Hew Strachan
I love this book — absolutely required reading the war colleges as well as the civil service colleges. Perhaps its greatest value is in setting the stage for professionals to refuse illegal orders and begin the long hard process of ending the corruption of our Western elites, particularly those in the US and UK. The author is to be saluted for correcting Samuel Huntington's various mistakes of interpretation, and for generally finding a place for moral generals in the larger scheme of things.
HOWEVER the book misses the core point underlying modern war, which is that the imperial powers do not fight wars to win anything in particular, but rather to “use up” their militaries, reduce their population of angry young men, and foster opportunities for corruption among the elite and their particular servants (e.g. CIA revitalizing the Golden Triangle around Viet-Nam, and Afghan poppy production for Wall Street liquidity).
Continue reading “Review: The Direction of War – Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective”
