: Reviewers from The University of Chicago Press and Cambridge University Press describe the work as "compelling" and "cliché-busting" for its data-driven approach to economic and industrial warfare.
Instead, O'Brien argues that the war was a global struggle for air and sea supremacy, won through production, technology, and the systematic destruction of Axis equipment before it ever reached the "battlefield". Core Arguments How the War was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied V...
O'Brien categorizes the destruction of Axis fighting power into three distinct phases: : Blocking or destroying raw materials. Production : Strategic bombing of manufacturing facilities. : Reviewers from The University of Chicago Press
: He posits that air and sea power destroyed over 50% of Axis military equipment during pre-production, production, and transit phases. Production : Strategic bombing of manufacturing facilities
: Some historians, such as those on WW2Talk , argue that O'Brien underestimates the psychological and physical necessity of land armies to actually "kill the will" of the enemy and occupy territory.
In , Phillips Payson O'Brien presents a revisionist history that challenges the idea that massive land battles like Stalingrad or Kursk were the primary drivers of Allied victory.
: He argues that land battles were relatively minor in terms of equipment losses and that the Red Army primarily engaged in a war of personnel, while the Anglo-Americans conducted the decisive high-tech material war. Phases of Attrition
