You defend Vilnius by blowing the bridges.

A few years ago, during a warfighter exercise, my battalion was tasked to delay Donovian forces assaulting through Vilnius into the Suwalki Gap. While poring over the maps, I paused to wonder: Has Vilnius been fought over before? A quick search on Google and Google Scholar turned up examples from 1655, 1812, and 1944—all pointing to the same solution: blow the bridges. We did. It worked.

This is the power of what we might call a tactical literature review. In academic writing, literature reviews discuss and analyze “published information in a particular subject area.” A tactical literature review, then, systematically reviews historical accounts, today’s articles, and archives relevant to a specific mission or problem. Just as you might borrow the order for a rifle range from your sister platoon leader, the tactical literature review uncovers what others have already learned, so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

A Few Keystrokes from Everything

Professional writing is not just an institutional indulgence—it makes our Army more lethal. Historically, leaders faced with tactical problems could draw on little more than their training and experience—the total of reachable knowledge on hand. Leaders have always battled this challenge. During World War II, General George S. Patton carried along a small library with him and borrowed experience in European campaigning by reading German and French authors before the war began. In fact, the American Library Association even took libraries to war in World War I and II, bringing both reference texts and recreational reading to the front.

Access is not such an obstacle anymore. Nearly all of military history and thought is now just a search away. A commander of a company charged with base defense can read a Vietnam War after action report about the Battle of Kham Due. A staff officer planning a battalion’s assault on a city can pull up newly published research on the 2020 Battle of Hadrut. And in garrison, those planning a dining in or multicomponent training can draw on past examples to make them more meaningful. The real opportunity now is to turn that access into insight—quickly, consistently, and under pressure.

Doing It

The tactical literature review should not take you long. Academics might agonize over particular subfields or disciplines for a full understanding in their literature reviews, but I propose that a quick scan is enough to surface options not otherwise considered. Depending on time available, I recommend setting aside about twenty minutes to browse through your favorite databases to glean key insights. Of course, any insight you uncover still needs to be tested and validated through the full planning process to ensure it fits your specific mission and context.

I recommend starting with a web search and then considering these four resources depending on your question. No matter where you turn for insight during your tactical literature review, I recommend practicing and playing with any of these sources so that you know how to make the most of the limited time available.

Google Scholar. A quick, broad, and accessible first stop, Google Scholar surfaces sources by number of citations and includes most war and staff college papers, as well as public-facing reports from the Defense Technical Information Center. While some articles may not be immediately available, you can often find a free PDF by digging a bit—or by requesting access through your local library. It’s a familiar and powerful tool for most leaders.

Line of Departure. This newest entry consolidates the Army’s journals onto a web-first, mobile-friendly platform. The search tool is especially strong, allowing users to search across the Army’s journals, all of Army University Press, and all of the Defense Technical Information Center’s public-facing content, or to select and search just one of those.

Combined Arms Research Library (CARL). CARL is best for military-technical subjects. Fort Leavenworth’s library has all back issues of Military Review, student papers dating back to the 1930s, digitized war documents from a variety of campaigns, and thousands of primary-source studies that rarely show up in traditional searches.

Army Heritage and Education Center (AHEC). If CARL is where you go to understand tactics, AHEC is where you go to understand institutions. AHEC has a tremendous repository of memos, letters, and notes dating back to the nineteenth century. Beware though: The wide range of artifacts might lead you to fall down a rabbit hole or two.

These tools are just starting points. The results of a good tactical literature review should inform assumptions, shape risk statements, generate priority information requirements, or refine course-of-action evaluation criteria—not just spark interesting ideas.

Depending on your mission and formation, other resources, like the Center for Army Lessons Learned, the Modern War Institute, or the Defense Technical Information Center, may prove even more useful. The key is to treat these databases like weapon systems: Get familiar with them before you are under pressure. Practice now, so when time is tight, you already know where to look and what to trust.

The tactical literature review is not about writing a term paper—it’s about gaining an edge. A few well-placed clicks might surface the insight that wins your next fight. Large language models are increasingly able to assist in this process, but they still lack the domain-specific nuance required for tactical planning. Human-led reviews remain essential for now.

You Don’t Need Permission to Be Curious

No one needs a tasking order or doctrinal change to start doing tactical literature reviews. When your next tasker drops or you kick off mission analysis, set a timer for twenty minutes and start digging: Google, Google Scholar, Line of Departure, CARL, AHEC. Ask: Has someone solved this before? You’ll be surprised how often the answer is yes and how much better your plan becomes.

Still, as an Army we should not leave this to individual initiative alone. Adding sentences to the chapters in Field Manual 5-0 on the military decision-making process and troop leading procedures would be enough. It could say something like: “Leaders and staffs should also consider historical precedent through a targeted review of professional military literature.” Just that. Current doctrine already supports this mindset. It emphasizes using available knowledge and lessons learned to inform assumptions and planning products—but it does not yet call out scanning professional literature or historical precedent as a deliberate step.

We fight smarter when we remember we are not the first to face these problems. Tactical literature reviews help us borrow brilliance, avoid past mistakes, and bring the weight of history into the fight. Do the research. Then blow the bridges.

Lieutenant Colonel Zachary Griffiths is an Army officer. He directs the Harding Project to renew professional military writing. Learn more about applying for the Harding Fellowship here.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image credit: BigHead