HISTORY • MILITARY
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“Col. Douglas Macgregor shows how shaping armies
and their doctrines to meet the challenges of past
rather than future warfare produces defeat and how
or
ganizing and equipping forces for the future can
bring victory. Margin of Victory will be given close
at
tention by America’s competitors overseas. Those
responsible for organizing and directing the adaptation
of the U.S. military to emerging realities need to give it
equal attention.”
AMBASSADOR CHAS W. FREEMAN JR., UNITED
STATES FOREIGN SERVICE (RET.),
former Assis-
tant Secretary of Defense, U.S. ambassador to
Saudi Arabia during Operations Desert Shield
and Desert Storm
COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR, USA (RET.), is a dec-
o
rated
combat veteran with a PhD in international
relations from the University of Virginia. He is the
author of ve books and is the executive vice president
of Burke-Macgregor Group LLC, a defense and foreign
policy consulting rm in Northern Virginia.
Cover image: An M1A1 Abrams main battle tank lays a smoke screen
during Operation Desert Storm. (U.S. Department of Defense)
Cover designer: Matthew Simmons, www.myselncluded.com
Naval
Institute
Press
Macgregor
IN
Margin of Victory Douglas Macgregor tells the
riveting stories of ve military battles of the
twentieth century, each one a turning point in history.
Beginning with the British Expeditionary Force holding
the line at the Battle of Mons in
1914 and concluding
with the Battle of 73 Easting in 1991 during Operation
Desert Storm, Margin of Victory establishes a connec-
tion among these clashes and teaches its readers an
important lesson about how future battles can be won.
Emphasizing military strategy, force design, and mod-
ernization, Macgregor links each of these seemingly
isolated engagements thematically. At the core of his
analysis, the author reminds the reader that to be suc-
cessful, military action must always be congruent with
national culture, geography, and scientic-industrial
capacity. He argues that strategy and geopolitics are
ultimately more inuential than ideology. Macgregor
stresses that if nation-states want to be successful,
they must accept the need for, and the inevitability
of, change. The ve dramatic battles in this book, ren-
dered in vivid detail by lively prose, offer many lessons
on the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war.
“It is a measure of Douglas Macgregor’s power as an analyst, historian, and writer that even readers
who differ with some of his conclusions will enjoy and learn from his argument. This is the rare book
on military policy that is both interesting and important.”
JAMES FALLOWS, correspondent for The Atlantic and
author of Blind Into Baghdad: America’s War in Iraq
“Douglas Macgregor, one of our nest military visionaries and reformers,...compellingly illustrates the
need for nations to understand and apply both strategy and geopolitics before engaging in military
action in this new age, where the guiding principles have changed dramatically.”
CARLO D’ESTE, author of Patton: A Genius for War
“What does it take to win a war? West Pointer, combat leader, and renowned military thinker Douglas
Macgregor answers that question in this engaging look at ve major battles during the last century of
combat: Mons 1914, Shanghai 1937, Belorussia 1944, Suez 1973, and Iraq 1991. You may not yet
know much about these great clashes, but when you read this book, you will. More than that, you’ll
know just what it takes to ght and win.”
LT. GEN. DANIEL P. BOLGER, USA (RET.), author of Why We Lost: A
General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
“Douglas Macgregor has a brave tank commander’s perspective on modern warfare and a restless refusal
to accept the status quo when soldiers must pay for their ofcers’ lack of higher critical thinking
or
preparation for combat. . . . [H]e shows in moving
detail how a mixture of foresight and failure to plan
ahead impacted the fates not only of soldiers’ lives, but of whole nations. A salutary—and wonderfully
readable—lesson for us all today.”
NIGEL HAMILTON, author of The Mantle of Command:
FDR at War, 1941–1942
“Douglas Macgregor’s superb analysis points to a wholesale restructuring of the American military—a
general staff and cadre of ofcers with lifetime expertise in such issues as cyber warfare or distinct
third-world regions and cultures, not cookie-cutter products trained to ll slots to reght World War II.”
JON BASIL UTLEY, publisher, The American Conservative
MARGIN OF VICTORY
