Professor Joel Hayward Books and Articles

Joel Hayward, “The 1942 Garmisch Conference: A Snapshot of Mid-War Axis Naval Strategy” [with Massimiliano Fiore], War in History, Volume 31, No. 3 (July 2024), pp. 11-49.

ABSTRACT:  On 14 and 15 January 1942, a German and Italian maritime strategy conference occurred in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in order to coordinate a joint plan of action for the ongoing conduct of naval warfare. Drawing upon extensive exploration in German and Italian archives, this article challenges coventional wisdom and argues that coordination improved as a consequence of the meeting and that strategic realities, not a lack of intent to coordinate the two nations’ naval efforts, robbed the conference of its ability to create war-changing decisions. 

Joel Hayward, “The 1941 Merano Conference: Building a Relationship through Military Diplomacy” [with Dr Massimiliano Fiore], Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 35, No. 2 (2024), pp. 262-283.

ABSTRACT:  On 13 and 14 February 1941, a German and Italian maritime strategy conference, led by Großadmiral Erich Raeder, C-in-C of the Kriegsmarine (German Navy), and Admiral Arturo Riccardi, his equivalent in the Regia Marina (Italian Navy), occurred in Merano in order to coordinate the ongoing conduct of naval warfare. The Germans wanted more say in the conduct of the Mediterranean war. The Italians came with a shopping list, which included antiaircraft guns, oil, raw materials, and technology. Some historians claim that the Italians were reluctant to hold a conference as they feared the Germans would intrude into their theatre of operations, but that after the Battle of Taranto they could no longer resist German pressure. However, an analysis of German and Italian documents shows otherwise. It also reveals that the true significance of Merano lies in the fact that the two navies finally began to draw together with a common understanding of who would do what in coming years, both together and individually. With the two admirals acting as senior diplomats, conveying their countries’ friendship and sense of common purpose and actively trying to find mutually agreeable solutions to difficulties, the conference went very well. Initiated, planned and run by naval liaison staff from both sides embedded within the other side’s command staff, and with a strong contribution from the embassies in both Berlin and Rome – with the military attachés functioning rather effectively in a diplomatic capacity – the Merano Conference is an excellent case study of military-diplomatic cooperation during wartime. 

Joel Hayward, Islamic Principles of War for the Twenty-first Century  (Amman: Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre / Royal Aal al Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, 2020).

ABSTRACT: Almost all western and other developed states use Principles of War as guiding ideas for military practitioners (especially those who serve at the operational and tactical levels) on how best to use combat power in order to gain maximum advantage. These Principles of War are virtually ubiquitous in cadet and officer colleges and in doctrine manuals. Islamic law, on the other hand, has nothing comparable, and least nothing from the modern world. It has always seriously and proactively engaged with ideas about how to ensure that war is fought for morally just causes. Yet, since the medieval period, Islam has not updated its thoughts on what principles might best enhance combat effectiveness in order to win battles and wars with the maximum effectiveness, the minimum use of force and the minimum likelihood of harm to the innocent. This study investigates whether one can draw such principles from the Qur’an and the life of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad that might serve as guidelines for Islamic armed forces in the twenty-first century, an era dominated by careless disregard for human life and by what is euphemistically called Collateral Damage. Within the earliest extant Arabic sources, this study identifies nine principles ― these being Virtuous Objective, Legitimacy, Unity of Command and Effort, Consultative Decision-Making, Offensive Action, Defensive Security, Morale, Restraint, and Deception ― that were integral in the warfighting of the Prophet. The author hopes that the analysis might, if widely read in the right circles, prompt further thought and research within Islamic states and their militaries so that something like an agreed set of Islamic Principles of War could eventually emerge and be of utility.

Joel Hayward, Revisiting the Past: The Value of Teaching Islamic Military History, Cambridge Muslim College Papers, Series 8 (2020).

ABSTRACT:  This article will argue that Muslim scholars should not feel the slightest awkwardness or embarrassment about Islam’s past martial successes, and should indeed return to writing on Islamic military history, teaching it and ensuring its survival within the curricula of cadet and staff colleges. Far from damaging Islam’s reputation, an objective and fair-minded reading of Islam’s military history (according to the methodology and principles accepted within the discipline of history) will directly counter the current western misperception that Islam is somehow more aggressive and accepting of disproportionate or indiscriminate violence than the other great religions. It will in fact show that the Islamic laws and ethics of war have minimized violence and constrained misconduct and ensured that warfare was fought according to guiding principles which are very similar to those found within western “just war” teachings. And far from lending credence to Jihadist or Islamist assertions that warfare should be used by any Muslims who want to bring about political or social change, an honest and thorough recounting of Islamic military history will demonstrate clearly that recourse to violence had never been the prerogative of any individuals, however disgruntled they may be. It was always a right and responsibility bestowed only upon legitimate national leaders (caliphs, kings, emirs and presidents). The teaching of Islamic history is also replete with examples of strategic brilliance and leadership excellence that make wonderfully illuminating and inspiring case studies for today’s civil and military leaders. It goes without saying that studying the campaigns and commanders of the past will develop a Muslim’s civilizational self-respect and esprit de corps in the same way that any western reader would have their sense of civilizational or cultural pride enhanced by studying the World Wars or the strategies and lives of great commanders like Washington, Wellington, Nelson, Grant, Lee, Haig, Montgomery, and Patton.

