The Foundations of the Science of War

by J.F.C. Fuller (Creator)

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Genres: War, Military Fiction, History, Jaws

350 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1926

About the author

Major-General John Frederick Charles Fuller, CB, CBE, DSO was a British Army officer (1899–1933), military historian and strategist, notable as an early theorist of modern armoured warfare, including categorising principles of warfare.

Fuller was also an early disciple of English poet and magician Aleister Crowley and was very familiar with his, and other forms of, magick and mysticism.

Reviews

[Sathyanarayanan D · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Foundations of the Science of War by Major General. J.F.C Fuller (350 Pages)

By reading the first three chapters I misunderstood that this whole book is some kind of a series of injunctions to the reader not substantiated by any real evidence. But, later it made sense. The Author feels burdened for choosing the word "Science" as a part of the title of book, because to justify the usage the word - Science, he at length used the analogies of Human Biology and anatomy to drive a point on warfare. Most of it made sense. If I were asked to pick a title for the book, then it would have been "The Systematic Approach of Study of War". The word science in the title is truly misleading. After the first 50 pages of the book, things really make sense. The concepts of Mental,Moral and Physical aspects of war are really informing among other things. The Author suggests an elaborate method to study Military History. Valuable assertions made on matters relating to - Military Organization, movement of armies, Offensive and Defensive strategies, The quality of a General and the will of the soldier, Nation etc.,. This warrants a detailed review.

[Jaron Roux · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 3 fold order... Fuller took an interesting way to form his logic train to get people to buy into his thoughts on war. At the heart of the book, the effort that J.F.C. Fuller is trying to push is the continued study of war based on scientific principles. At the end of the day, his thoughts on the Principles of War and Law of Economy of force are very evident in the military today! I thought it was a great book!

[Nate Huston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clearly, JFC Fuller was a crazy person. And honestly, his threefold order of everything is a stretch, but not as much as everyone thinks. If you take it as a model rather than a theory, I think it has value. Two opposite extremes connected through their relationship - mind, body spirit; knowledge, belief, faith; you get the idea. Each has a pressure, resistance and control force and, in the context of the conditions, these forces interact to produce results. The wise man perceives the conditions and adjusts pressure and resistance in order to proceed on the correct path.

War reduced to Mental, moral, and physical spheres all connected by the law of economy of force. This begets the 9 principles of war and hey, they've done ok for planners over the last few decades.