Volume 35, Number 7 · April 28, 1988
The Art of War
By Gordon A. Craig
The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800
by Geoffrey Parker
Cambridge University Press, 256 pp., $29.95 (to be published in June)
The Mask of Command
by John Keegan
Viking/Elisabeth Sifton Books, 368 pp., $18.95
Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace
by Edward N. Luttwak
Harvard University Press, 283 pp., $20.00
A comparison between Ronald Reagan and Adolf Hitler as national leaders may seem a pointless and even tasteless enterprise, but it yields at least one common characteristic: a stubborn faith in the transforming power of military innovation. Ronald Reagan's belief that SDI, if properly funded, will produce a space shield that will make the United States invulnerable to nuclear attack seems as strong at the end of his presidency as it was when he first announced it. Hitler's trust in the power of new and secret devices to reverse his fortunes is well known, and John Keegan tells us that on February 13, 1945, only six weeks before his suicide, he told a visiting doctor, 'In no time at all I'm going to start using my victory weapons, and then the war will come to a glorious end.'
Review, 4929 words
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