Conventional forces absorb the preponderance of America's defense spending. Further, most experts believe the most likely path to nuclear war is through a failure of conventional defense. It is therefore critical that conventional military balances be assessed rigorously--by techniques that go beyond the familiar static comparison of opposing military inventories and explicitly represent warfare's dynamic factors. For decades, a single set of tools has dominated the dynamic analysis of conventional balances: the Lanchester equations, named for their inventor, Frederick William Lanchester. In this study, Joshua M. Epstein makes two separate contributions. He argues that Lanchester's equations fail to capture the basic dynamics of warfare and that they offer a fundamentally implausible picture of combat. He also presents new, alternative equations of his own. These, he contends, do capture warfare's essential dynamics, which Lanchester theory is incapable of representing. Epstein's methods are of immediate practical relevance in assessing the requirements of defense in the specific contingencies for which the United States and its allies must plan and in setting defense priorities accordingly.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Brookings Institution Press
ISBN-10
0815724519
ISBN-13
9780815724513
eBay Product ID (ePID)
651230
Product Key Features
Author
Joshua M. Epstein
Publication Name
Calculus of Conventional War : Dynamic Analysis Without Lanchester Theory
Format
Hardcover
Language
English
Publication Year
1985
Type
Textbook
Number of Pages
40 Pages
Dimensions
Item Length
9.3in
Item Height
0.1in
Item Width
5.9in
Item Weight
16 Oz
Additional Product Features
Lc Classification Number
U21.2.E65 1985
Target Audience
Scholarly & Professional
Topic
Military / Nuclear Warfare, Public Policy / Military Policy, Military / Strategy, Military / General, Security (National & International)