Strategy and Doctrine
Maneuver Warfare
Contemporary
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
Maneuver warfare is a military strategy that emphasizes movement, initiative and surprise, aiming to shatter an enemy's cohesion and decision-making through speed and dislocation rather than to destroy its forces by direct, sustained attrition. Historians trace the practice through the Mongols and Napoleon; as a named, systematically codified doctrine it was articulated by theorists including John Boyd, William S. Lind, Martin van Creveld and Robert Leonhard from the late twentieth century onward.
Facts
Core ClaimVictory comes from disrupting an enemy's decision-making and cohesion through speed, surprise and dislocation rather than from grinding down its forces in direct attrition. 1 Origin Year1985 marks William S. Lind's Maneuver Warfare Handbook, the doctrine's first systematic codification in Western military theory; maneuver warfare as a broader style of war has much older antecedents (the Mongols, Napoleon), which this atlas records as historical practice under separate entities rather than as this doctrine's own founding date. Cross-Tradition Connections
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.