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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well Written and Thought Provoking, 14 Jan 2007
"War Made New" focuses on the turning points of military history, when a fundamental change in technology gave one country a lopsided and ultimately decisive advantage over another.
Boot describes a number of case studies to illustrate the effect that technology has had on military affairs: the battle of the Spanish Armada, decided at least in part by superior English ship design, cannons and gunnery; Breitenfeld and Lutzen, where Sweden's King Gustavus Adolphus developed the tactics required to employ gunpowder with decisive results; Konniggratz, where Prussian mastery of breachloading rifles, railroads and telegraphs spelled disaster for the Austrian army; Omdurman, where the British Maxim gun annihilated the forces of the Sudanese; Tsushima, where Japan's use of advanced battleships, superior training and bold tactics led to catastrophe for the Russian fleet; the Fall of France, where German doctrine effectively deployed tanks and close air support to defeat opponents who were somewhat better equipped than the Germans; Pearl Harbor, an amazing strategic and logistical feat that rendered the battleship obsolete in the space of a few hours; the firebombing of Tokyo, where newly developed B-29 Superfortresses were combined with ruthless tactics to destroy a city overnight; the First Gulf War, the war in Afghanistan, and the Second Gulf War, which illustrate the power and limitations of a military organized to fight using information technology.
This book does not answer questions so much as raise them. The author concedes that while the United States military performed superbly in conventional and non-conventional confrontations in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has so far failed as an occupying force in both of those countries. The United States probably wishes that it had invested at least as much in linguists, MPs, civil affairs specialists and boots on the ground as it did in JDAMs and JSTARS, or that it hadn't invaded Iraq at all--but, as Boot not unreasonably points out, if the actual opponent had been North Korea or China, the country might feel differently about how it had set its priorities.
I don't agree with everything that Boot has to say, but I find his book to be thought provoking. He doesn't seem to break much new ground, but he writes briskly, organizes his narrative well and offers a succinct history of the interplay between technology and warfare. "War Made New" will make very interesting reading for anyone who enjoyed (or was provoked by) Victor Davis Hanson's "Carnage and Culture," Stephen Budiansky's superb but seemingly little noticed "Air Power," or Craig L. Symonds "Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History".
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