The "better-war" thesis blames generals for failed wars and misses the crucial role of faulty strategies. William Westmoreland's Vietnam ordeal offers a case in point. He deserves better than this latest assault by Lewis Sorley.
George Kennan presents a study in paradox. With penetrating scholarship, John Lewis Gaddis explores Kennan’s complex psychology and provides an intellectual history of the Cold War in his comprehensive and wonderfully written biography.
Jonathan Steinberg’s new biography depicts a Bismarck rife with contradictions. Still, it comes dangerously close to conflating the mad Junker’s cautious conservatism with the führer’s nihilism. There is more to Germany than destiny alone.
Think airpower is the military strategy cure-all? Martin van Creveld begs to differ. His latest offering argues that aerial armaments have failed to confer a decisive advantage, tricking aggressors into believing that victory will be easy.
Lawrence of Arabia, that romantic, kaffiyeh-wearing, desert-dwelling symbol of Arab nationalism, was nothing more than the ringleader in a sideshow of a sideshow.
Counterinsurgency is not a cure-all. Local allegiances will always trump the might of the invader. Washington’s insistence that the troops turn Kabul into a functioning democracy will only erode the military's fighting spirit.
Geoffrey Roberts, the author of Stalin's Wars, responds to Andrew J. Bacevich's review of the book in the September/October issue of The National Interest.
China has striven to moderate at least the appearence of its global ambitions.
Books on "the new Iraq " are already flying off the printer, but are they any good?
