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No Combat Without Movement: Enders Game as Maneuver Warfare Primer
- mattdeboard 14y agoI first read this book early in my first USMC enlistment in the late 90s. It was (is?) on the Commandant's Reading List, even, as recommended reading for mid-grade NCOs and junior officers because of the strong representation of maneuver warfare, the importance of individual initiative, etc. In the intervening years I've read it a good 10-15 times. If you've not read it you're missing out.
- dfc 14y agoHave you read Lind or Leonard's book?
- mattdeboard 14y agoGod no. I think by "best book" he means most entertaining and most accessible treatment of the concepts of the book.
- hosh 14y agoHa!
- blackhole 14y agoI've read this book a good 3 or 4 times and it never ceases to amaze me. Ender's Game is without a doubt Orson Scott Card's magnum opus and a must read for anyone remotely interested in science fiction. I always had an interest in the combat tactics employed in the book, and admired Ender's seemingly unlimited ability to innovate, but never realized it had such a concrete grounding in legitimate military tactical theory.
- astrodust 14y agoI used to like this book. Then I realized it's basically Twilight for teenaged boys and started to think about it more critically. Ender is an impossible creature and creates an archetype that cannot be lived up to. People make mistakes, it's what makes them learn, advance, succeed, become stronger. Ender is some kind of perverted ideal. The way this essay describes military strategies makes it seems like those running today's theaters are absolute idiots that simply smash one group of soldiers to another just like the British did in the 1800s. This is not the case. "Attrition theory" is not what's employed in individual battles, pawn-for-pawn style exchanges. The US Army, as an example, takes extremely low numbers of casualties with staggeringly high numbers of casualties inflicted. Most of these bold claims about Card's novel seem like fluff on closer examination. They're plot drivers for a novel and in that sense they bear a similarity to real-life examples. Nothing more.
- coffeedrinker 14y agoLife is difficult. For me, the point is to let yourself grow stronger to meet those challenges rather than giving up. I like to think that God is actually deliberately making things harder for me on/with purpose. Keeps me fighting.
- mgarfias 14y agoStormin Norman's initial war plan for Iraq 1 was indeed attrition based. We were to land in Kuwait and beat the Iraqis back via blunt force. Cheney,secdef at the time, realized how bloody this would be, and pulled Boyd in from retirement to rewrite the war plan. The marines succeeded brilliantly with their part. The army did not, and concern for their flanks allowed the Iraqi army to escape.
- kevin_rubyhouse 14y agoThis is very interesting. What book did you read about this in?
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- dfc 14y agoHow does the review begin with: "Despite this aggregation of martial thought, the best book on maneuver warfare is in fact a 30 year old science fiction novel. Although incomplete in addressing all aspects of theory, Ender’s Game is one of the best books on maneuver warfare ever written." And then conclude with: "Not all precepts of maneuver warfare are explored in the book...Nevertheless, there are enough examples in the book to make a credible case for the book as a primer on maneuver theory." It is worth noting that for Lind maneuver warfare was third generation warfare and not fourth generation warfare.
- DuskStar 14y agoSomething that gets explored more in the sequels is what being a soldier does to him- Ender becomes a dedicated pacifist, effectively founds a religion, and devotes the rest of his life to undoing xenocide. And it's cool that those are actual tactics- plus the timeline makes it look like Ender's Game was actually on the cutting edge of military thought.
- e12e 14y agoAnother sci-fi book (or series) that would be relevant in the context of tactics and strategy, is Jerry Pournelle's books/compilation on Falkenberg's Legion: http://www.baenebooks.com/p-322-the-prince.aspx http://www.baenebooks.com/p-322-the-prince.aspx
- angersock 14y agoLess good for strategy but more for simply being excellent military sci-fi, I'd recommend David Drake's Slammers series and Joe Haldeman's Forever War.
- jonaldomo 14y agoI really liked Ender's Game and can not wait for the movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1731141/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1731141/
- sliverstorm 14y agoThey'll slaughter it, for sure. I don't have any evidence of this mind you, but I've been through this cycle with favorite books enough times to have learned: don't get your hopes up.
- paragonred 14y agoI recently picked this book up after hearing great things about it for so long. I'm not surprised that much of the information is relevant from a strategic sense. The book is really written in a thoughtful and careful manner. Side note: I really hope the movie coming out later this year does the book justice.
- phaus 14y agoIf they got Haley Joel Osment to play the lead back in the day, it would have had a shot. I can't think of anyone young enough that can actually act these days.
- mhd 14y agoI had the exact opposite experience. After everyone gushing about it, I finally grabbed it a couple of years ago. I would've loved this in my teen years, but as a 30something, it felt like a rather mediocre military sci-fi book with a huge Mary Sue protagonist and dubious moral conclusions. Well, at least it wasn't as long as Atlas Shrugged.
- abolibibelot 14y agoI couldn't agree more. Ender's game is pretty much Atlas Shrugged in space, written in a slightly less abysmal style. Same complexity in characters, same vindication of the megalomania/resentment of the introvert male teenager reader, same cult following.
