War Books: The Marine Corps Commandant's 2026 Reading List

War Books: The Marine Corps Commandant's 2026 Reading List(mwi.westpoint.edu)

19 points by Alien1Being 3 hours ago | 8 comments

trhway 2 hours ago |

"The Arms of the Future: Technology and Close Combat in the Twenty-First Century"

somehow i feel that the Pentagon leadership didn't read that book before starting the Iran affair.

Frieren 2 hours ago | |

> the Pentagon leadership didn't read that book before starting the Iran affair.

The current Pentagon leadership is the kind of people that buy thousands of books with public money that nobody will read (written by their friends).

- "Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card" is the only one from the list I have read.

- "This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History, by T. R. Fehrenbach" seems interesting. South Korea still seems very grateful to the USA and commemorates the USA (and the rest of allies) that helped them during the Korean war.

pjc50 1 hour ago | | |

The Korean war is technically not over. I believe the most recent framework is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panmunjom_Declaration , but the recently-evicted South Korean president was actively trying to restart it for his own Trumpian reasons.

It's one of those things like the San Andreas fault. Just because nothing has happened for decades doesn't mean the risk has gone away.

trhway 2 hours ago | | |

>- "This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History, by T. R. Fehrenbach" seems interesting. South Korea still seems very grateful to the USA and commemorates the USA (and the rest of allies) that helped them during the Korean war.

For "easy reading"- viewing - on that war there are somewhat informative - in very coarse grain sense - movies that i watched recently:

SK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Jangsari

China (with heavy propaganda angle of course and a big budget): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_at_Lake_Changjin

roenxi 1 hour ago | |

Which leadership are we talking? The US military has been clear enough that they thought an Iran invasion was infeasible for obvious reasons - it isn't like what actually happened surprised many people, the US never looked like it could take on Iran in a direct war on Iranian soil. It was so obvious not even the Bush administration tried, and the US was in a much stronger relative position back in the 2000s.

If we're talking the likes of Hegseth and Trump then we're all waiting for the inside gossip on exactly what mad assumptions they were making that led to this scheme looking acceptable. Maybe Trump is going senile too, maybe the Israelis managed to sell a story, maybe the US is being deceptive and it is some sort of anti-China attempt.

cpursley 2 hours ago | |

Nor: https://www.amazon.com/Losing-Military-Supremacy-American-St...

rramadass 1 hour ago |

Seems to be missing a bunch of essential subjects, viz;

Warfare within the context of overall Statecraft, Integrated warfare, Information warfare, Asymmetric warfare, Grey-zone warfare, Psychology w.r.t. Propaganda/Reflexive control/Active measures, Behavioural game theory etc.

All the tactics/technology/manpower/training/stories/anecdotes are insufficient if one does not have an understanding of the overall strategic theory within which they operate.

"Winning" has many forms depending upon the context.

PS: List of military strategies and concepts - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_strategies_an...

keybored 1 hour ago |

[flagged]