Decisive Force in History: The Seductive Siren of Battle
Cathal J. Nolan, The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost (Oxford...
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Book Reviews
Clausewitz the Soldier vs. Clausewitz the Strategic Theorist
Joseph Guerra reviews Donald Stoker’s Clausewitz: His Life and Work, finding it an interesting biography of the famed Prussian general but light on analysis of Clausewitz’s strategic theory.
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“You Are Going to Fail” – Saddam’s Interrogation and the Start of Thirteen Years of US Struggles in Iraq
In a new book, Debriefing the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein, former CIA senior analyst John Nixon gives new details into the interrogation of the former Iraqi dictator. But the book’s most striking feature is the picture it draws of the circumstances that led to the decision to go to war.
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The World’s First Modern War Took Place in Ethiopia
What was the first truly “modern” war? The Crimean War, the US Civil War, and the Franco-Prussian War have all been suggested as the first. But Joseph Hammond makes the case for the British Expedition to Abyssinia in 1868.
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War Is Hard, But So Is Coming Home
Arnold Isaacs reviews Retire the Colors: Veterans & Civilians on Iraq & Afghanistan.
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It’s Time to Give the Infantry the Tools Needed to Win on the Modern Battlefield
US Army Maj. James King reviews Maj. Gen. (Ret) Robert Scales’ new book, Scales on War.
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Military Officers and Politics: The Fraught Relationship between MacArthur and Truman
David Mattingly reviews award-winning historian H.W. Brands’ new book, “The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War.”
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Iran’s Clash of Ideas: A Book Review
Arnold Isaacs reviews Laura Secor’s book, Children of Paradise, about the clash of theological ideas going on within Iran.
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