Joel Hayward, "Justice, Jihad and Duty: the Qur’anic Concept of Armed Conflict ", Islam and Civilisational Renewal, Vol. 9, No. 3 (July 2018), pp. 267-303.

ABSTRACT: The Qur’an is among the most widely read books on earth, yet it is also commonly misunderstood and misquoted. Islam’s critics say that it contains exhortations of violence against non-Muslims and a concept of war that is far more unbridled and indiscriminate than the western Just War theory. This study is not a general overview or critique of the Islamic laws of war, which are the varied and sometimes contradictory opinions of medieval Islamic jurists ― mainly from the ninth to thirteenth centuries CE. Instead, this study analyses only the Qur’anic text itself and, by putting its verses into historical context, attempts to explain its codes of conduct in order to determine what it actually requires or permits Muslims to do in terms of the use of military force. It concludes that the Qur’an is clear: Muslims must not undertake offensive violence and are instructed, if defensive warfare should become unavoidable, always to act within a code of ethical behaviour that is closely similar to the western Just War tradition. This study attempts to dispel any misperceptions that Islam’s holy book advocates the subjugation or killing of non-Muslims and reveals that, on the contrary, its key and unequivocal concepts governing warfare are based on justice and a profound belief in the sanctity of human life.

Joel Hayward, “‘War is Deceit’: An Analysis of a Contentious Hadith on the Morality of Military Deception” (Amman: Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre / Royal Aal al Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, 2017).

Joel Hayward, Preface to Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, The Supreme Jihad (London: Minhaj Publications, 2015), pp. v – xiii.

Joel Hayward, “Warfare in the Qur’an” in HRH Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, Ibrahim Kalin and Mohammad Hashim Kamali, editors, War and Peace in Islam: The Uses and Abuses of Jihad (Amman: Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre / Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, 2013), pp. 28-56.

Joel Hayward, "Air Power and the Environment: Some Ecological Implications of Modern Warfare", in Joel Hayward, ed., Air Power and the Environment: The Ecological Consequences of Modern Air Warfare (Montgomery, Alabama: Air University Press, 2013), pp. 197-224.

Joel Hayward, "Qur’anic Concepts of the Ethics of War: Challenging the Claims of Islamic Aggressiveness," Cordoba Foundation Occasional Paper (Series 2, April 2011).

Joel Hayward, "Reflections on the Maxwell ‘Revolution’: John Warden and Reforms in Professional Military Education” [with Dr Tamir Libel], Air Power Review, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring 2011), pp. 11-33.  

ABSTRACT: Colonel John A. Warden III is synonymous with the once-celebrated and still much-discussed “five rings” approach to air power targeting that the United State Air Force and its partners first attempted to utilize in 1991 during Gulf War I. Warden is less well known for his later tenure as Commandant of the Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) at the USAF Air University, even though he undertook reforms and introduced several ideas that transformed that relatively isolated college into a stronger and more influential education center. This article argues that Warden gained his appointment at the ACSC precisely at a time when, following the Goldwater-Nichols Act and the Skelton Report, the “professionalization” of the USAF began to place far greater stock on education. The article demonstrates that, operating with relative freedom and according to an idiosyncratic vision for the ACSC, Warden increased the rigor and robustness of the ACSC and also proved helpful in developing and inculcating concepts of air power that undoubtedly changed thinking in the USAF, at least for a time.

Joel Hayward, "The Qur’an and War: Observations on Islamic Just War,” Air Power Review, Vol. 13, No. 3 (2010), pp. 41-63.

Joel Hayward, "Air Power, Ethics and Civilian Immunity during the Great War and its Aftermath,” Global War Studies, Vol. 7, No. 7 (2010), pp. 102-130. 

ABSTRACT: Little has been published on the ethical and legal basis of air attacks on non-combatants during the First World War. Existing works have focused mainly on the injustice of the German Zeppelin and Gotha raids on British towns. They present British air campaigns on German towns and the formation of the Royal Air Force as a reasoned self-defensive response. This article breaks new ground as it attempts to paint a richer picture by explaining the influence of retributive passions – vengeance – on British thinking about how best to respond to the villainy of German air raids. By using unpublished primary sources to uncover the moral and legal rationale used by British decision-makers, it shows that they (as their German counterparts had) exploited ambiguities or "loopholes" in the ethical and legal prohibitions on the bombardment of non-combatants and explained away their own air attacks on civilian towns and villages as legitimate acts of reprisal. It ends by demonstrating that, far from feeling grave concerns about the inhumanity of targeting civilians and their environs, the most influential air power thinkers after the war were relatively uninterested in moral concepts of proportionality and discrimination. They saw air power's ability to punish the strong and culpable by attacking the weak and vulnerable as a way of making wars shorter and therefore less expensive.

Joel Hayward, "Adding Brain to Brawn: The School of Advanced Air and Space Studies and its Impact on Air Power Thinking" [with Dr Tamir Libel], Air Power Review, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Summer 2010), pp. 69-80. Read this article HERE.

ABSTRACT: Especially after the Second World War, understanding air power became a high priority for military practitioners, policy-makers and theorists, with the United States leading the quest for sound ideas and concepts for most of the following five decades. In the late-1980s the United States Air Force took this issue so seriously that it established a very senior graduate school to provide critical education to officers considered likely to gain promotion into strategic posts. This article traces and assesses the development and role of the School for Advanced Air and Space Studies in order to determine why it originated and what influence, if any, it has actually had on American and other air power thinkers. The article concludes that, with its faculty and students at the heart of air power scholarship, some of their books serving as standard texts, and with students going into influential senior posts, the SAASS has lived up to and possibly exceeded the expectations of its founders. Indeed, it is hard to identify a more influential center of excellence in air power education than the SAASS, or even at this stage to find a peer.

Joel Hayward, Introduction to Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide Bombings (London: Minhaj Publications, 2010), pp. xxvii - xxxiii.

Joel Hayward, "Air Power and the Environment: The Ecological Implications of Modern Air Warfare," Air Power Review, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Autumn 2009), pp. 15-41. Read this article HERE.

ABSTRACT:  Ecologists, activists, lobbyists and of course politicians are already turning their attention to ecological aspects of modern warfare. As a consequence, governments and their armed forces will have to pay more attention to the serious ecological ramifications of conflict. Air forces face the greatest challenges. During both peace and war they have far greater carbon footprints than armies and navies. They use potentially more devastating ordnance. Their targets traditionally include objects in or near population centers and the aquifers, waterways, soils and food sources that sustain them. And air forces cause far worse damage to environmentally significant production, storage and distribution infrastructure (much of it based on petroleum, oil, lubricants or chemicals). This article does not recommend the blanket exclusion of any potential target sets from planning processes. Rather, it argues that, when we utilize our existing warrior code, the Just War ethical framework, we must now slightly expand our time-honored moral and legal constructs of proportionality and discrimination to include environmental issues. That is, the article argues for the inclusion of ecological protection in military planning and for it to be weighed expertly, along with the likely need for post-war remediation activities, among the factors that will ultimately determine the justifiability of military actions.

Joel Hayward, "Air Power: The Quest to remove Battle from War” in Ashgate Research Companion to Modern Warfare, edited by George Kassimeris and John Buckley (London: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 49-72. You can buy this book from HERE or HERE.

ABSTRACT: Air power emerged from the Great War as a third primary form of military force, along armies and navies. Its early theorists made astounding claims that air power alone could delivery strategy – that is, the war-winning outcomes that involved the enemy’s defeat – without the significant and inevitably bloody contributions of soldiers and sailors. Throughout the next century their ideas were attempted and almost without exception they proved inadequate. The so-called strategic air campaigns damaged enemy production, but only in a zero-sum way, with the cost of producing and maintaining massive air fleets and soaking up their ghastly attrition balancing out the gains being made. The exception might be the nuclear bombings of Japan, but the atomic weapon itself was the game-changer, with air power being merely its delivery system for a brief time before missiles became the major delivery instrument and source of deterrence. Air power’s most effective role was not away from the battlefield, with cities, civilians and industry the focus of attack, but was on the battlefield in coordination with the other services. Air power’s most significant contributions to strategy came in what looks superficially like a tactical role: as close air support, interdiction, reconnaissance, air supply, counter-air operations, and medical evacuation. These, especially the former, close air support, have proven devastating and enabled joint forces to inflict strategic wins.

Joel Hayward, "The Luftwaffe and Agility," in Air Power: The Agile Air Force (Royal Air Force, 2008), pp. 40-49. Read this chapter HERE.

ABSTRACT: A study of the Royal Air Force’s worthy aspiration to increase its agility would be incomplete without at least some analysis of the air force that seems to embody exactly that quality: the Luftwaffe of 1939 to 1945. It is fashionable among modern warfighters to lavish praise on the Wehrmacht; the army, air force and navy of the Nazi state. Laudatory analysis of the Wehrmacht’s operational art seems an inherent component of books and articles that attempt to explain the theory and practice of jointness, the manoeuvrist approach, and the expeditionary nature of today’s armed conflict. Commenting harshly upon the fixation that modern western warfighters seem to have with the Germans, Daniel P. Bolger lamented that “Maneuverists have a bad case of what may be called, to borrow from a sister social science, ‘Wehrmacht penis envy.’” These devotees, Bolger writes, “love the Panzers, the Stukas, and the Sturm und Drang with the enthusiasm of any twelve-year old boy who has yet to learn about Kursk, Omaha Beach, or Operation Cobra, let alone Bergen Belsen.” Yet the fashion is not without foundation or merit. The Wehrmacht worked for an unbalanced and cruel regime and its frequently weird strategies, but nonetheless excelled at war’s operational level. It performed so marvelously at that level that it took the combined weight of the Soviet Union, the United States, the British Empire and others to end its existence. Modern warriors will indeed learn much from studying Wehrmacht warfighting. This short study of Luftwaffe attributes and habits is unrelated to the fad. Even if no-one else bothered to study the Wehrmacht I would feel compelled to highlight its instructional value for modern air forces as they face unforeseen challenges in the ambiguous strategic environment left after the Cold War’s end and the War on Terror’s beginning.

Joel Hayward, "Current and Future Command Challenges for New Zealand Defence Force Personnel", Australian Defence Force Journal, No. 155 (July/August 2002), pp. 39-45. Read this article HERE.

ABSTRACT:  The end of the Cold War ushered in a period of dramatic resizing and re-orientation for the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF). At least some of its traditional roles were no longer needed, at least not in the form and scale that it had become used to. Emerging threats and challenges closer to home, coupled with governmental shrinkages of defence budgets, has compelled the NZDF to rethink its purpose and thus its size and structure.

Joel Hayward, "Prayers Before Battle: The Spiritual Utterances of Three Great Commanders", US Army Chaplaincy Journal (Winter-Spring 2002), pp. 32-40. Read this article HERE.

Joel Hayward, “Adolf Hitler 1889-1945: German Dictator and War Leader”, in Charles Messenger, ed., Reader’s Guide to Military History (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001), pp. 229-233.

Joel Hayward, "Horatio Lord Nelson's Warfighting Style and the Maneuver Warfare Paradigm", Defence Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Summer 2001), pp. 15-37. Read this article HERE.

ABSTRACT: For the last 20 years or so, students of land warfare have come increasingly to see the warfighting style called Maneuver Warfare as the apex of military theory. The United States Marine Corps, which has formally embraced this style as doctrine, succinctly defines it as: “a warfighting philosophy that seeks to shatter the enemy’s cohesion through a variety of rapid, focused and unexpected actions which create a turbulent and rapidly deteriorating situation with which the enemy cannot cope.” Proponents of this style call themselves maneuverists. They argue that adoption of the ‘package’ of components integral to Maneuver Warfare will greatly enhance combat effectiveness to the degree that smaller maneuverist land forces can even engage and defeat far larger forces that adhere to less sophisticated doctrines or behavioral patterns. Maneuverists claim that the components in their package – reconnaissance pull, the application of strength against weakness, decentralized command, focal points of effort, maneuver, tempo and the aim of achieving victory by collapsing the enemy’s cohesion and morale – are not in themselves new to warfighting, but are the long-established habits of successful commanders. Yet, while maneuverists also claim that the combination of all these components occurred in many battles or campaigns throughout the ages, and brought dazzling results (both specious claims, according to other commentators), they provide examples mainly from the twentieth century and, more important, only from land warfare. The two standard works on Maneuver Warfare, products of the early 1990s when this warfighting style soared in popularity after its claimed use in the Persian Gulf Bar, provide no examples from, and few references to, the rich treasure chest of naval history. It is the same with the articles on Maneuver Warfare now appearing in military journals. They focus overwhelmingly on land campaigns and battles, with the few exceptions demonstrating that certain airpower and joint campaigns – such as those conducted by Hitler’s Wehrmacht or the Israeli Defense Forces – also reveal the prowess of well applied Maneuver Warfare. Readers seeking to analyze Maneuver Warfare’s applicability to combat on the seas that cover most of the globe can be forgiven for noticing the absence of scholarly interest in this theme and thinking that, in short, Maneuver Warfare must have no applicability at sea. One can, however, easily find many fine examples of what is now called Maneuver Warfare in seapower’s long history. This article draws from one such example – splendidly manifest in the person of Britain’s greatest fighting seaman, Vice-Admiral Horatio, Lord Nelson (1758–1805) – to demonstrate that students of maneuver need not fear turning their attention occasionally from land battles towards those fought at sea. They may indeed be greatly enriched by doing so. While being mindful to avoid anachronism (Maneuver Warfare’s conceptual framework, after all, is very recent), this article shows that Lord Nelson’s warfighting style closely resembles the modern Maneuver Warfare paradigm. He was not fighting according to any paradigm, of course, much less one that dates from almost 200 years after his death. He understood naval tactics and battle according to the norms and behavioral patterns of his own era and continuously experimented and tested ideas, rejecting some, keeping others. The article naturally makes no claim that Nelson’s warfighting style was unique among sea warriors or that he contributed disproportionately to conceptual or doctrinal developments in tactics or operational art. Even a cursory glance at the careers of John Paul Jones, Edward Hawke and John Jervis (one of Nelson’s mentors), to mention but a few, reveals that their names fit almost as aptly as Nelson’s alongside Napoleon Bonaparte’s, Erwin Rommel’s and George S. Patton’s in studies of effective maneuverists. Yet Lord Nelson makes an ideal focus for a case study of Maneuver Warfare at sea. Extant sources pertaining to his fascinating life are unusually abundant and reveal that he raised the art of war at sea to unsurpassed heights, all the while perfecting the highly maneuverist warfighting style that gave him victory in several of naval history’s grandest battles.

Joel Hayward, "Adolf Hitler and Joint Warfare", Military Studies Institute Working Papers Series No. 2/2000 (44 pp.).

ABSTRACT: Joint operations involve the closely synchronized employment of two or more service branches under a unified command. Military theorists and commentators now believe that they prove more effective in most circumstances of modern warfare than operations involving only one service or involving two or more services but without systematic integration or unified command. Many consider the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany's armed forces, pioneers of "jointness". They point out that Blitzkrieg, the war-fighting style that brought the Wehrmacht stunning victories between 1939 and 1941, depended upon the close integration of ground and air (and sometimes naval) forces and that, even after the Blitzkrieg campaigns gave way to a drawn-out war of attrition, the Wehrmacht routinely conducted operations in a fashion that would today be called "joint". That is, elements of two or more services participated in close cooperation with mutually agreed goals, relatively little inter-service rivalry, and a command structure that, at least at the "sharp end" of operations, promoted, rather than inhibited, a spirit of jointness. As a result, the scholars claim, the Wehrmacht enhanced its capabilities and improved its combat effectiveness.