- coopdog 14y agoI think the article confuses physical 'movement', with maneuvering, which in the context of maneuver warfare is more about adapting your strategy to both hit the enemy's critical vulnerabilities (again not just physical, we're talking media, moral, supply chains, sight, ability to discriminate between civilian an enemy, timely communication of orders, ability to concentrate force, etc), while covering your own. Movement and physical speed is just the most basic of the possible maneuvers in this context. The rest of it does seem pretty good/interesting though
- invalidOrTaken 14y agoI don't understand what all the fuss is about. It's a great book---in fact, for a while, it was my favorite book---but humans have been fighting wars for thousands of years. The Romans ruled the ancient world, and the Mongols Asia, with their mobility. And yet we're supposed to believe that "hey, strategic and tactical movement is pretty great" is a new idea? Frankly, most of the time, size and power win the day. Oracle is still here. Microsoft is still here. Yahoo is still here. The reason Card writes about weakness combined with movement and agility and brilliant insight is the same reason we are all fascinated with startups---because they're all counterintuitive (read: loses most of the time) and therefore fun to watch. That's it. Not because it's always a superior fighting style. Try fancy-schmancy maneuvers in the no-man's land of WW1 and you're done. Now, I am an underweight computer programmer, so I don't know what I'm talking about. All I've done is think, and play video games. Which is precisely what Card has done. And I say this as a fan of Card's work. But turning military fiction into the Art of War is a little much, it seems.
- eru 14y agoSince you mention World War I, and new tactics, you might like to read about the original stormtroopers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormtrooper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormtrooper).
- kevin_rubyhouse 14y agoStartups are intuitive for most founders because of the scope of our resources. It would usually be counter intuitive for a big business or wealthy individual(s) to create a business as a startup (unless there's a lot of risk involved, perhaps) because they have what would be necessary to go at it full force. Imagine having 1mm in funding the day the MVP starts getting built because you, as a founder, have that liquid cash ready to invest. This isn't a scrappy startup, it's a well funded one. Most people don't have that. Most people HAVE to start small, or burn the midnight oil working on their MVP, trying to get traction. It's not because we necessarily want to, it's because we're hungry to win and we just don't have the firepower that our established competitors have. It seems like there are a few different frames people have to think about startups. Some think of it like gambling (as you've said), some think startups are x-wings trying to take down the death star (with enough skill and a LOT of luck, a startup will hit it big), some want to reign startups back into being a business (start with an idea that makes money!), and then there are the founders in the trenches fighting on the daily. We're the guys that have been persistently working on our businesses, our projects, our hare-brained business models that just might work. We're grounded by reality - that this is very hard - but we just keep fighting down here. I'm going to stay on these front lines until I lead the guys here who believe in me to a decisive victory.
- stcredzero 14y agoI was just reading about "Surfaces and Gaps." There is a concept there called "reconnaissance pull" versus "command push." Basically, that's MVP, A/B testing, and pivoting.
- yozmsn 14y agoEnder's Game is one of my favorite books! Can't wait for the movie.
- riffraff 14y agoWARNING, contains spoilers.
- drucken 14y agoTo all thinking of reading Ender's Game, do not expect some epic storytelling with the grandness of Asimov, Herbert or Tolkien, or the depth of a Greg Bear or Gibson, or intrigue of an Iain S. Banks or George R. R. Martin, or fortelling of an Arthur C. Clarke or Heinlein, etc. The maturity, scope and content of the writing in Ender's Game's pales in comparison to many childrens books, modern or otherwise, including J.K. Rowling's. As someone else in this thread posted, it will feel like reading a (barely) sci-fi version of Twilight, aimed at a pre-teen audience, and you may question why some opine the book's greatness. You may have a point...
- Symmetry 14y agoInteresting article, but I've read Leonhard’s book The Art of Maneuver and it does a much better job of explaining all of this and especially putting it in context than Ender's Game does. And includes some very additional interesting ideas such as classifying weapons by what sort of behavior they'll induce in your enemy as the enemy tries to avoid or defeat them.
- gmays 14y agoNice article. I read EG in high school and I'm Marine now, but never thought about EG as a primer on it. Depending on what experience kids have, maneuver warfare can be a difficult concept to grasp. But once understood, it can be applied widely (e.g. to business). For example, in my current startup I may not have the technical background, but I've found ways to compete anyway. Another example is where Malcolm Gladwell describes Col Van Riper's exploits in his book Blink. Anyway, I have friends who are ROTC instructors and forwarded this article to them. MCDP 1 (Warfighting) is dry, so EG is a fun (though shallow) primer to discuss. It should also make the concepts in Warfighting easier to visualize for someone without any concept of asymmetric warfare. To respond to some of the comments, maneuver warfare isn't a new concept but it’s obvious it's not well understood, particularly in business. Another useful military idea to apply to business is the OODA loop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop).