Iran-Iraq War of Exhaustion: The Result of the Paradoxical Trinity (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781288274048)

This monograph analyzes the Iran-Iraq War to determine the role of society--the government, the people, and the army--in forming a state's strategy and action in war. It applies the writings of two classical theorists--Clausewitz and Delbruck--to explain why the war ended the way it did. First, the theories of Clausewitz and Delbruck are explained to establish the theoretical framework for the monograph. Next, Clausewitz's "paradoxical trinity" is used to analyze each antagonist's strategic development during the course of the war. After that analysis, Delbruck's theory of annihilation and exhaustion is used to determine how each nation's strategy resulted in the operational stalemate. This monograph concludes that the Iran-Iraq War demonstrates the inextricable link between the paradoxical trinity of a state and that state's strategy and actions in war. This analysis also suggests several conclusions concerning Delbruck's two strategies. First, in a strategy of annihilation, the army is the critical component of the trinity. And, second, in a strategy of exhaustion, the people are the most significant component of the trinity.

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