This view of the Wehrmacht goes back a long way; back, in fact, to the war itself. For example, in 1941 the United States War Department, which, closely monitored events in Europe and North Africa, claimed in its Handbook of German Military Forces: "The outstanding characteristic of German military operations in the present war has been the remarkable coordination of the three sister services, Army, Navy and Air Force, into a unified command for definite tasks. These services do not [merely] cooperate in a campaign; rather their operations are coordinated by the High Command of the Armed Forces." Without becoming anachronistic — after all, jointness as a defined concept is very recent ― this monograph attempts something long overdue: an analysis of Adolf Hitler's influence on the Wehrmacht's efforts to integrate the employment of its forces and thereby increase its effectiveness. The study demonstrates two main points: first, that Hitler certainly understood the value of integrating his land, sea and air forces and placing them under a unified command (first Field Marshal Blomberg's; later his own); and second, that he also saw the benefit of placing them under operational commanders who possessed at least a rudimentary understanding of the tactics, techniques, needs, capabilities and limitations of each of the services functioning in their combat zone. Hitler was thus innovative and several years ahead of his peers in the democracies, Italy and the Soviet Union. Yet this study concludes that, largely because of Hitler's unusual command style and difficulties with delegation, the Wehrmacht lacked elements that today's theorists consider essential to the attainment of truly productive jointness (a single joint commander or Joint Chief of Staff, a proper joint staff, a joint planning process, and an absence of inter-service rivalry) and that, as a result, it often suffered needless difficulties in combat.

Joel Hayward, “Leonard Henry Trent”, Vol. 5, The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (Auckland University Press, 2000), pp. 515-526.

Joel Hayward, "Too Little, Too Late: An Analysis of Hitler's Failure in August 1942 to Damage Soviet Oil Production", The Journal of Military History, Vol. 64, No. 3 (July 2000), pp. 769-794. Read this article HERE.

ABSTRACT: Even before Operation Barbarossa petered out in December 1941, Germany's oil reserves were severely depleted. Adolf Hitler worried that his armed forces would soon grind to a halt for want of petroleum products. During the last months of 1941 and the first of 1942, economic considerations played as much of a role in the formulation of a new strategy as did the run-down state of the eastern armies and air fleets. Hitler feared heavy Soviet bombing attacks on Rumanian oilfields, his main source of oil, and knew that the Reich's reserves were almost exhausted. Consequently, he considered the protection of the Rumanian oilfields and the acquisition of new sources of oil crucial if he were to wage a prolonged war against the growing list of nations he opposed. He therefore formulated Fall Blau (Case Blue), a major campaign for summer 1942. This aimed first, through preliminary offensives in the Crimea, to protect Rumanian oil centers from Soviet air attacks, and second, through a powerful thrust to the Don River and then into the Caucasus, to deliver that oil-rich region into German hands. The capture of the Caucasus oilfields, he believed, would relieve Germany's critical oil shortages and deliver a massive, and hopefully mortal, blow to the Soviet economy and war effort. The consequences of that ill-fated campaign are well known, and need little discussion here. Hitler became distracted by Stalingrad (which was not even a main campaign objective) and lost an entire army trying to take it. Soviet forces also drove his armies from the Caucasus and pushed them back to the line they had held before Blau started nine months earlier. This study analyses a little-known and poorly documented aspect of the 1942 campaign: Hitler's employment of airpower in the Caucasus region. It focuses on his reluctant admission in October that his ground forces would probably not reach the main oilfields before adverse weather conditions forced them to take up winter positions, and on his subsequent decision to have the Luftwaffe attempt the oilfields' destruction. He believed that if he could not have the oilfields (at present, anyway), he should at least deny Josef Stalin's agriculture, industry, and armed forces their vast output. The essay argues for the first time that the Luftwaffe could have dealt the Soviet economy a major blow, from which it would have taken at least several months to recover, if Hitler had not been so obsessed with Stalingrad and wasted his airpower assets on its destruction. During August and early September 1942, the Luftwaffe possessed the means to inflict heavy damage on Baku, the Caucasus oil metropolis that alone accounted for 80 percent of all Soviet production. The Luftwaffe still possessed a strong bomber force and airfields within striking range and the Soviet Air Force's presence in the Caucasus was still relatively weak. By October, however, when Hitler finally ordered attacks on oilfields, the Luftwaffe's eastern bomber fleet was much reduced and most forward airfields had been badly damaged by Soviet air forces which were then far stronger. The conclusion is unmistakable: Hitler had missed a golden opportunity to hurt the Soviet economy and war effort.

― Republished in Jeremy Black, ed., The Second World War, Volume I: The German War 1939–1942 (London: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 511–536.

Joel Hayward, “Adolf Eichmann”, in John Sandford, ed., The Routledge Encyclopedia of Contemporary German Culture (Routledge, 1999). 

