Advanced Land Warfare Tactics and Operations

International politics have become ever more volatile over the last decade, increasing the risk of large-scale military violence. Yet the precise character of future war will depend on a range of factors that relate to adversaries, allies, technology, geographical scope and multiple domains of warfighting. Few would question that land forces will be important also in the foreseeable future. However, given that the battlefield is in a state of transformation, so is the mission, purpose and utilization of land forces. Indeed, the future conduct of land warfare is subjected to serious and important questions in the face of large and complex challenges and security threats.

Advanced Land Warfare explores the evolving role of land forces, paying particular attention to the changes that have taken place in the art of commanding and executing combat, as well as the role of rapid technological innovation and information dissemination in shaping warfare. The book provides insights into key contemporary developments in land warfare and presents case studies on land tactics and operations in different national contexts, drawing on the best of theory, practice, and professional experience and featuring chapters written by leading international scholars and practitioners. Relating to the realities of the modern battlefield, the book addresses a number of critical questions about land tactics and operations, combining a conceptual basis with empirical examples of tactical thinking and practice and emphasising the importance of understanding the perspectives of various national armies, in order to provide a current understanding of the central issues of land warfare.

An open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence.

Mikael Weissmann, Head of Research & Deputy Head, Land Operations Division, Swedish Defence University,Niklas Nilsson, Associate Professor of War Studies, Land Operations Division, Swedish Defence University

Dr Mikael Weissmann is Associate Professor in War Studies and the Head of Research and Deputy Head of the Land Operations Division at the Swedish Defence University. He is also co-convenor of the Land Warfare Research Group (LWRG) and the Hybrid Warfare Research Group (HWRG). Weissmann has previously held positions at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, the Swedish Defence Research Agency, Copenhagen University, Stockholm University, Uppsala University, and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). He has been a visiting fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom and Peking University, Renmin University, and China Foreign Affairs University in China. Weissmann's work has appeared in numerous journals and he is the lead editor for Hybrid Warfare: Security and Asymmetric Conflict in International Relations (I.B. Tauris, 2021).

Dr Niklas Nilsson is Associate Professor in War Studies at the Land Operations Division at the Swedish Defence University. He is also co-convenor of the Land Warfare Research Group (LWRG) and the Hybrid Warfare Research Group (HWRG). Nilsson has previously held positions at the Department of Government, Uppsala University, and is a Senior Research Fellow with the Institute for Security and Development Policy. He was a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at George Washington University and visiting researcher at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, Tbilisi and at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

Foreword, Dr Meir Finkel
1. Approaching Land Warfare in the 21st Century, Dr Mikael Weissmann and Dr Niklas Nilsson
Part 1: Land Warfare
2. The Future of Manoeuvre Warfare, Dr Christopher Tuck
3. Commanding Contemporary and Future Land Operations: What Role for Mission Command?, Dr Niklas Nilsson
4. Combat Logistics in the 21st Century: Enabling the mobility, endurance, and sustainment of NATO land forces in a future major conflict, Dr Christopher Kinsey and Colonel Ronald Ti
5. The Command of Land Forces, Jim Storr
6. Tactical Tenets: Checklists or Toolboxes, BA Friedman and Henrik Paulsson
7. Urban Warfare: Challenges of Military Operations on Tomorrow's Battlefield, Dr Mikael Weissmann
8. Emerging Technologies: From Concept to Capability, Dr Jack Watling
9. Interoperability Challenges in an era of Systemic Competition, Air Commodore (Rtd) Andrew Curtis
10. The moral component of fighting: Bringing society back in, Dr Tua Sandman
11. Military Health Services supporting the Land Component in the 21st Century, Gen (Rtd) Professor Martin CM Bricknell
Part 2: Case studies
12. The Operational Cultures of American Ground Forces, Dr Bruce I. Gudmundsson
13. 1. People's Liberation Army Operations and Tactics in the Land Domain: Informationized to Intelligentized Warfare, Brad Marvel
14. A Strategy of Limited Actions: Russia's Ground-Based Forces in Syria, Dr Markus Balázs Göransson
15. The Role of Israel's Ground Forces in Israel's Wars, Dr Eado Hechet and Dr Eitan Shamir
16. Tactics and Trade-Offs: The Evolution of Manoeuvre in the British Army, Dr Alex Neads and Professor David J. Galbreath
17. Caught between a rock and a hard place: the French army, expeditionary warfare and the return of strategic competition, Dr Olivier Schmitt and Dr Elie Tenenbaum
18. Trends in the Land Warfare Capability of Poland and the Visegrad States, 1991-2021, Scott Boston
Conclusions
19. Towards a versatile edge: Developing land forces for future conflict, Dr Mikael Weissmann and Dr Niklas Nilsson