The Instrumentality of Armed Force and the Role of the Canadian Army

Professor John A. English retired from the Canadian regular army as a lieutenant-colonel in Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in 1993 after 35 years service with that regiment and the Queen's Own Rifles of Canada. Educated at Royal Roads (1958-60) and the Royal Military College (1960-62), he holds an MA in history from Duke University (1964), an MA in war studies from RMC (1980), and a Ph.D. from Queen's University (1989). During his career he saw service with Canadian and British units in England, Germany, Denmark, Cyprus, Canada, and Alaska. He also served as a NATO war plans officer, Chief of Tactics of the Combat Training Centre, and Directing Staff member of the Canadian Land Forces Command and Staff College. He is the author of A Perspective on Infantry (Praeger, 1981), republished in paperback as On Infantry ((Praeger, 1984), The Canadian Army and the Normandy Campaign: A Study of Failure in High Command (Praeger, 1991), and Marching through Chaos: The Descent of Armies in Theory and Practice (Praeger, 1996). He is also principal editor of the The Mechanized Battlefield: A Tactical Analysis (Pergamon, 1984), co-author of On Infantry: Revised Edition (Praeger, 1994), main Canadian contributor to The D-Day Encyclopedia (Simon and Schuster, 1994), and author of Lament for an Army: The Decline of Canadian Military Professionalism (Irwin, 1998). He has additionally produced numerous chapters for books and his articles have appeared in Military Affairs, Jane's Military Review, the Naval War College Review, Infantry, the Marine Corps Gazette, the Canadian Defence Quarterly, and the proceedings of the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies. In 1992 Professor English accepted a $60,000 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC) fellowship and a professorship at Queen's University. Two years later he was awarded a $31,000 SSHRCC grant to research a book to be entitled Patton's Peers: The Forgotten Army Commanders of the Western Front 1944-45. Currently a professor of strategy with the US Naval War College and general editor of Lynne Rienner Publishers series in war studies, he is also researching another book to be called Omaha Beach.