The authors refer to their book as a primer on war. It is the clearest, most useful book for those who nothing of war (or who only know things which are wrong)I have ever read. I recommended it, to no avail, to a committee of faith-based Social Justice and Peacemaking types. They, no doubt clinging to their useful errors, avoided the subject. The authors specifically refer to those who know little or nothing of war (most students these days)and they say the book is written for these folks.

One myth or old chestnut after another is analyzed and demolished. Their use of simple (and I emphasize "simple"--nothing complex) logic and historical examples known to almost all of us--nothing abstruse here--are brutal in the rapid and total destruction of some of the most commonly-accepted misunderstandings of war. For example, they discuss the Phoenix program of Viet Nam days. While acknowledging that it turned sour, they make plain what those involved knew. The Phoenix program worked, killing the cadres, the troublemakers, without killing scores or hundreds of unwilling conscripts and unlucky civilians. While being successful, it deprived the anti-war side of their masses of civilian casualties they needed to make their case. It was a two-fer. Thus, it had to be, as it was, demonized. They make frequent use of Aquinas and Augustine and the Just War Doctrine. It is not that we like war, Augustine said, but that our enemy's peace may be deadly to us. People may be murdered en masse, as we see in this century, without being in war, and fighting to avoid that is certainly moral. This book suffers from one disadvantage: Those who need it most may feel themselves superior to its message.

Angelo Codevilla introduced me to the worlds of war in the late 1980's and later to intelligence in the ealry 1990's, leading partly to my career.

This book is what a modern Clauswhitz would write. Speaking in plain english on diverse subjects, he collects the type of thinking necessary to war in one book. I give this book (which is hard to find, but I managed) to every student of modern affairs.

It is hard to find the correct praise to lavish on this book without gushing. It is simply the best book of a primer on war that exists anywhere. More than introducing the student to war, it introduces him to thinking in war's pragmatic thought patterns- to the necessity that war demands.

Better, Codevilla uses his talent in context of historical necessity, drawing carefully from a bevy of beautifully chosen historical people and sitations.

You can do no better on the subject. Start thinking about war with War.

I suspect that this book may suffered from the fact that it was published in '89, as so many things changed quickly after publication. The author's do a good job of discussing technical aspects of weapons and military operations, but this book's real strength is its discussion of reasons states go to war, how and why populations fight, political aspects of war, etc. I have read dozens of books on war, each good in its own way, but this book fills a badly needed niche in understanding the overall human and political dimesion to war. Having worked as a defense analyst for many years, I know that Americans suffer badly from the notion that war is a simple contest between competing technologies, and that too little thought has been given to the simple question, "why people fight?" This book is the best I have seen in addressing this question. The author's approach is not overly psychological or philosophical, much of it is "uncommon" common sense richly supported by a wealth of obscure but important historical information. This book must be read by people who want to understand what war is about. Period.