Military Misfortunes

Even the world’s mightiest armies can suffer from a lack of leadership and dysfunctional organization, leading to catastrophic loss of life, political upheaval at home, and the ruination of careers for those responsible. In Military Misfortunes, Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch explain that three specific types of failure – failure to learn, failure to anticipate, and failure to adapt – are at the root of these military blunders. Major disasters most often occur when two of these types of failure are present (called aggregate failure) or when all three are present (called catastrophic failure). Military Misfortunes analyzes five disastrous campaigns in military history and explains how each one can be attributed to one or more of these types of failure.