Mozg Armii

Mozg Armii (Russian: Мозг армии), in English The Brain of the Army, is a three-volume military theory book published between 1927 and 1929. It is the most important work of Boris Shaposhnikov, a Soviet military commander then in command of the Moscow military region. Mozg Armii gained a wide popularity throughout the Red Army, and Shaposhnikov himself was held in high regard by Joseph Stalin.

Boris Shaposhnikov had been, before the Russian Revolution, a graduate of the Imperial Nicholas Military Academy (1910) and then a colonel. Unusually for someone with such a background, he supported the revolution and rejoined the Red Army in 1918. As such, when the Red Army was in its early years, he was one of the few officers to have had formal military training. As early as May 1918, he seems to have had an important role in the Soviet Operations Branch, then in its infancy. He was a member of the Red Army General Staff from 1921 to 1925, and also had a role as Joseph Stalin's military mentor.

"Mobilization is the opium of war" is the title of one of the book's chapters. In it, Shaposhnikov draws mainly from the experience of World War I and the efforts all belligerents made to mobilize as quickly as possible in order first to try and crush the enemy before he himself had been able to mobilize, then to sustain a prolonged war effort. According to Shaposhnikov, the next war would be as long and intense as World War I had been, and would require several mobilizations throughout.

Shaposhnikov also presented mobilization as being a dangerous yet essential measure. On the one hand, he affirmed that governments had to be mindful of the fact that to mobilize was in itself a step towards a full-blown conflict: he underlined the fact that, just before World War I began, mobilization by a country had been tantamount to a declaration of war, as neighbouring countries reacted to such a threat with mobilizations of their own. On the other hand, an early mobilization allowed for reinforcing the lines of defense, whereas delays in mobilization heightened the risk of having to face a fully mobilized enemy army with understrength forces.

...
Wikipedia