The Changing Face of War - Buch
Rezensionen
Es wurden bisher keine Bewertungen abgegeben.
Autor
Buch
Originaltitel
Originalsprache
nicht angegeben
Erstveröffentlichung
2007
Band (Reihe)
-
Typ
Buch
Genre
Sachbuch: Geschichte, Zeitgeschichte
Auflage
Sprache
Englisch
Übersetzt von
-
Verlag
Jahr
2008
Seitenanzahl
319
ISBN
0891419020
EAN
9780891419020
Ausgabe
Taschenbuch
Auflage
Unbekannt
Inhalt/Klappentext
Martin van Creveld takes us on a journey from the last century's clashes of massive armies to today's short, high-tech, lopsided skirmishes and frustrating quagmires. Here is the world as it was in 1900, controlled by a handful of "great powers", mostly European, whose armies were still led by officers on horseback and whose messages were conveyed by hand, drum and bugle. As the telegraph, telephone, and radio revolutionized communications, big-gun battleships like the British "Dreadnought", the tank, and the airplane altered warfare.
Van Creveld paints powerful portraits of World War I and World War II, in which greater armies, new weapons, staggering casualties, and technological breakthroughs tramsform the state of combat and conflict. The ongoing development of nuclear weapons during the Cold War shifts nations from fighting wars to deterring them: The number of active troops shrinks and the influence of the military declines as civilian think tanks set policy. War today, van Creveld tells us, is a mix of the ancient and the advanced, as state-of-the-art armies fail to defeat small groups of crudely outfitted guerillas ans terrorists, a pattern that began with Britain's exit from Palestine and culminated in America's misadventures in Vietnam and Iraq.
How to learn from the recent past to reshape the military for this new challenge - how to still save, in a sense, the free world - is the ultimate lesson of this big, bold, and cautionary work. The Changing Face of War is sure to become the standard source on this essential subject.
Van Creveld paints powerful portraits of World War I and World War II, in which greater armies, new weapons, staggering casualties, and technological breakthroughs tramsform the state of combat and conflict. The ongoing development of nuclear weapons during the Cold War shifts nations from fighting wars to deterring them: The number of active troops shrinks and the influence of the military declines as civilian think tanks set policy. War today, van Creveld tells us, is a mix of the ancient and the advanced, as state-of-the-art armies fail to defeat small groups of crudely outfitted guerillas ans terrorists, a pattern that began with Britain's exit from Palestine and culminated in America's misadventures in Vietnam and Iraq.
How to learn from the recent past to reshape the military for this new challenge - how to still save, in a sense, the free world - is the ultimate lesson of this big, bold, and cautionary work. The Changing Face of War is sure to become the standard source on this essential subject.