Overview

How do military organizations learn? This book covers an important instance of military learning in which the United States military systematically examined the lessons of Israel's decisive victory in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and applied those lessons towards major doctrinal and equipment changes. The book relies heavily on Paul Senge’s model of learning organizations outlined in his seminal work, The Fifth Dimension. Using Senge’s model, the book examines the Departments of the Army, Air Force, and Navy’s reactions to the Yom Kippur War and how they organizationally incorporated—or ignored—the lessons of the conflict within their force. Using source documents, including personal memoirs, doctrinal publications, and individual reflections, the book offers a vital examination of how militaries can use foreign conflicts to make substantive and necessary organizational changes. The Yom Kippur War, particularly the Israeli experience in that conflict, provided the American military a battle laboratory in which to develop new warfighting concepts and assess new weapons acquisitions. In its conclusion, the book offers a cautionary tale that suggests learning and change do not come automatically to military organizations. If they are to be successful in the future, military organizations must embrace learning structures.

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9781498568043

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"[Robert Tomlinson] tackles the concept of a military learning organization, specifically how that organization's ability to learn impacts its ability to adapt to the modern battlefield. Harnessing learning tenets adapted to a military organization, Tomlinson reviews the learning culture of the US Army, Air Force, and Navy through the lens of the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict known as the Yom Kippur War.... Overall, Tomlinson's Influence of Foreign Wars is a useful case study on the ability of American military organizations to adapt based on outside lessons learned as opposed to directly experienced personal service trauma akin to the shock of Pearl Harbor or the more recent First Battle of Fallujah. Furthermore, his work does not require in-depth knowledge of the '73 Yom Kippur War as it is less about the conflict and more about the ability of American military services to learn and adapt. As centered on Tomlinson's five tenets of a learning organization, The Case for Yom Kippur serves as a useful model for future like-studies and is a welcome addition to professional military education as it helps to fill gaps in study between the end of the Vietnam War and the emergence of the modern US military. -- ""�ther: A Journal of Strategic Airpower & Spacepower "" [This book] will certainly be of great interest not only to those individuals interested in the military dimension of the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular or military affairs more generally, but also to those individuals interested in how organizations transform themselves over time as a result of their ability to learn from the experiences of others. -- ""Israel Affairs"" This book is a phenomenal exploration of military organizational learning. The Yom Kippur War of 1973 was a pivotal learning event for Cold Warriors. As relevant today as it was 50 years ago. This event was a key turning point for the post-Vietnam US military which motivated transformational innovations such as the Army's National Training Center, USAF's Red Flag exercises, the M1A1, and the F-117. A must-read for anyone interested in organizational learning or military innovation. --Mike Fowler, United States Air Force Academy Tomlinson's timely book on how U.S. military leaders utilized lessons from the Yom Kippur War to propel organizational change to extend deterrence against the Soviet Red Army during the Cold War is essential reading for military and foreign policy decision makers facing similar challenges confronting a rising China and resurgent Russia. --Phil Haun, U.S. Naval War College"

Author Information

Robert W. Tomlinson is associate professor in National Security Affairs (NSA) department of the Naval War College at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey California.

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