The Future of Warfare [Hardcover]

Bevin Alexander (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1995

This work examines the role of military strategy in the post-Cold War era, arguing that the former great powers will most likely engage in small-scale battles. The use of guerrilla tactics will enable small countries to defeat or weaken superior military forces and undermine their technological superiority. The author discusses the future make-up of the US military forces, emphasizing the need for troop mobility and then goes on to analyze the campaigns in Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War where troop mobility and rapid response guerrilla tactics proved successful.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At the core of Alexander's book are case studies describing 20th-century conflicts in which small, poorly equipped forces operated successfully against materially superior armies: the Boers against the British, the T.E. Lawrence-led Bedouins against the Turks, Chinese Communists against Nationalists and?most instructive for the future?the Vietnamese Communists against first the French, then the Americans. Because the U.S. will likely encounter comparatively "little" wars in the coming decades, fought mostly against guerrillas whose doctrines will derive from the teachings of Mao Zedong and Vo Nguyen Giap, we no longer need our heavy divisions designed to fight the Soviet Army. Alexander recommends downsizing to small, highly mobile battle groups trained in counterguerrilla tactics. The U.S. can gain its most significant victories by negotiation and diplomacy, he believes, and argues that we should intervene militarily only when protecting our strategic imperatives. In his view, the U.S. would do well to assume the role of "honest broker," working through third parties rather than continuing to serve as the world's police officer. A thoughtful survey of the probable future of U.S. military strategy by the author of Korea: The First War We Lost.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Bevin Alexander is the author of How Great Generals Win, Lost Victories, and Inside the Nazi War Machine. He lives in Bremo Bluff, Virginia. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc (July 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393037800
• ISBN-13: 978-0393037807
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,525,434 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but shortsighted, March 26, 2004

By 

D. Dempster "dsd" (la la land) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Future of Warfare (Hardcover)

This book opens with and excellent explanation of the vital interests of the United States that would result in war. It goes on to discuss the probable near term trends and development in warfare, with historical examples to explain these trends. If your interest is military history and probable near term military developments, this is an excellent book. I have read several of Bevin Alexander's books and consider him to be a fine and insightful author and historian. As with all of his books, this one could use more maps, as this would greatly facilitate following his explanation of battles and campaigns.
My main criticism is that this book fails to look over the horizon where the future of warfare lies. There is no mention of the military future of space. One of the first commercial applications of space colonization will be to build large solar collectors that could supply the power requirements of our nation. These would have auxiliary uses in warfare. They could be used in varying intensity to raise the temperature of a battlefield or small country from a few dozen, to hundreds of degrees, in order to discourage or kill an adversary. They could also be used indirectly to influence the weather and rainfall on the planet. Another aspect of a space presence is that it results in complete command of the seas. It is extremely expensive to operate our carrier battle groups and they are more vulnerable than purported. This would be unnecessary if we had a military presence in space. From space one can "shoot" asteroids accurately that would strike at approximately 20 times the muzzle velocity of a rifle. These dumb iron asteroids could be sized from a few ounces (with and ablative coating) to millions of tons. They would provide the ability to sink any ship, destroy any bunker, or country on earth. In the airburst mode they would be effective against soft, or small fast targets i.e. tanks, missiles in the boost phase, or troops. Asteroids are cheep and impossible to defend against. These systems would be operated by a small number of people who would be invulnerable to retaliation. In a nutshell, military control of space can result in low cost, uncontestable, absolute, military dominance of the planet. This is the future of warfare and it does not even receive comment in this book.
Another benefit of industrializing space is that it would eliminate another of the causes cited for future wars, namely a monopoly of vital commodities, chromium, cobalt, oil etc. Oil would be less critical if there was limitless cheep electricity from solar power satellites. We could also create synthetic oil or hydrogen using this electric power. All other critical elements should exist in the easily mined moon.
In short a means of obtaining low operational cost, long term military dominance of the planet while at the same time eliminating most of reasons he cites for going to war deserves at least a chapter. But, even given the above, the first chapter alone is worth the price of the book and the time to read it.