A lot of this can be skipped over. This guy's books aren't nearly as good as Singer's ( )

A lot of this can be skipped over. This guy's books aren't nearly as good as Singer's ( )

War Made New uses the theme of differences in warfare technology as the organizing principle for a history of warfare for the last 500 years. Many decisive military confrontations became routs because one side employed weapons, tactics, or organization that were superior to those of their opponents.

In particular, Boot discusses how the following four technological “revolutions” were instrumental in producing revolutions in military affairs: (1) the Gunpowder Revolution; (2) the Industrial Revolution; (3) the Second Industrial Revolution; and (4) the Information Revolution. But he issues the caveat that “no technical advance by itself made a revolution. … Even if a country figures out how to harness military power, it still needs the wisdom to know the capabilities and limitations of its war machine.” He emphasizes that organization, training and leadership are also necessary to achieve victory. With this in mind, however, he argues that military adaptation to breakthroughs in technology resulted in seismic shifts in the balance of power among nations.

Specifically, Boot provides the background and detailed descriptions of actual combat of several campaigns to demonstrate the effect of intelligent adoption of the new technologies produced by each of the four “revolutions.” In every case, the earliest effective adopter of the technology vaulted into greater worldwide prominence by routing its adversary. Boot’s narratives of the conquests of Sweden’s Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years War (1631-32), the British slaughter of the Mahdi’s army at Omdurman (1898), and the American triumph in the First Gulf War (1991) are particularly illustrative. In each case the winner easily achieved smashing victories over opponents that outnumbered or nearly outnumbered the winner.

Military technological predominance does not last forever; in fact, it can be very short-lived. For example, the Nazi’s blitzkrieg tactics (armor supplemented by close air support) shocked their opponents from 1939 to 1941, but shortly thereafter the Americans and British won control of the air, and the Soviets won most of the major tank engagements. The monopoly of nuclear weapons enjoyed by the United States lasted only three years before the Russians developed an atomic bomb of their own.

Boot’s final chapters give a glimpse of things to come on future battlefields. Robotics, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence all presage new ways of waging war. America’s current predominance is being challenged (at least locally) by China, which has developed its own stealth fighter planes and is building a formidable navy.

One reviewer, eminent historian William McNeill, criticized the book because he felt it omitted important events and failed to analyze crucial non-military aspects of the events it did treat. However, I think Boot’s aims are less ambitious than an all-encompassing treatise on warfare for the past five centuries. He states:

"I will not attempt to challenge most of the theses put forward in a number of prominent recent works that have sought to explain the [entire] course of human development.... Rather than attempting to supplant them, this book will supplement them by highlighting the importance of certain vital military developments in the making of the modern world.”

Evaluation: War Made New is very readable. It can be treated as a series of vignettes because each battle or “revolution” is independent of the others. On the other hand, it can be read as organic whole because of unifying themes.

Note: The text includes maps, pictures, and many footnotes. ( )

Boot provides enjoyable capsule histories of famous battles, and has an eye for the novelistic detail (Wallenstein so disliked being woken that he would order all cats and dogs killed whenever he took possession of a town). It's less clear to me that the vignettes are in service of a particularly compelling thesis. Yes, technology changes everything, and yes, *integration* of technology into a war-fighting culture is critical. Thus, Western armies would beat foes who were almost as well equipped but poorly disciplined and led. I suppose I was hoping for some deeper analysis.

But I am quibbling -- this is an extremely enjoyable, readable popular military history.

Despite his protestations to the contrary, at least some of Boot's work reads like technological determinism. Boot delves into the technological impact that inventions, machines, and the two Industrial Revolutions have had on war and he concludes with thoughts on the Information Revolution.

A universal history of military transformation since 1500, it deals with four great upheavals: the gunpowder revolution that began in the late 16th century; the first industrial revolution in the late 19th century, which brought rapid communications, large-scale transportation, and the internal-combustion engine; the second and more radical industrial revolution in the early-and mid-20th century, which led to the mass production of sophisticated ships, planes, and tanks; and, finally, our own information revolution of satellites, computers, and instant wireless communications.

He is strong on the descriptions of battles, and he illustrates the significance of what appears to be minor conflicts that illustrate his major theses: revolutions outside the military sphere impact the war-making capacity of states in uneven and at times unpredictable ways. The biggest and strongest army, likewise true for states as well, are not always victorious in battle. He demonstrates that states need to exploit the new-found and often unrealized potential of new technologies and military applications. Those nations that do not adapt and adjust quickly are doomed to fail. As in the case of mutual fund companies, Boot states: “past performance is no guarantee of future returns (p. 455)." He states: “In the emerging global division of labor, the richest economies have prospered based not on the possession of natural resources or vast populations, as in the past, but by creating a favorable climate for innovation and investment – for the exploitation of human, not physical, capital (p. 214)."

Taken to its logical conclusion then; some of his key points are well-taken:

“As the Allies belatedly realized, the Germans had developed a new kind of warfare made possible by the Second Industrial Revolution emphasizing dazzling speed and daring maneuver, while French and British thinking was still mired in the more static approach of the First Industrial Age. This was more than a bit ironic, because, until just a few years before, Britain and France had actually led the world in the development of armored warfare. The story of how they lost that lead, and with it the early battles of World War II, demonstrates how two sides with equal access to essentially the same technology can put it to very different uses (p. 215)."

Boot can be read as realizing the significance of social, cultural, and even religious factors on war-making. This is how he apparently intends to be read although as I point out he can at other points slip into a sort of a technological determinism.

“Although few in number and lacking in armor or artillery, the Special Forces in Afghanistan were, in a sense, the most powerful infantrymen in history because they fought not with shoulder-fired weapons, whose range and power is severely limited, but with GPS locators, satellite radios, laptops, and laser-designators that could summon pinpoint air strikes with the push of a button. Roughly 60 percent of all U.S. munitions employed in Afghanistan were precision guided – six times greater than in the Gulf War (p. 382)."

The book is well-worth reading for its wealth of information and breadth of coverage.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/war-making-and-the-machines-of...
War-Making and the Machines of War
Victor Davis Hanson

Cf. http://fora.tv/2006/11/11/Changing_Face_of_Warfare#fullprogram
Video: Max Boot @ Fora TV - World Affairs Council

http://www.milkeninstitute.org/events/events.taf?function=detail&ID=181&...
Audio: Max Boot @ Milken Institute

http://www.onpointradio.org/2006/10/war-made-new
Audio: Max Boot @ On Point Radio (Aired: October 30, 2006)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6387885
Audio: Max Boot @ NPR - Talk of the Nation

Biography:

Boot is the author of War Made New: Technology, Warfare and the Course of History – 1500 to Today and the award-winning Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. He is a senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, lectures regularly at military institutions and advises the Department of Defense on transformation issues. Before joining the Council in 2002, Boot spent eight years as a writer and editor at The Wall Street Journal.

He is a weekly foreign-affairs opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times, a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and a regular contributor to the New York Times, Washington Post and Foreign Affairs, among others. In 2004, he was named by the World Affairs Councils of America one of "the 500 most influential people in the United States in the field of foreign policy."