Joel Hayward, “Simon Wiesenthal”, in John Sandford, ed., The Routledge Encyclopedia of Contemporary German Culture (Routledge, 1999). 

Joel Hayward, “Eine Fallstudie früher integrierter Kriegführung: Eine Analyse des Krimfeldzuges der Wehrmacht im Jahre 1942”, Vierteljahreshefte für Geschichtsforschung, 3. Jahrgangs. Heft 1 (März 1999), pp. 21-37. Read this article HERE.

ABSTRACT: Die meisten Militärtheoretiker und Kommentatoren glauben, daß die Durchführung integrierter Militäroperationen - also Einsätze unter Einbindung von zwei oder mehreren Teilstreitkräften unter einem vereinten Oberkommando - unter den meisten Umständen der modernen Kriegführung effektiver sind als Einsätze, an denen nur eine Teilstreitkraft beteiligt ist oder auch mehrere Teile ohne systematisch integriertes bzw. vereintes Kommando kämpfen. Viele betrachten die Wehrmacht des nationalsozialistischen Deutschland als frühen Pionier einer "Integration". Die Wehrmacht, so behaupten sie, führte routinemäßig Einsätze durch, an denen Elemente von zwei oder mehr Teilstreitkräften in enger Kooperation und mit untereinander vereinbarten Zielsetzungen kämpften, und zwar mit relative wenig Rivalitäten und einer Kommandostruktur, die zumindest am "scharfen Ende" der jeweiligen Unternehmen den Integrationsgeist förderte, anstatt ihn zu behindern. Als Ergebnis dessen stieg die Kampfkraft der Wehrmacht. Ohne anachronistisch werden zu wollen - immerhin ist das Konzept der Integration sehr neu - untersucht dieser Artikel das Ausmaß und die Auswirkung der Bemühungen der Wehrmacht, ihre Wirksamkeit durch die Integration der Einsätze ihrer Teilstreitkräfte zu erhöhen. Abgesehen von einer mehr allgemeinen Diskussion des Themas Integration ruht diese Arbeit auf einer Fallstudie: Der Einsatz der Wehrmacht während des Krimfeldzuges vom Mai und Juni 1942, der zwei erfolgreiche deutsche Offensiven umfaßt (die Schlachten von Kertsch und Sewastopol), die zu Land, zu Wasser und aus der Luft durchgeführt wurden. Anlaß für die Wahl dieses Feldzuges für die Fallstudie war nicht nur die Tatsache, daß er rasch den Ruhm einer frühen integrierten Kriegführung erwarb, sondern mehr noch wegen seiner unvergleichlichen Tauglichkeit für eine solche Analyse: Er umfaßte eine substantielle Planung, den Einsatz bedeutender Kräfte, die Teilnahme aller drei Teilstreitkräfte, und er endete mit einem schlüssigen Ergebnis. Dieser Artikel zeigt auf, daß die Wehrmacht den Wert der Integration ihrer Land-, See- und Luftstreitkräfte verstand und diese Teilstreitkräfte daher unter ein Einsatzkommando stellte, das zumindest ein rudimentäres Verständnis von der jeweiligen Taktik, Technik, den Anforderungen, Fähigkeiten und Beschränkungen der in ihrer Kampfzone eingesetzten Teilstreitkräfte hatte. Er zeigt zudem, daß die Bemühungen der Wehrmacht in diese Richtung zur erwünschten Steigerung der Kampfkraft führte. Er schlußfolgert aber auch, daß es der Wehrmacht an Elementen fehlte, die von heutigen Theoretikern als Voraussetzung angesehen wird, um eine wirklich effektive integrierte Kriegführung zu erzielen - ein einziger Oberkommandierender, ein integrierter Stab sowie die Abwesenheit von Rivalitäten zwischen den Teilstreitkräften - und daß sie daher als Ergebnis dessen im Kampf mit unnötigen Schwierigkeiten zu kämpfen hatte.

Joel Hayward, "A Case Study in Early Joint Warfare: An Analysis of the Wehrmacht's Crimean Campaign of 1942", The Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 22, No. 4 (December 1999), pp. 103-130. Read this article HERE.

ABSTRACT: Military theorists and commentators believe that joint operations prove more effective in most circumstances of modern warfare than operations involving only one service or involving two or more services but without systematic integration or unified command. Many see Nazi Germany's armed forces, the Wehrmacht, as early pioneers of 'jointness'. This essay demonstrates that the Wehrmacht did indeed understand the value of synchronizing its land, sea and air forces and placing them under operational commanders who had at least a rudimentary understanding of the tactics, techniques, needs, capabilities and limitations of each of the services functioning in their combat zones. It also shows that the Wehrmacht's efforts in this direction produced the desired result of improved combat effectiveness. Yet it argues that the Wehrmacht lacked elements considered by today's theorists to be essential to the attainment of truly productive jointness - a single tri-service commander, a proper joint staff and an absence of inter-service rivalry - and that, as a result, it often suffered needless difficulties in combat.

― Republished in Jeremy Black, ed., The Second World War, Volume I, pp. 483–510.

Joel Hayward, "NATO's War in the Balkans: A Preliminary Analysis", New Zealand Army Journal, No. 21 (July 1999), pp. 1-17. Read this article HERE.

