The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War by David G. HerrmannReview by: Eliot A. CohenForeign Affairs, Vol. 75, No. 4 (Jul. - Aug., 1996), p. 142Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20047678 .

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Recent Books

sanee unit of the general staff, the equiv alent of organizations such as Britain's

Special Air Service or the United States' Delta Force. What makes it unusual is an

absence of bluster or bravado?and the

author's willingness to criticize, some

times harshly, the shortcomings of the

Israeli military. Badly wounded in one of

the first cross-border raids after the Six

Day War, Betser repeatedly found him

self at odds with higher-ups. There are

no scandals retailed here, but there are

many reminders that the Israeli Defense

Force, like all militaries, suffers its share

of bureaucratic pathologies. The book

also reveals the qualities that have made

the IDF a remarkable overall success: its

democratic culture, its ability to routinely

tap reservists as well as active-duty per

sonnel, and, above all, the conviction and

motivation of its fighters.

The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War. by david g.

herrmann. Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1996, 307 pp. $39.50. Historians and political scientists have

closely examined the naval race of the

pre-World War I period?the so-called

Dreadnought revolution?and its after

math. Here is a valuable and long-over due book that complements that work, a

survey of European land armies on the

eve of World War I. The author carefully and thoughtfully documents the compe tition in land armaments in the decade

before 1914, when the military expendi tures of some great powers (Germany in

particular but also Russia and France) rose by between 50 and 100 percent, while

those of others (Britain and Austria, for

example) stagnated. No less important, he

explores the ability of the various armies

to adapt the new technologies of warfare

to their individual circumstances. In so

doing, he undermines to a considerable

degree the traditional belief in the mental limitations of the prewar officer corps

who, in the words of one critic, "failed to

understand that fire kills." The result is a

far more nuanced and sophisticated un

derstanding of military organizations as

they faced the calamity of the First World War. A first-rate piece of work.

Strategie Information Warf are: A New Face

of War. BY ROGER C. MOLANDER,

ANDREW S. RIDDILE, AND PETER A.

Wilson. Santa Monica: rand, 1996,

105 pp. $15.00 (paper). Information warfare remains a nebulous

subject, but this monograph offers one of

the most interesting and revealing ways of

thinking about it, at least in an unclassified

venue. A short but comprehensive discus

sion of the central issues in information

warfare, particularly defense against at

tacks on the myriad information systems that keep American society running, is

followed by an ingenious "day after" exer

cise that illustrates and amplifies these

problems. In three parts?"the day of" an

information attack, "the day after," and

finally "the day before"?participants can

work their way through the decision

making problems of information warfare.

The exercise, which has been tested with

many government and private groups, is a

brilliant device for exploring a problem bound to become more salient.

The Lessons of Modern War, Vol. 4: The

Gulf War. by Anthony h.

CORDESMAN AND ABRAHAM R.

wagner. Boulder: Westview, 1996, 1022 pp. $98.00 (paper, $23.95).

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