A dry-as-dust look at the hardware that fought the cold war, by the
author of more than 25 works of military history and a veteran of
more than 36 years of military service. Miller, who is credited as
the author of Jane's Major Warships, is in dire need of an editor
who can whip his senseless listing of weapon system after weapon
system into something approaching interesting reading. Though few
will argue that the cold war was won by anything other than massive
defense Spending, there certainly was more to the conflict than
weaponry. The Cold War is billed as "A Military History," but there
is almost nothing of the historical details that would illuminate
such theaters of action as Korea and Vietnam, almost nothing of the
countless espionage cases or the other conflicts that brought the
United States and the Soviet Union face to face, whether in actual
battle or by proxy, and nothing at all of the millions who actually
fought the war. Miller concentrates instead in looking at the
submarines, aircraft carders, missiles, fighter planes, bombers,
tanks, and virtually every other tool in the modern major general's
arsenal. Although he describes these weapons in numbing detail, he
does little to place them in the broader context of cold-war
strategy, as he might have done by looking at how missile ranges
affected the superpowers' relationship with their satellites, or
how submarine developments affected the brinksmanship under the
seas. Despite his overwrought infatuation with technological
details, Miller does offer interesting coverage of the military
relationship between the superpowers and their allies, such as
NATO's division of naval duties according to traditional strengths
and weaknesses. Most readers, however, will have to supply their
own rationales for why, rather than how, the cold war was fought.
Not a military history, a hardware history. (Kirkus Reviews)
From 1949 to 1991 the world was overshadowed by the Cold War. Repeatedly it seemed that in days, even hours, global nuclear conflict would sweep away much of the United States, the Soviet Union and Europe. They would be obliterated in what President Carter described as 'one long, final and very bleak afternoon'. When the Cold War ended, the Warsaw Pact was wound up and the vast military forces which had flourished for over forty years were disbanded. As with all wars, however, it was only then that the realities of what had been involved began to emerge; indeed, much has remained hidden until now.In The Cold War, David Miller discloses not only the vast scope of the military resources involved, but also how nearly threat came to terrible reality. Most chillingly of all, he reveals that while the menace of nuclear war predominated, it was actually little understood even by the experts. The book examines each military area in turn, covering the formation of the two great alliances, and the strategies and major weapons in the rival navies, armies and air forces. That the Cold War ended without a conflict was due to professionalism on both sides. The result, Miller suggests, would have impressed the Chinese military strategist, Sun Tsu, who, writing in the fifth century BC, said that 'to subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill'.
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