Adamsky & Kjell Inge Bjerga, Contemporary Military Innovation (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2017).

Elizabeth Kier, Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine between the Wars (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997).

Emily Goldman, The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas (Palo Alto, C.A.: Stanford University Press, 2003).

Geoffery Till, Understanding Victory: Naval Operations from Trafalgar to the Falklands (Santa Barbara, C.A.: Praeger Press, 2014).

Harald Hoiback, Understanding Military Doctrine (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2018).

Harold R. Winson, The Challenges of Change: Military Institutions and New Realities, 1918-1941 (Omaha, N.E.: University of Nebraska Press, 2003).

James S. Corum, Rearming Germany (Leiden: Brill, 2011).

Jan Rüger, The Great Naval Game (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Lawrence Sondhaus, Strategic Culture and the Ways of War (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2009).

Jeremy Black, Naval Warfare: A Global History Since 1860 (Lanham, M.D.: Roman and Littlefield, 2017).

John Curatola, Bigger Bombs for a Better Tomorrow: The Strategic Air Command and American War Plans at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Co., 2015).

John Dredger, Tactics and Procurement in the Habsburg Military, 1866-1918: Offensive Spending (Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

Joseph Soeters, Paul C.van Fenema, & Robert Beeres, Managing Military Organization (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2010).

Keir Lieber, War and the Engineers: The Primacy of Politics Over Technology (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005).

Kimberly Marten, Engaging the Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovation, 1955-1991 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993).

Lewis Johnman, British Shipbuilding and the State Since 1918: A Political Economy of Decline (Liverpool, England: Liverpool University Press, 2002).

Lilach Gilady, Conspicuous Consumption in International Relations (Chicago, I.L.: University of Chicago Press, 2018).

MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2050 (Cambridge, England, Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Mary Habeck, Storm of Steel: The Development of Armor Doctrine in Germany and the Soviet Union, 1919-1939 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003).

Matthew Evangelista, Innovation and the Arms Race: How the United States and Soviet Union Develop New Military Technologies (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988).

Matthew Ford, Weapon of Choice: Small Arms and the Culture of Military Innovation (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2017).

Michael C. Horowitz, The Diffusion of Military Power: Causes and Consequences for International Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010).

Michael Raska, Military Innovation in Small States (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2015).

Risa Brooks, Creating Military Power: The Sources of Military Effectiveness (Palo Alto, C.A.: Stanford University Press, 2007).

Robert K. Massie, Dreadnaught (New York, N.Y.: Random House, 1991).

Ron Mathews, The Political Economy of Defense (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2019).

Ryan, Grauer, Commanding Military Power (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

Sadao Asada, From Mahan to Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States (Annapolis, M.D., Naval Institute Press, 2006).

Scott Mobley, Progressives in Navy Blue (Annapolis, M.D.: Naval Institute Press, 2018).

Sheila Smith, Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 2019).

Stephen Rosen, Winning the Next War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991).

Tai Ming Cheung, Forging China’s Military Might: A New Framework for Assessing Innovation (Baltimore, M.D.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014).

Terry Terriff and Theo Farrell, The Sources of Military Change: Culture, Politics, Technology (Boulder, C.O.: Lynne Rienner Pub, 2001).

Thomas Mahnken, Uncovering Ways of War: U.S. Intelligence and Foreign Military Innovation, 1918-1941 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002).

Trent Hone, Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898–1945 (Annapolis, M.D.: Naval Institute Press, 2018).

Williamson Murray, Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996).