Este, amigos míos, es un libro que todos deberían leer para comprender mucho mejor ese periodo intreguerras tan interesante y revelador. No es la única obra que intenta explicar cómo asumieron los diversos países el reto de modernizar su organización y doctrina en el periodo de paz entre ambas catástrofes bélicas, Millet/Williamson Murray o W Odom son buenos exponentes del género, pero esta recopilación de información de Winton y Mets es realmente antológica y perspicaz. Hay análisis específicos país por país por especialistas acreditados y en resúmen, no`puedo sino decirles que aunque lo compré a ciegas, me ha resultado una lectura esclarecedora en grado sumo.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... 8?v=glance
Les dejo una crítica más atinada y detallada de lo que yo sería capaz de ofrecerles ( autor: Coronel Cole C. Kingseed):
Eugenia C. Kiesling begins this study with her analysis of the army of interwar France. Kiesling views the atrophy of French reform as a result of tensions caused by an army pulled in various directions--confidence in the doctrines that had won the Great War, awareness of changing technological and political conditions, and adherence to the principle that both its missions and its resources could be determined only in the political arena. She concludes that the absence of military reform in France between the world wars was because French planners believed their doctrines would be able to deal with the existing threat satisfactorily. Kiesling also offers a scathing indictment of French military leaders who acted "soberly, cautiously, and in accordance with their interpretation of professional subordination to the state."
James S. Corum and Harold Winton analyze the reform movements in Germany and Great Britain, respectively. Corum opines that the German army's approach to change was far more comprehensive in nature than that in France. German victories in the early part of World War II were not achieved by numerical superiority, but rather by a more effective operational doctrine and a more effective training program to implement that doctrine. German adaptation included doctrinal reform, but also extensive reforms in the army's organization and in its training and military education. A political hierarchy determined to reverse the verdict of Versailles also lent its wholehearted support to German military reforms, unlike that in Great Britain.
In England, Winton argues, the ability of persons outside the army to bring about reform was limited. In spite of possessing two of the Western World's most prominent military theorists on armored and mechanized warfare, J. F. C. Fuller and Basil Liddell Hart, the desire of the reformers was frequently at loggerheads with the strategic preference of political leaders for limited liability. Moreover, the preference military conservatives had for mechanization over armored warfare was directly at odds with their realization of the necessity for a firm continental commitment. In short, Winton opines that few British leaders possessed the "felicitous blend of human insight, intelligence, and determination" to modernize Great Britain's armed forces.
Jacob Kipp's analysis of the interwar Soviet army takes umbrage with the assessment that military success in World War II was prima facie evidence that Soviet military reform in the interwar period must have been a success. In contrast to Winton's analysis of British civil-military relations, Kipp asserts that external political influence was decisive in the case of the Soviet Union. The central legacy of Stalinism on the eve of the German invasion was contradictory in nature. True, Stalin had created a modern industrial state, militarized the society, and created powerful instruments of mobilization and control. Stalin also nullified the successful military reforms and set the stage for initial military disasters, however, by "decapitating its own elite and leaving insufficient numbers of middle and senior grade officers" to oversee the vast expansion of the Red Army on the eve of the war.
In his analysis of the US Army, David E. Johnson challenges the convention of history by presenting a different perspective from the traditional interpretation that American unpreparedness was solely the result of constraining budgets and congressional reluctance to support a modern professional force. Johnson asserts that the War Department had internal problems which contributed significantly to its lack of preparedness. In spite of the best efforts of General George C. Marshall, branch parochialism, a largely powerless War Department general staff, tension between air and ground officers, a conservative culture, and disparate views about technology all conspired to inhibit innovation and intraservice cooperation.
Following these national case studies, noted military historian Dennis Showalter provides a concluding essay in which he places the factors affecting military reform in a historiographical perspective. According to Showalter, four general conclusions emerge from any study of the interwar period. First, change in military affairs is contextual, with no hard and fast rules. Second, armies reflect the core dynamics--and the core anxieties--of their societies and their governments. Next is the nature of internal interest groups, what Harold Winton calls "service cultures," which are inherently limited in their flexibility. And finally, there exists a difficulty of testing innovations.
In short, The Challenge of Change should be mandatory reading for senior military officers and defense analysts as the United States redesigns its military forces and doctrine to face the challenges of the 21st century. Military innovation in peacetime is a complex process that defies easy categorization, but it is the inherent responsibility of a new series of reformers to direct the evolution of American military institutions to enhance the security of the state and the society they serve.
