Alvin & Heidi Toffler have always written and spoken as a team, but this is the first book where Heidi has been included. Future Shock and PowerShift remain their two most important works, this one comes in third. They start off with a compelling reason for buying the book, a quote from Trotsky: “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” Today, right now, there are 26 conflicts going on around the world killing more than 1000 people a year; 78 “low intensity” conflicts killing more than 100 but less than 1000 people a year; and 178 violent political conflicts causing fewer than 100 deaths per year–source is the PIOOM project in The Netherlands. There are also 16 genocidal campaigns ongoing as we speak, and another 18 emerging–from Rwanda and Burundi to Sri Lanka to East Timor to obscure sections of China and Russia. This is a serious book by serious researchers who had the good fortune to be prescient and to become world-renowned futurists. The book is strongest on Third Wave wars and niche wars, does a very creditable job of covering a wide range of unconventional forms of conflict, and ends, somewhat disappointingly, with a useful but less than gripping discussion of “peace forms”. Fun to read, including the chapter on “The Future of the Spy.”
Together with the State of the World Atlas, this book ranks as one of the very best and most useful compilations of what I call “strategic generalizations”, but with the very great added value of being presented in a graphical form that is easy to understand. As the international media becomes less and less useful as a means of appreciating how global conditions threaten our own internal security and prosperity, guide books like this one become all the more valuable to citizens and their elected representatives. This is an essential desk reference for every student striving to learn how to think, not just memorize, and for every adult who cares to understand just how unstable and diminishing is the world we are leaving to our children. The book is *not* out-of-date in 2000, but we would all benefit from a new edition coming out that might expand on the core value of the 1997 edition.
Not Just Graphics, But Sources and Perspective are Stellar,
August 19, 2000
Dan Smith
his book, together with The State of War and Peace, is a desktop classic that would make an outstanding gift for any student of any age, and for any adult concerned about the state of the world we are leaving to our children. This is much more than a book of graphic generalizations; as a researcher myself I especially appreciate the specific identification of the sources that were consulted, and the summaries of each of the major political-legal, socio-economic, techno-demographic, ideo-cultural, and natural-geographic conditions threatening the stability of the “Whole Earth”. I dare to think this book should be required reading for our elected representatives as well as our military commanders charged with “shaping” their regional environments.
Great Approach, Missed Some Big Ones, Still a Real Value,
August 19, 2000
John Keegan
Zones of Conflict has not yet been surpassed by other published works, mostly because others focus on specific regions. This is still a valuable work, largely because of the process and the framework it provides for thinking about geographically and culturally based sources of conflict. Published in 1986 it missed some big ones: Somalia, Rwandi-Burundi, the Congo, the break-up of Yugoslavia with the Kosovo aftermath. We'll give them credit for the Gulf flashpoint. What's the point? No one can predict with any certainty where major humanitarian conflicts will emerge, but if one combines Keegan and Wheatcroft's approach with environmental and economic and social overlays (such as are offered by several other “States of the World” endeavors), then a useful starting point is available for asking two important questions: what kinds of conflicts will we be dealing with, under what kinds of terrain and cultural conditions; and second, given those realities, what kinds of forces and capabilties should we be developing? Against this model, the U.S. Joint 2020 vision falls woefully short, and the NATO alliance appears equally unprepared for a future that will be characterized by “dirty little wars” well out of NATO's area but highly relevant to the well-being of the NATO population. One might also make the somewhat puckish point that it does not take a $30 billion dollar a year spy community to create a common-sense strategic document such as this–it can be had for under $20.
John English is a brilliant tactician and historian who has written THE masterpiece on the origins of Infantry. I would have English describe infantry to about the Vietnam era and have Col Dan Bolger take the coverage from there to the future in his own book Death Ground: American infantry in battle. Bruce Gudmundsson was attached to the updated English book to attempt to bring the work up to date.
