The U.S. Military Online: A Directory for Internet Access to the Department of Defense byWilliam M. ArkinReview by: Eliot A. CohenForeign Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 1997), p. 159Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20048304 .

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Recent Books

Military Modeling for Decision Making, jrded. edited by wayne p.

hughes, jr. Alexandria: Military

Operations Research Society, 1997,375

pp. $40.00 (paper). Intertwined in virtually all aspects of

military decision-making?from what

weapons governments should buy to how

soldiers should use them?is modeling. This volume, now in a third and substan

tially revised edition, provides the most

useful overview of the subject by some of

the most notable figures in the field. The

editor, a navy captain who has written

authoritatively on a number of subjects

(naval tactics in particular) sets the tone

in a masterly overview that stresses, as do

many of the essays that follow, the limi

tations of these artificial and simplified representations of the warrior's world.

Driven too frequently by underlying assumptions about quantitative factors

(firepower and numbers) rather than

qualitative realities (morale, cohesion,

coordination) military models can

mislead those who put excessive faith in

them?as the wildly pessimistic projections of American casualties in the Gulf War

demonstrated. A work that, if read with

care, would do much to reduce the simple faith placed by civilian and soldier alike in these ubiquitous attempts to distill reality into equations.

The U.S. Military Online: A Directory for Internet Access to the Department of

Defense, by william m. arkin.

Washington: Brassey's, 1997,

240 pp. $29.95. The author is well known (and in some

government quarters, cordially detested)

as an indefatigable researcher in military

affairs, whose cunning and persistence have uncovered many secrets (notably in

the area of nuclear weapons). This book

provides an overview of the American

military presence on the World Wide

Web, including private corporations, institutions of higher education, and

public organizations that have valuable

information on military affairs. Updates

of the work are available?needless to

say?at a web site. Indispensable for

any serious researcher in contemporary national security issues.

The United States DAVID C. HENDRICKSON

The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives,

by

zbigniew brzezinski. NewYork:

Basic Books, 1997, 24? PP- $24.00. The great merit of this volume lies in its

analysis of the strategic outlook and policy dilemmas of a host of states in Eurasia, a

tour d'horizon lucidly rendered. Brzezinski's

analysis of the triangular relationship

among China, Japan, and America?

together with the policy recommendations

flowing therefrom?is particularly good. But the heart of the book is the ambitious

strategy it prescribes for extending the

Euro-Atlantic community eastward to

Ukraine and lending vigorous support to

the newly independent republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus, part and parcel of

what might be termed a strategy of "tough love" for the Russians. That grand design is problematic for two reasons: one is that

To order any book reviewed or advertised in Foreign Affairs, fax 203-966-4329.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS - November/December 1997 [*59]

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