Olivia Garard, ”An Annotated Guide to Tactics: Carl von Clausewitz on ’Theory of the Combat’

Olivia Garard, former Marine captain and prolific author, joins the #BruteCast on its 1-year anniversary to talk about her newly released book from Marine Corps University Press, An Annotated Guide to Tactics: Carl von Clausewitz’s “Theory of the Combat.” This little-known work by the Prussian military theorist should seem familiar to Marines because it houses the common tenets on which the Corps' warfighting philosophy is based. But it is also a bit different too. It is more abstract; it wrestles with questions such as what is combat, what is the offense, and what is a plan. As Marines face the unceasing, continued evolution of the character of warfare it is worth reflecting on these basics—the underlying theory of tactics—to understand how they are manifesting in the current competition and how they will manifest in the next fight.

Olivia Garard is a former Marine captain who spent much of her time in uniform as one of the first Group 3 UAS MAGTF Officers. She also worked for the Ellis Group inside the Futures Directorate of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab before leaving active service. Ms. Garard has written extensively on future employment of UAS, and future warfare in general, in The Strategy Bridge, War on the Rocks, Marine Corps Gazette, Orbis, and the U.S. Army War College’s War Room. She has also published a good amount of poetry, in the Collateral Journal, the Wrath-Bearing Tree, a forthcoming piece with The Line Literary Review, and our personal favorite, “Every Brief Ever” which may be the only piece of poetry ever published on War on the Rocks.

An Annotated Guide to Tactics can be downloaded here.

Intro/outro music is "Evolution" from BenSound.com (https://www.bensound.com)

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