One of the most influential experts on military history and
strategy has now written his magnum opus, an original and
provocative account of the past hundred years of global conflict.
The Changing Face of War is the book that reveals the path that led
to the impasse in Iraq, why powerful standing armies are now
helpless against ill-equipped insurgents, and how the security of
sovereign nations may be maintained in the future.
While paying close attention to the unpredictable human element,
Martin van Creveld takes us on a journey from the last century's
clashes of massive armies to today's short, high-tech, lopsided
skirmishes and frustrating quagmires. Here is the world as it was
in 1900, controlled by a handful of "great powers," mostly
European, with the memories of eighteenth-century wars still fresh.
Armies were still led by officers riding on horses, messages
conveyed by hand, drum, and bugle. As the telegraph, telephone, and
radio revolutionized communications, big-gun battleships like the
British Dreadnought, the tank, and the airplane altered warfare.
Van Creveld paints a powerful portrait of World War I, in which
armies would be counted in the millions, casualties-such as those
in the cataclysmic battle of the Marne-would become staggering, and
deadly new weapons, such as poison gas, would be introduced.
Ultimately, Germany's plans to outmaneuver her enemies to victory
came to naught as the battle lines ossified and the winners proved
to be those who could produce the most weapons and provide the most
soldiers.
The Changing Face of War then propels us to the even greater global
carnage of World War II. Innovations in armored warfare and
airpower, along withtechnological breakthroughs from radar to the
atom bomb, transformed war from simple slaughter to a complex event
requiring new expertise-all in the service of savagery, from Pearl
Harbor to Dachau to Hiroshima. The further development of nuclear
weapons during the Cold War shifts nations from fighting wars to
deterring them: The number of active troops shrinks and the
influence of the military declines as civilian think tanks set
policy and volunteer forces "decouple" the idea of defense from the
world of everyday people.
War today, van Crevald tells us, is a mix of the ancient and the
advanced, as state-of-the-art armies fail to defeat small groups of
crudely outfitted guerrilla and terrorists, a pattern that began
with Britain's exit from India and culminating in American
misadventures in Vietnam and Iraq, examples of what the author
calls a "long, almost unbroken record of failure."
How to learn from the recent past to reshape the military for this
new challenge-how to still save, in a sense, the free world-is the
ultimate lesson of this big, bold, and cautionary work. The
Changing Face of War is sure to become the standard source on this
essential subject.
"From the Hardcover edition."
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