This is a terrific book. It is short and to the point. Van Creveld's Preface will give you a good understanding of his personal goals in writing this book. His aim is to look dispassionately at the state of affairs in Western societies, and to relate that to their effectiveness in the military sphere.
He begins with observations of childhood in the West, and this chapter alone earned the book five stars. I have followed the ADHD fiasco generally, but one his factoids that startled me was the revelation that Ritalin is closely related to cocaine. The text is carefully annotated, allowing me to look up the references, and sure enough it is. Worse, “an astounding 19 percent of high school-age boys— ages 14 to 17— in the US [had] been diagnosed with ADHD and about 10 percent [were] taking medication for it.” (location 784 on my Kindle.) This is just one symptom of failure among the many he has identified related to our childhood practices. The rot, when seen through eyes that are not blinded by false hopes and inane optimism for the endless therapies our government is so anxious to impose on our children, is widespread and much more pervasive than you might imagine. But on reflection, you will see that everything he describes was known to you before, but you hadn't put it in a more comprehensive context or realized how out of proportion these interventions have become.
This chapter is followed by "Defanging the Troops", which deals with the progressive attempt to make combat more civilized and controlled. The extent to which this process has succeeded is discouraging, because the "control" is unilateral, and our opponents laugh at our stupidity. Again a factoid, one of hundreds, will surprise you. The Army, with about 440,000 in uniform in 1998, had 4,438 active duty lawyers (location 1206.) The growth of mercenary armies is described as one result of the intentional disabling of our forces. Chapter 3 is "Feminizing the Forces", and it lays bare the failure of the project to mix men and women together in the military. Chapter 4 deals with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I don't fully agree with some of his conclusions, (shell-shock is likely a measurable impairment of the brain caused by an explosion,) but I certainly agree with his thesis that this has been a vehicle that has been used by the left to discredit and dishonor our troops. The common narrative in the press is our soldiers are damaged goods, and there has been very little to counter this falsehood. Chapter 5 is "Delegitimizing War" and it traces the conscientious objector movement through the last three centuries and describes the West's current focus on treaties and international institutions to eliminate war altogether. He also describes the rise of "Rights" within Western societies at the same time that "Duties" are forgotten. Like other topics in previous chapters, he uses word searches of books and reports to track our culture's interest in these ideas over time. It is discouraging.
His last chapter provides prescriptions for what ails us, and it is the least persuasive.
One particular strength of the book is that it identifies the agencies within our culture that have embraced what are likely to be suicidal projects to unilaterally disarm before a hostile world. For example, think of all the actors who have an interest in our children. They occupy desks in vast bureaucracies ranging from the public schools, to child "welfare" agencies, to Federal agencies that fund the subservient groups with grants conditional on adopting Federal guidelines. All of these bureaucrats act without personal accountability, and each has an interest in growing their area of control. And it is control without responsibility. Then think of the average citizen who has been sold a bill of goods by the government for its ability to intervene in each of life's little difficulties, from deciding whether to see a Doctor for an ailment, to allowing the school nurse to dope their child with powerful psychoactive drugs. And if a parent doesn't go along to get along, they risk having their child taken from them. Everyone seems to have rights to enjoy all the baubles offered by the government, but none has a duty to see that these baubles actually improve our lives. This is a very corrosive situation.
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Top reviews from other countries
Glenn
Has the look and feel of a self-published work, ...
Reviewed in Canada on January 25, 2018
Connor
Van Creveld shines a light on the ridiculous political correctness of our modern armed forces.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 9, 2017Bart Crols
Brilliant book on why our military are being degraded from within
Reviewed in Germany on August 6, 2016