ABSTRACT: On 24 March 1999 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commenced Operation Allied Force, an airpower-only campaign that constituted the alliance's first war against a sovereign state. For the next seventy-eight days NATO attacked the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, directing greatest fury against Serbia, whose president purportedly carried blame for the outbreak of hostilities, but also attacking Montenegro on numerous occasions. The eventual decision by Serbia to agree to G8' terms of peace negotiated by Russian and Finnish politicians immediately prompted many military commentators, including John Keegan and other renowned international experts, to proclaim that airpower had finally won a war by itself, without the direct participation of land and naval forces. Within the limitations of sources available so soon after the conflict's end, this preliminary study analyses the purpose, nature and performance of NATO's air campaign and identifies the key factors that prompted Serbia's eventual capitulation. It also investigates the claim that Operation Allied Force outdid even Operation Desert Storm to become the first ever war won by airpower alone. To achieve this, the speeches and press releases of leading participants are examined, along with data assembled by news agencies and "think tanks". Conducting this analysis so soon after the event is naturally problematic. The evidence is fragmentary, allowing only "provisional" conclusions, and it is largely informal, lacking the "official" status of government documentation and statistics. That material may not be released for some time. Yet enough pieces of the widely scattered information jigsaw already exist for us to assemble them and form a reliable impression of what the completed picture looks like.

Joel Hayward, "A Case Study in Effective Command: An Analysis of Field Marshal Richthofen's Character and Career", New Zealand Army Journal, No. 18 (January 1998), pp. 7- 18.

ABSTRACT: This article analyzes the leadership of Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen, a senior Luftwaffe commander and one of the most effective air strategists, tacticians and leaders of all time. It focuses on his masterful command of Luftflotte 4 and Fliegerkorps VIII on the eastern front during World War II, including during the Stalingrad campaign.

Joel Hayward, "Von Richthofen's 'giant fire-magic': The Luftwaffe's Contribution to the Battle of Kerch, 1942", The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 10, No. 2 (June 1997), pp. 97-124. Read this article HERE.

ABSTRACT: Adolf Hitler's directive for the 1942 summer campaign in the east clearly reflects the unfinished nature of the previous year's campaign. Although the Fuehrer claimed to Mussolini on 30 April 1942 that, with the exception of just a few 'blemishes which will shortly be eradicated, ... the Crimea finds itself in our hands,' the reality was very different. In April 1942 the Crimea was neither firmly nor entirely in German hands, as Hitler well knew. It was certainly not the 'bastion in the Black Sea' that he described to his Italian counterpart. On the contrary, powerful Soviet forces still held both Sevastopol, the Soviet Union's main naval base and shipyard in the Black Sea, and the strategically important Kerch Peninsula, which Hitler planned to use as a springboard to the Caucasus. Therefore, he stated in his directive for the 1942 summer campaign, before the major offensive into the Caucasus could commence it would be necessary 'to clear up the Kerch Peninsula in the Crimea and to bring about the fall of Sevastopol.' In May and June, the powerful Eleventh Army, commanded by Generaloberst Erich von Manstein, reputed to be Hitler's best operational army commander, launched strong attacks on the Soviet forces at each end of the Crimea. These attacks proved stunningly successful, destroying the enemy and finally giving Hitler total mastery of the Crimea. Von Manstein's Kerch offensive, codenamed Operation Trappenjagd (Bustard Hunt), and his assault on Sevastopol, codenamed Operation Storfang (Sturgeon Catch), deserve their prominent place in historical works on the Eastern campaigns. Skillfully guided by von Manstein, Eleventh Army defeated numerically superior and better-situated forces quickly and, especially during the Kerch offensive, with relatively few losses. However, the role of the Luftwaffe, which performed superbly as it provided the army with an unprecedented level of tactical air support, has been poorly covered by historians of these events, whose works focus primarily on army operations and von Manstein's much-touted tactical genius. Describing and explaining Luftwaffe operations during Trappenjagd, the first of the two Crimean campaigns of 1942, this study attempts to correct that imbalance. Eleventh Army, it argues, would not have succeeded were it not for the outstanding efforts of Luftwaffe forces, led by a commander of equal genius.

Joel Hayward, "The German Use of Airpower at Kharkov, May 1942", Air Power History, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Summer 1997), pp. 18-29.

ABSTRACT: In March 1942, Joseph Stalin rejected the sound advice of Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov, his army chief of staff, who argued that the Red Army should adopt a temporary strategic defensive posture for the spring and early summer. Instead, the Soviet leader, still claiming that constant attack was the best strategy, supported Marshal Semyon K. Timoshenko's plan to launch individual pre-emptive offensives near Leningrad, in the Demyansk region, in the Smolensk and Lgov-Kursk sectors, in the Kharkov area, and in the Crimea. The Crimean campaign—really only a series of attempts by armies trapped on the Kerch Peninsula to break into the Crimean mainland—ended miserably. As will be shown, the Kharkov campaign of May 1942 ended not only in outright failure, but also in a disaster of huge proportions. The Battle of Kharkov features prominently in historical works on the eastern campaigns—and deservedly so. Operation Fridericus (Frederick), the skilfully-executed German counter-offensive, not only thwarted Timoshenko's plan, but grew into 1942's first large-scale battle of encirclement and annihilation. It also placed important areas of the Donets Basin in German hands, thereby giving Axis forces an excellent staging area for Operation Blau, the coming summer campaign. However, the role of the Luftwaffe—which performed superbly under difficult circumstances as it provided the army with a high level of tactical air support—has been poorly covered by historians of these events, whose works focus primarily on army operations and the purported superiority of German doctrine and tactics over those of the Soviets. Describing and explaining Luftwaffe operations during the Battle of Kharkov, this article attempts to correct that imbalance. Without the Luftwaffe's substantial contribution to the battle, I believe, the German army would probably not have avoided encirclement at Kharkov, let alone have turned the tables on the Soviets. This archival source-based analysis of the role and effectiveness of airpower during the Battle of Kharkov in May 1942 demonstrates that it was the critical factor in determining German success. Masterfully commanded by Generaloberst Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen, the Third Reich's close air support expert, the Luftwaffe delivered highly effective support to the German army and prevented a major Soviet encirclement attempt from succeeding.