Taking the masterpiece for what it is, it delivers an important lesson mechanized maneuverists do not want to realize—that the German “blitzkrieg” died in the forests and cities of Russian when it met infantry that would not crumble if surrounded or cut-off from comfortable supply lines. Using a defense-in-depth, a nation on a total war footing can absorb and defeat another less committed nation that hopes to use a smaller force to penetrate and collapse. Many, maybe even most people mistake the German defeat in Russia–and hence WWII—with the cold Russian winter, and this is incorrect. The next critical—perhaps most important lesson and contribution English makes to the defense of freedom is—that a mechanized “combined arms” unit is ONLY AS GOOD AS ITS INFANTRY. When terrain and weather go sour, artillery and tanks will reach a point where they cannot contribute–and the entire battle then falls on the infantry. When this took place in Russia–the German infantry was NOT up to the task with inadequate numbers, clothing and bolt-action rifles. English points out and lesser historians should take note–that the German war machine was good together but not really that good because its PARTS were weak. When combined-arms technotactics could not be employed in the forests of Russia, the battle rested on the German infantry and it failed.
The cryptic lesson here is that we need GOOD infantry in large numbers and we don't get it by placing them into the back of armored vehicles in less than squad sizes, shut off from what's going on because they can't open a hatch out and see because we put a turret on the vehicle and we are afraid it will rotate into them. The Army made this mistake with the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, is trying to correct it with its vehicle for the new Brigade Combat Teams while the marines are about to repeat the error with a huge autocannon turret on their next generation amphibious assault vehicle. The second lesson of English is still being ignored—those that do mechanized combined arms don't value infantry action—they ride too long in their vehicles and get ambushed by missiles and RPGs fired from enemies hiding in key terrain that should have been taken first by the infantry. To do this you need a large amount of aggressive, not complacent infantry. As the Russians found out in Grozny, when their armored vehicles became flaming coffins, the battle then falls on the infantry to clear out enemies hiding in urban terrain.
This is not to say English believes in a “Super Infantry” since we saw in Mogadishu the best light infantry in the world get shot up because it was without armored fighting vehicles to shield it from enemy fire. What English is saying is that we should start with quality infantry when building forces and not in the process of creating combined-arms organizations ruin the infantry capability by reducing numbers, battle awareness and use as a separate maneuver element.
On Infantry should be required reading for ALL U.S. military personnel coupled with Bolger's Death Ground. I'd like to see the book updated to the present with a fresh perspective for the 21st Century where we apply English's lessons to the future battlefield.
Solid History of Two Successes, Hidden Story of Failure,
June 28, 2000
Stuart Herrington
This book, highly recommended by the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), grabbed me from the beginning. Stuart, whom I know as one of the most thoughtful and self-effacing Colonels in military intelligence, wisely chooses to focus on the two most important cases in recent U.S. military history. For a catalog of all the others, see “Merchants of Treason” by Tom Allen and Norman Polmar. A few things about this valuable book bear emphasis here: 1) early on, the FBI tried to shut the CIA out of the first case, and Col Herrington very wisely insisted on including them–leading to critical CIA contributions without which the case would not have been solved; 2) counterintelligence is incredible tedious, boring, *hard* work, and it takes a special kind of commander to maintain morale under such circumstances; 3) both Defense and Justice lawyers screwed up big-time by not being aware that military intelligence activities in Austria were illegal in Austria and therefore warranted early involvement of the Austrian government–this ignorance cost us heavily; 4) allowing soldiers to “homestead” in sensitive intelligence positions anywhere is very dangerous; and finally–bringing to bear some personal knowledge here–5) success is temporary, failure is forever…I'll wager the Army's Foreign Counterintelligence Activity has gone downhill since this book was written, and that the old “go along easy” habits of those that have been homesteading too long at FCA are again rearing their ugly heads. Counterintelligence is still a backwater, and any commander, however exceptional, is going to need strong Service-level support if they are to keep their senior civil servant (bureaucratic) elements in line. This book is an excellent touchstone for Congressional members and staff, Service and DoD chiefs who care little for counterintelligence but need to do more, and for citizens who need to know that counterintelligence is on the “front lines” every day, in every clime and place.
Twelve Step Guide To Good Business in New Economy,
May 29, 2000
Larry Downes
Twelve principles of killer app design: 1) Outsource to the customer, 2) Cannibalize your markets; 3) Treat each customer as a market segment of one; 4) Create communities of value; 5) Replace rude interfaces with learning interfaces; 6) Ensure continuity for the customer, not yourself; 7) Give away as much information as you can; 8) Structure every transaction as a joint venture; 9) Treat your assets as liabilities; 10) Destroy your value chain; 11) Manage innovation as a portfolio of options; 12) Hire the children.
Infantry won WWII, English explains why, August 13, 2000
