Customer Reviews

Beyond Shock and Awe: Warfare in the 21st Century

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This book is a series of articles on the future of warfare as predicted by the editors. Some articles are better than others, as would be expected depending on one's point of view and background but all will make you think. Haney's preface is a very succinct presentation of the world we currently live in and will have to deal with in the coming decades. The articles naturally follow this lead. I would recommend this book to those who are interested in the concepts of force application when dealing with low intensity conflicts and terrorism.

Shock & Awe is a series of essays by various writers who discuss their takes on the multiple aspects of present and future war fighting doctrine.

The book was engaging in parts, but tedious in others depending on the author of the individual essay. While I would say most essays were decent, the first four were the best in my opinion.

Standouts included Eric Haney's chapter in the use of special forces, an essay on legitimacy of an occupying force, and one of the later essays "The Eye of God". The "Hearts and Minds in 2025" chapter was unnecessarily long and boring, as was the Appendix on the original "Shock and Awe" doctrine. The essay on "Weapons of the Next War" was uninformative, and not entirely well researched.

All in all, this was an OK read, but not a knock your socks off experience.

This book is an excellent overview of warfare and what it takes to win.Warfare has changed much over the centuries. At one tine the biggest,toughest guy would win.Then it was one who could throw the biggest stone,the greatest distance with the most accuracy.Through the centuries massive armies and weaponry evolved till we saw the results of WWII. As weapons of agression evolved,so did systems of defence,from simple forts to the Great Wall of China,the Maginot Line,etc.
With the Atomic Bomb and Hiroshima ,all that changed.There have been things like poison gas,terrorists,guerrilla warfare,enslavement,and a host of other methods employed;but in the end it is the one with the best weapon and best ighters that wins.
History has shown that appeasement only prolongs the inevitable,and the sooner an enemy is dealt with the better.However ,the political approach and the military approach are always in conflict;and the longer that conflict extends,the more costly in both resources and loss of lives it becomes.
In this book we see where todays method of Shock and Awe is what the future approach will be.
The author also gives a pretty good idea of the types of weaponry that we will be seeing in the future. However;the weapon that has the biggest impact,is usually that which was least expected. When we saw Saddam tossing those Skud missils willy-nilly;we learned what Shock and Awe was all about when we saw that US missil get placed directly into the door of the structure.I would have liked to have been there when Saddam saw it on his TV;and heard his comment.He knew,then and there,it was the end.
The author very clearly defines the future of warfare with what he calls Rapid Dominance as the way of the future. The next step will be to deploy forces within a few days. I surmise we will become first aware of a conflict when we hear that it has already taken place.
This book is not just some academic musings. It is a clear outline of what we are going to see in the future.

This first class work is like getting three books in one! Throughout the book, it serves as a history lesson in military warfare techniques, a current day philosophical breakdown of motives of terrorism and recent war efforts to deal with the changing global political frictions, and perhaps most important, an essay of applying non-conventional warfare techniques against non-conventional militant persons, groups and terroristic nations dedicated in fighting and dying for their beliefs against freedom.
Emminantly trained and qualified in understanding what makes the emerging global enemies of free societies tick, that is, the terrorist state, Eric Haney with Brian Thomsen provide incredible insight in laymen's terms to what kind of enemy we're facing, why the war efforts of free nations against terrorists is currently incredibly swift but enduringly challenging after "victory".
Perhaps for the first time, this comprehensive work gives expert and layman alike the opportunity to understand why terrorists target us so severely (even when our countries are separated by thousands of miles of oceans), why the most powerful nations on earth are struggling to find and neutralize the threat, and best of all, how we can reach success in the future.