Joel Hayward, "Stalingrad: An Examination of Hitler’s Decision to Airlift", Airpower Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring 1997), pp. 21-37. Read this article HERE.  It can be read in Spanish HERE.

ABSTRACT: After February 1943, the shadow of Stalingrad ever lengthened ahead of Adolf Hitler. The battle for that city had ended in disastrous defeat, shattering the myth of his military "Midas touch," ending his chances of defeating the Red Army, permanently damaging relations with Italy, Rumania, Hungary, and other allied nations, and, of course, inflicting heavy losses on his eastern armies. More than 150,000 Axis soldiers, most of them German, had been killed or wounded in the city's approaches or ruins; 108,000 others stumbled into Soviet captivity, 91,000 in the battle's last three days alone. (Although Hitler never learned of their fate, only six thousand ever returned to Germany.) The battle has attracted considerable scholarly and journalistic attention. Literally scores of books and articles on Stalingrad have appeared during the 50 years since Stalin's armies bul

 Joel Hayward, "Hitler's Quest for Oil: The Impact of Economic Considerations on Military Strategy, 1941-42", The Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 18, No. 4 (December 1995), pp. 94-135. Read this article HERE.

ABSTRACT: When asked by his Allied captors in 1945 to what extent German military strategy had been influenced at various stages by economic considerations, Albert Speer, Hitler's outstanding Armaments Minister, replied that in the case of Operation BARBAROSSA the need for oil was certainly a prime motive.' Indeed, even during the initial discussions of his plan to invade the Soviet Union, Hitler stressed the absolute necessity of seizing key oilfields, particularly those in the Caucasus region, which accounted for around 90 per cent of all oil produced in the Soviet Union. For example, during a war conference at the Berghof on 31 July 1940, Hitler revealed to high-ranking commanders his intention to shatter Russia 'to its roots with one blow' After achieving the 'destruction of Russian manpower', he explained, the German Army must drive on towards the Baku oilfield, by far the richest of those in the Caucasus and one of the most productive in the world. Despite Hitler's optimism, the 1941 campaign - which opened along a 2,000 km front and involved 148 combat divisions - failed to shatter Russia 'to its roots with one blow'. Consequently, it failed to bring the huge oil region of the Caucasus under German control. After reverses in the winter of 1941/42, it was no longer possible for the Wehrmacht to undertake wide-ranging offensives along the entire front, by then over 2,500 km in length. The summer campaign of 1942, although still immense, was necessarily less ambitious. It opened along a front of around 725 km, and involved 68 German and 25 allied combat divisions. Soviet oil remained a major attraction for Hitler. The offensive's objectives were to destroy the main Russian forces between the Donets and the Don river, capture the crossings into the mountainous Caucasus region and then deliver the rich oilfields into German hands. The perceived importance of these oilfields to the German economy, and hence the war effort, cannot be overstated. On 1 June 1942, four weeks to the day before the summer campaign began, Hitler told the assembled senior officers of Army Group South that 'If I do not get the oil of Maikop and Grozny then I must end this war'. The purpose of this study is not to provide a narrative description of the planning of the 1942 campaign, but, rather, to reveal the central role which economic considerations played in the planning of that ill-fated endeavor. In the following pages I shall appraise Hitler's preoccupation with the Caucasus region and its oilfields, and describe how Germany's own oil situation in the first two years of the war led him to believe that the capture of those oilfields was an essential prerequisite to waging a prolonged war of economic attrition. I shall then outline and explain the lengthy planning of the 1942 campaign, which aimed first at protecting the vulnerable Rumanian oilfields - upon which the German war economy was already heavily reliant - and secondly (and more importantly) at possessing the far richer fields in the Caucasus.

― Republished in Jeremy Black, ed., The Second World War, Volume I, pp. 441–482.

Joel Hayward, "Holocaust Revisionism in New Zealand: The 'Thinking-man's Anti Semitism?'," Without Prejudice: The Journal of the Australian Institute of Jewish Affairs, No. 4 (December 1991), pp. 38-49. Read this article HERE.

ABSTRACT: This article analyzes manifestations of Holocaust revisionism in New Zealand and argues that, rather than being a sincere attempt to re-interpret past events based on new evidence or a new reading of the known sources, Holocaust revisionism is in fact often motivated by a right wing political agenda to defame Jewish people.