New Principles of War

Pokrant attempts to use his experience and understanding of the timeless “principles of war” to bring forth essential new principles in waging war. With the preface, prologue, 17 chapters, an epilogue, notes, extensive bibliography, and index, the author challenges each of the nine principles of war.

The author joins revered personages from Sun Tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, Antoine-Henri Jomini, Niccolò Machiavelli, and others in testing and examining existing principles. It is the crucible of war, according to Pokrant, which test, support, or reject these principles. Timeless examples from the Punic Wars to the war in Afghanistan exist, and the author uses many, often the same combatants in several chapters, to analyze each principle. The Battle of Gettysburg is cited in the prologue and in the epilogue as a prime example to assess the original principles.

Pokrant begins his examination and testing by comparing and contrasting the principles of war from many nations around the world. In the first three chapters, he scrutinizes many English-speaking countries as well as the Soviet Union, China, France, Germany, India, and Israel. With each scan, Pokrant finds similar principles albeit with slightly different nuances and even some completely left out by others. The author specifies that there are nine principles of war—an objective, mass, offensive, unity of command, simplicity, the economy of force, maneuver, security, and surprise. After his review, he begins with these time-tested principles of war, now measuring them against more relevant criteria.