HOW TO FIGHT A WAR Q+A WITH DR MIKE MARTIN

The former British Army officer and senior visiting fellow at King's College London reveals how and why wars are fought, from the ancient world to Ukraine and beyond

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War is a complicated and destructive force that has consumed and bedevilled humanity for many thousands of years. Many commanders across history have made terrible decisions on how to conduct warfare, leading to innumerable military and civilian deaths and failures of geopolitical objectives that have led to more conflicts.

In his upcoming book How to Fight a War, conflict scholar and former British Army officer Dr Mike Martin takes the reader through the hard but elegant logic required to fight conclusive interstate wars that solves geopolitical problems and reduces the risk of future conflict. In cool and precise prose, he outlines how to orchestrate military forces, from infantry to information and from strategy to tactics.

Dr Martin, who is a senior visiting research fellow at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, discusses the importance of strategy, why land warfare is more decisive than its air and sea counterparts, his view on the most successful armed forces in military history and how nuclear weapons changed the nature of how powerful nations fight each other. He also reveals why he is convinced Ukraine will win its current war with Russia and how artificial intelligence will determine the course of military operations in the 21st century.

At a fundamental level, why do human beings fight wars?

People generally say that religion or ideology cause wars. Certainly they are involved, but there is a much deeper layer. At a very fundamental level humans fight to achieve status or belong to cohesive social groups. These two drives are profoundly rooted in our psychology, having been developed by evolution over millions of years.