Customer Reviews

War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century

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Published in 1993, the authors published this look into the future of warfare. Building on the paradigm introduced in their earlier books (Future Shock, The Third Wave, and Powershift), the authors argue that as the new "Third Wave" transforms society, so will it transform warfare. Throughout, the authors attempt to show how war has been transformed, and how it will continue to transform in the decades ahead.

I first picked up this book in reaction to the then recent attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. I was hoping that it would give me a better insight into modern military, and what modern warfare would be like. I think that the authors did a great job of showing just how different any present and future wars are likely to be.

My one complaint is that the authors focused almost exclusively on the militaries of the advanced societies. If you want to see how the "new" terrorists are also "Third Wave" organizations, I highly recommend Countering the New Terrorism, by Ian O. Lesser, et al.

That said, this is a fascinating book, with a thought-provoking message. I highly recommend you read it.

everything in this book is here now, as well as some newer insidious developments. people no longer live private lives, what with a cell phone being able to track you around and all your conversations being heard and recorded, even if the phone is switched off. smart bombs, HAARP and atmospheric manipulation, every home infiltrated with myriad electromagnetic fields that disrupt human biological functions. Soon everyone in the world will have some sort of ID card or implant, that will tell any scanner who you are, and include your banking and credit data, personal data, nationality, and convictions-- all accessed by some sort of infrared device. the infrared devices now in use can tell how much paper money you have in your wallet, purse, or in the house of business, eventhough the scanner is inside of some car passing by your house on the street. No one is hidden anymore, video cameras scan just about any place, street, address, roadway, business, interior, exterior and can tell who goes where and what they do. Computer programs unknowingly downloaded onto your hard drive can realy just about anything about you and your habits that you would have just as sonn kept hidden.
This books gets you into the mindset, if you are so naive to think none of this is real, but only sci fi...NOT!

900 copies of this book were handed out at OSS '94 when the Tofflers were our keynote speakers, and it's hard for me to do anything other than praise a book with a chapter on "The Future of the Spy" built around the concept of making better use of open sources of information. With that disclosure, I will offer the observation that this book, which has gotten enormous attention within the U.S. military, is an excellent companion to Brigadier Simpkin's book, and the two, perhaps with General Scale's book, could be used to drive any graduate-level course on structuring a future warfighting and peacekeeping force. Toffler brings us full circle, back to SunTzu: the acme of skill is to defeat the enemy without fighting. I predict that it will be last least ten years before the Department of Defense discovers that "stabilization and reconstruction" are the other side of the defense coin, and that early warning and peaceful preventive measures--as General Al Gray, Commandant of the Marine Corps emphasized in 1988, are the key to victory.