In Pursuit of Military Excellence: The Evolution of Operational Theory by Shimon NavehReview by: Eliot A. CohenForeign Affairs, Vol. 77, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 1998), pp. 148-149Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20048816 .

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Recent Books

personal computer use, and what they did

to turn the tables on upstart competitors such as Netscape. Hostile Justice Depart

ment officials, dissatisfied customers, and

determined rivals will not have much

success in breaking Microsoft's grip, if

this book is to be believed. The complete absence of non-American players in this

game is a striking and important fact.

Bombshell: The Secret Story of Ted Hall and Americas Unknown Atomic Spy Conspiracy,

by Joseph Albright

and MARCiA KUNSTEL. NewYork:

Times Books, 1997,352 pp. $25.00. The general story has been told before,

but this is the first close look at Ted Hall, one of the most important of the Soviet

spies who passed to his masters many of

the secrets of the atom bomb. Hall was a

brilliant and immature physicist who

subsequently fled to Great Britain. He

cooperated, to at least a limited degree, with the authors of this story, who have

also drawn heavily on declassified docu

ments, including, in particular, decrypted Soviet communications with their agents in the United States. Eeriest of all is Hall's

concluding two-page letter to the au

thors; unrepentant, the aged traitor

contends that the 19-year-old youth "had the right end of the stick."

Making the Corps, by thomas e.

ricks. New York: Scribner, 1997,

320 pp. $24.00. Boot camp is a staple of old movies and,

until the early 1970s, the real life of many, if not most, young American males. In a

shrewd and well-crafted study, the de

fense reporter of The Wall Street Journal

reacquaints us with a phenomenon too

often treated in clich?s. Ricks followed

Platoon 3086 through boot camp and

beyond, tracing the evolution of 63 young men (not all of whom made it through) from a motley crew of unruly youngsters into disciplined marines. As a study in

anthropology alone this would be worth

reading?the rites of passage, the curious

military dialect, the tribal values im

printed on the impressionable young.

But there is a deeper and darker message here. Ricks believes that the Marine

Corps has estranged itself from American

society. For uttering similar sentiments

last year in an uncouth and offensive

manner?specifically, describing the

marines as "extremists"?Assistant Secre

tary of the Army Sara Lister was hounded from office. This book is far wiser and more

perceptive, but it has an equally disturbing conclusion. A must-read for those con

cerned with civil-military relations in the

United States.

In Pursuit of Military Excellence: The Evolution of Operational Theory,

by

shimon NAVEH. Portland: Frank

Cass, 1997,398 pp. $59.50. Not an easy read, but an important one.

Written by a distinguished Israeli general, and drawing on a staggering array of pri

mary and secondary source materials in

four languages (and from multiple national

archives), it describes the development of

German, Soviet, and American thinking about operational art?the level of war

between strategy and tactics. Naveh argues that operational art became manifest in

American operations in the Persian Gulf.

Of particular interest is the author's notion

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[148] FOREIGN AFFAIRS-Volume 77 No. 2

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Recent Books

of "operational shock," the disintegration of military organizations as systems. Those

who can forge through the scholarly im

pedimenta and occasionally abstruse prose will come away with a deep appreciation of the campaign level of war: certainly the most important work of military

theory in recent years.

Unconventional Warfare: Rebuilding US.

Special Operations Forces, by susan l.

marquis. Washington: Brookings,

*997> 319 PP- $49-95 (paper, $19.95). This workmanlike volume traces the

modern (largely post-Vietnam) history of American special forces, including the

remarkable bureaucratic and Congressional

maneuverings that have virtually made

them a separate branch of the armed forces.

Tracing both operational activities and the

more peaceful?but no less intricate?

Washington battles, Marquis displays a

fine awareness of the peculiar culture of

the special operations community. Politics

and technology seem likely to evoke more rather than less call on American

commandos in the future; hence the par ticular significance of this book.

Delbr?cks Modern Military History. EDITED BY ARDEN BUCHOLZ.

Lincoln: University of Nebraska

Press, 1997, 244 pp. $45.00. Hans Delbriick was perhaps the first, and certainly one of the most important,

military historians of modern times. His

four-volume History of the Art of War,

recently translated and still in print after

nearly a century, was his monumental

work. Bucholz has, however, collected

some of his most important essays and

journalism, introducing them with a

compact but complete biography. Delbriick

engaged in a heated dispute with the German General Staff* after World War

I, hotly contesting the mistaken belief

that Germany had succumbed to a "stab

in the back," and arguing that Germany's

professional military leadership had made fatal errors in strategy during that war.

He died, isolated and besieged, but a hero to those who believe in the utility and

legitimacy of critical, scholarly civilian

analysis of military affairs.

The United States DAVID C. HENDRICKSON

Unwinnable Wars: American Power and

Ethnic Conflict, by david callahan.

New York: Hill and Wang, 1998, 240

pp. $23.00. A balanced and lucid overview of Ameri

can policy toward ethnic conflicts. The

author, a fellow at the Twentieth Century

Fund, acknowledges the dangers associ

ated with supporting secessionist move

ments for national self-determination.

He also concedes the various obstacles

associated with effective humanitarian

intervention, including the intractability of the disputes giving rise to it and limited

staying power in regions of secondary interest. Nevertheless, the thrust of the

work is to argue for a much greater U.S.

role in forestalling, mediating, and halting ethnic conflict, or at least in supporting the efforts of multilateral organizations to

do so. While a fair-minded primer on

the array of complex policy issues that

ethnic conflicts raise, the argument is not

without certain weaknesses. Humanitar

ian considerations may properly override

the principle of nonintervention in certain

FOREIGN AFFAIRS - March/April i998 [l49_

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