Martin van Creveld

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Martin van Creveld (born 1946) is an Israeli military historian and theorist. He was born in the Netherlands but has lived in Israel since shortly after his birth. He holds degrees from the London School of Economics and The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he has been on the faculty since 1971. He is the author of fifteen books on military history and strategy, of which Command in War (1985), Supplying War (1977, 2nd edition 2004), and The Sword and the Olive (1998) are among the best known. Van Creveld has lectured or taught at virtually every strategic institute, military or civilian, in the Western world, including the U.S. Naval War College, most recently in December, 1999 and January, 2000. Some people consider his 1991 book, The Transformation of War, among the most important treatises on military theory ever written.

In addition to writing on military history, he also comments, in pointed wordings, on contemporary societies and politics:

"...the Israeli army has not by any means been the worst of the lot. It has not done what for instance the Americans did in Vietnam ... it did not use napalm, it did not kill millions of people. So everything is relative, but by definition, to return to what I said earlier, if you are strong and you are fighting the weak, then anything you do is criminal."

In 2005, van Creveld made headlines when he said in an interview that the 2003 Invasion of Iraq was "the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 BC sent his legions into Germany and lost them", an apparent reference to the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, which actually took place in 9 AD. His analysis included harsh criticism of the Bush Administration, with van Creveld commenting about the current troubles in Iraq: "Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial." ^[1]

In a February 2006 editorial by John Pilger, van Creveld is quoted: "Obviously, we don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons and I don't know if they're developing them, but if they're not developing them, they're crazy." ^[2]

[edit] Notes and references

^ Brian Whitaker, "Nowhere to run", November 29, The Guardian, 2005
^ John Pilger, "The Next War - Crossing the Rubicon", truthout.org editorial about the prospects of an invasion of Iran, 10 February 2006

[edit] Published works

Books

Hitler's strategy 1940-1941; the Balkan clue, Cambridge University Press, 1973, ISBN 0521201438
Military lessons of the Yom Kippur War : historical perspectives, Beverly Hills : Sage Publications, 1975, ISBN 0803905629
Supplying war : logistics from Wallenstein to Patton, Cambridge University Press, 1977, ISBN 052121730X (2nd ed, 2004, ISBN 0521546575)
Fighting power : German and US Army performance, 1939-1945, Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1982, ISBN 0313233330
Command in war, Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1985, ISBN 0674144406
(German)Kampfkraft : militärische Organisation und militärische Leistung, 1939-1945, Freiburg : Verlag Rombach, 1989, ISBN 379300189X
Technology and war : from 2000 B.C. to the present, New York : Free Press, 1989, ISBN 002933151X (free paperback, 2001, ISBN 0029331536)
The training of officers : from military professionalism to irrelevance, New York : Free Press, 1990, ISBN 0029331528
The transformation of war, New York : Free Press, 1991, ISBN 0029331552
Nuclear proliferation and the future of conflict, New York : Free Press, 1993, ISBN 0029331560
Air power and maneuver warfare, with contributions from Kenneth S. Brower and Steven L. Canby, Alabama : Air University Press, 1994, ISBN
The encyclopedia of revolutions and revolutionaries : from anarchism to Zhou Enlai, New York : Facts on File, 1996, ISBN 081603236X
The sword and the olive : a critical history of the Israeli defense force, New York : Public Affairs, 1998, ISBN 1891620053
The rise and decline of the state, Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN 052165629X
The art of war : war and military thought, London : Cassell, 2000, ISBN 0304352640 (also New York : Collins/Smithsonian, 2005, ISBN 0060838531)
Men, women, and war, London : Cassell & Co., 2001, ISBN 0304359599
Moshe Dayan, London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004 ISBN 0297846698
Defending Israel : a controversial plan toward peace, New York : Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2004, ISBN 0312328664
Countering modern terrorism : history, current issues, and future threats : proceedings of the second International Security Conference, Berlin, 15-17 December 2004, with Katharina von Knop and Heinrich Neisser, Bielefeld : Wbv, W. Bertelsmann Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3763933093
The changing face of war : lessons of combat, from the Marne to Iraq, New York : Presidio Press, 2006, ISBN 9780891419013