A Quick and Dirty Guide to War: Briefings on Present and Potential Wars

On their Strategy Page website, analyst James Dunnigan and (retired) Colonel Austin Bay state their mission: to view news as history. In this spirit they give us the fourth edition of A Quick and Dirty Guide to War. It is a compilation on the many wars, conflict, tensions, and potential tensions around the world today. They provide the necessary history, the driving issues today, and a complete list of the various actors, state and non-state including people, political parties, "popular" movements, and terror and criminal organizations. Charts (in a uniform format) describe economic, political, and historical interest of the parties involved, near and far, as well as their ability to intervene. They follow these with predictions: not single predictions, but possible outcomes with ranges of probability. And their record on predictions, from the first three editions, is quite good. Most readers (excluding perhaps professional analysts and foreign affairs experts) will find here much they have never heard of and much that was mentioned once or twice in the news years ago, but never given follow-up. For them--for us--this book is the cure for our popular education and haphazard news media.

The Authors have a clear grasp of what is going on in the world and how we as a people are effected by the events all over the world. I started reading this series in the 1980's and found their predictions on where a war was going to break out to be on target about 80% of the time. The author's cover the ethnic and historic causes of conflict a which group and where they are located and how they effect a conflict. They explain how certain thing will effect the way and reason for a conflict, like negative growth. After the quick history section they explain the events that could happen most likely to least likely. Some are chilling, see Russia, some are just eye opening, see Sudan. In all this book is a good read for the Armchairs Strategist, the pacifist and a person who wants to join a NGO overseas. Reading it you get an idea of what the CIA is telling the Government. In other words BUY II!!!

This is more than a book on weapons and wars. It is also one on strategy, politics, ideology and power. It concentrates on the military end but does not neglect all the accompanying subject matter.Several of the conflicts are still ongoing - in fact almost all of them are: Sri Lanka, India-Pakistan, Burma, the almost endless conflicts in Africa (the Sudan and Zairre lead the pack with total deaths so far), the Mideast conflict. This is pre-breakup of the Soviet Union though that was strongly suggested. He also discusses future possiblities of outbreaks, many of which are still pertinent today. What is missing is ideology, the driving force behind the greatest mass murders in human history - China, Russia, Germany, Zairre, Sudan, Rwanda...in some ways the problems are unsolvable, dependent upon geography and resource allocation. One only wishes that the book could be updated to the presetn.

This is a book about future wars. Who will fight, where, over what, how it will probably turn out, and when it might happen, for fifty or more perpetual hots spots around the world. People fighting in the Balkans have been repeating the same war for 1300 years and nobody ever wins. Roughly the same for Iraq and Iran, England and France, France and Germany, Japan and Korea... you name it. Peace is only an interlude while the endless war sleeps for a while. It will break out again, in the same place, over the same issues, with the same results. It is only a matter of time.I wish they had taught us about this in high school. Every American should read this book and keep it handy.

This book was nearly the first thing I turned to when a new trouble spot surfaced. Africa, the Balkans, and the Muslim World all approached the trends the authors foresaw. Though it is now a bit out of date, there are many sidebar items of history and modern warfare that still retain their importance. I would purchase an updated edition in a heartbeat.