[Billthedrill]

A Victor Hanson bump. One of the reasons for his optimism is explained in his Western Way of War - some of those tougher times have led us to certain assumptions about warfare that ain't necessarily so, and our responses in the Gulf War and now the one in Afghanistan, et al, have shown that we've learned that lesson, one that we had not learned in Vietnam (in his opinion). He writes (in the preface to the second edition, Nov. 1999):

I mean to imply not that Western war is outmoded to the point of irrelevancy, but simply that modern Western man is in a dilemma. His excellence at frontal assault and decisive battle...might end all that he holds dear despite the nobility of his cause and the moral nature of his warmaking. I do not like that idea at all, but again, I simply note its paradox. We in the West will have to fight as non-Westerners - in jungles, stealthily at night, and as counterterrorists to combat enemies who dare not face us in battle. In consequence, we cannot fully draw on our great traditions of superior technology and the discipline and ardor of our free citizen-soldiers...

[beckett]

I am going to have to grab Hanson's Western Way of War. I am not too familiar with him (other than the article mentioned above) but he sounds interesting. Thanks for mentioning the book.