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Postmodern War: The New Politics of Conflict

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Gray is an academic historian who crosses the study of military history with the history of technology. His primary thesis in the book, which is a revision of his PhD dissertation, is that the nature of war shifted in the mid-20th century from a modernist position of war for the sake of ideology (e.g., totalitarian versus democratic rule) to a postmodernist position of war for the sake of regional and economic conflict. To readers unfamiliar with debates over what is modernism or postmodernism, the thesis may seem insignificant, and Gray does little to introduce these concepts to a readership wider than that of the initiated. His bibliography is good though, so readers may follow up on the references to enhance their understanding of modernity. As for the question of new technology in war, Gray presents some provocative examples of how the developed world's faith in technology renders it blind to the pitfalls of confronting a determined and decidedly anti-modern enemy in the developing world. As many have claimed, when the Cold War ended, the world's conflicts altered from an east-west axis (capitalist versus communist) to a north-south axis (the haves versus the have nots). Gray alludes to this idea, but he could bring it out more in further writing on the problem of how an unquestioning adherence to new technologies leads to more defeat than victory. After all, the moral dilemma of war remains: Each soldier must kill the enemy one bullet at a time, and no amount of distancing from this difficult task by advanced military weapons lessens the gravity of the decision to wage war. Any distraction from this problem by the enchantment with advanced technology only makes the world a more dangerous place. Gray says as much, and I agree.