In his book, Ryan Grauer “investigates the reasons why some actors are relatively more capable of defeating others in conventional land battles” (p. 6). In one sense, Grauer’s focus is fairly narrow in that he is not dealing with war outcomes generally but, rather, the individual battles that occur within them. This is not, of course, uncharted territory. Grauer lays out existing theories, which he classifies into three major categories. The first and perhaps most commonsense approach sees battle outcomes largely as a consequence of the disparities in military capabilities (e.g., soldiers and weaponry). The second focuses on technological superiority as critical in providing victors with a decisive advantage. The third emphasizes force employment—that is, how troops maneuver on the battlefield. Though within each approach there are variations, this rough trichotomy captures the essence of the debate about whether victory in battle goes to the side that is materially superior, technologically more advanced, or more skillful/clever in using its forces tactically.

It is interesting that at the outset of Commanding Military Power, Grauer recognizes that existing theories actually do a pretty good job of accounting for battlefield victory and defeat. Looking at “decisive battles fought between 1917 and 2003,” for example, he concedes that material preponderance theory has “considerable explanatory power” and accurately predicts battle outcomes about 70% of the time (p. 11). Theories focusing on technological superiority fare a little less well, correctly predicting battle outcomes only about half the time. This raises an initial question: If existing theories have so much explanatory power, do we really need another theory? the author obviously thinks so for at least two reasons. First, even if material preponderance theory (and others) can explain a large majority of battle outcomes, there remains a sizable minority of sometimes important cases that run counter to its predictions. Second, preponderance theory is also of little value when the sides are relatively equal in material terms (the same would be true for technological factors in situations of rough parity). Grauer is not attempting to reinvent the wheel or reset the entire debate here. He does not argue against or reject material preponderance theory or any other theory of military power. The problem with existing theories is that they are incomplete, not that they are wrong. He aims to provide a theoretical supplement or addition in order to “improve and fill the gaps in scholars’ collective comprehension of military power” (p. 17).

Grauer begins his effort to explain battlefield outcomes with two uncontroversial observations: First, militaries are organizations and should be studied as such; and second, uncertainty is an inherent element of warfare. This focus on organizations and uncertainty leads him to draw on contingency theory, which has been used for some time to analyze the performance of a broad range of public and private organizations. The central insight of contingency theory is “that uncertainty, or the lack of relevant information . . . is the root cause of poor organizational performance.” Consequently, to be successful, organizations should “structure themselves to maximize information flow and accessibility” (pp. 26–27). Grauer adapts contingency theory for explaining the relative effectiveness of military organizations whose success he measures by their ability to win battles. The result is his “command structure theory,” which he characterizes as “a simple and intuitive account of military power: armed forces organized such that they are able to swiftly perceive and react to the particular challenges and opportunities arising during combat are more likely to have the capacity to defeat their adversaries” (pp. 25–26). In more concrete organizational terms, this entails “shrinking subordinate-to-officer ratios and decentralizing decision-making authority to lower levels of command as operational environments grow relatively more uncertain” (p. 4).

The bulk of the empirical evidence to evaluate the command structure model consists of four detailed case studies of battles whose outcomes are not adequately explained by existing theories: Liaoyang (1904) during the Russo-Japanese War, the Huai-Hai campaign (1948–49) that basically sealed the victory for the Communists in the Chinese Civil War, and the 5th and 3rd Phase Offensives in the Korean War. He also discusses a handful of other cases more briefly in his conclusion, a few of which I wish had been a primary focus of the book, rather than an afterthought at the end of it. Two of these secondary cases are particularly intriguing. In the first, Grauer sketches out a command structure explanation for the changing fortunes of German and Soviet forces on the eastern front throughout World War II. The second deals with the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Hopefully he will have more to say about these cases in particular in future work. Nonetheless, the principal case studies are nicely done and provide more than sufficient support for his basic argument about the need to take account of military organizational structure in thinking about military effectiveness and power on the battlefield. In the case of Huai-Hai, for example, theories emphasizing material preponderance and technological sophistication would have incorrectly predicted victory for Nationalist forces. Grauer’s case study, however, demonstrates fairly convincingly that the more decentralized and flexible command structure of Communist forces allowed them to adapt more rapidly and effectively on the battlefield in the face of new information and changing conditions. Given the size and complexity of the battlespace, this provided the Communists with the decisive advantage against the more hierarchical and rigid Nationalist forces.

The least satisfying aspect of this otherwise excellent book is Grauer’s treatment of more recent information technologies that one might suspect would reduce uncertainty, thus providing a critical advantage to those who utilize them. Grauer is skeptical that information gathering and transmission technologies can provide a decisive edge in the absence of an appropriate command structure. Although information technologies have the potential to reduce battlefield uncertainty, he argues, they do not necessarily do so. Indeed, the sheer quantity of information that needs to be evaluated and disseminated to the appropriate forces in time creates new dilemmas whose resolution depends on “how well human beings running them cope with the distinct challenges they themselves introduce” (p. 57). The problem, however, is that the author’s most recent case studies focus on battles from the Korean War, which predate these technologies by several decades at least. Although he makes some anecdotal references to the 2003 Iraq War that appear to support his skepticism, I wish he had at least one more recent case study that would allow him to address this critical question more systematically. Given the military technological advances of the past few decades, it is rather inexplicable that the empirical part of Grauer’s study essentially ends in the early 1950s.

This one shortcoming aside, however, Commanding Military Power is clearly an important book that adds a new element to our understanding of military organizations and effectiveness. It joins Stephen Biddle’s Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (2006) as one of the essential works of military power theory in recent years.