The Foundations of the Science of War

Download or read book The Foundations of the Science of War written by Maj-Gen. J. F. C. Fuller and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Foundations of the Science of War by Col. J. F. C. Fuller, first published in 1925, aims, as the title suggests and in the author’s own words, to provide “a foundation of the science of war, or, at least, of a science of war.” Col. Fuller spent over 15 years planning this foundation, and it was his endeavour that it would allow military students to examine it “not only for its own worth, but in order to think of war scientifically, for until we do so we shall never become true artists of war.” Likewise, Col. Fuller hoped the book may be of use to all other interested readers, “not only in studying war, but in studying any of the activities of life.” “In this book I am attempting something new—at least, new since the days of Henry Lloyd and Robert Jackson; for, as far as I am aware, these are my only two fellow-countrymen who have attempted to reduce war to a science. In a small way I am trying to do for war what Copernicus did for astronomy, Newton for physics, and Darwin for natural history. My book, I believe, is the first in which a writer has attempted to apply the method of science to the study of war; for Lloyd, Jackson, Clausewitz, Jomini, and Foch did not do this. In a few years’ time I hope that it will be superseded by many a better work, so that we all may begin to understand the nature of war, and thereby discover, not only how to prepare for war, but how to restrict its ravages; how to harness it, and possibly, also, how to transmute the destructive ferocity of the ape into the creative gentleness of the angel.”—Col. J. F. C. Fuller