108 - The Competition for Superior Doctrine

The Principles of War - Lessons from Military History on Strategy, Tactics and Leadership.

This is the third episode in a three part interview with Dr Robert Lyman about 'Victory to Defeat: The British Army 1918-40', a book he co-wrote with Lord Dannatt, who served as the Chief of the General Staff from 2006 to 2009.

This episode looks at how lessons are learnt from victories and defeats and the difficulties in developing doctrine when not in combat. We discuss the lessons from logistics doctrine development along with why it took so long for doctrine to be combat ready - for the British in was 2nd El Alamein. Finally we look for the lessons from the interwar period for the contemporary strategic environment.

Check out the show notes for this Professional Military Education podcast for all of the information that we cover in this episode as well as the images and other details that didn't make it into the podcast. There is also a catalogue of episodes on Leadership, the Principles of War, military history, and Mission Command.