On Future War: The Most Radical Reinterpretation of Armed Conflict Since Clausewitz

When I finished reading this book I could hardly believe that a writer could prophesize the future war events in such a clear way. Van Creveld's thesis is that war as we know it in the last 3,5 centuries (waged between states and organized armies) has reached its end and is now in a process of radical tramsformation. Analyzing many examples from the military history he suggests that we are entering into an era where states lose the monopoly of waging war and confront non-state actors who do not embrace the same philosophical values. Van Creveld overturns Clauzewitz's traditional views one by one, using very convincing arguments, and unfortunately he is confirmed by international events today. While reading the book there were many cases when I was dumbfounded by the fact that a writer completing his work near the end of the Cold War could see our era with such a clarity, and I was really amazed by the fact that the book was written in 1991. It is more modern than anything else I have read on the subject of modern war and surpasses even contemporary analysis. Van Creveld does not avoid to touch even hot topics, like the sheer joy of fighting (paraphrasing Clausewitz he states that war is more the continuation of sports by other means than politics) the taboo of introducing women in the armies, the role of religion in the motivation of war and the very important argument that war does not begin when someone is willing to kill but when he is willing to die for a cause. The accuracy of his predictions is often so amazing that it becomes terrifying, especially when he states that in the future the war leaders will not be legitimate government officials but something like "The Old Man in the Mountains", meaninig the kind of warfare waged by assassins in the Middle Ages. He is also very critical against the current military-industrial complex and its super-expensive creations of high tech weapons, saying that all this paraphernalia of old war are like dinosaurs about to face extinction. This is a highly recommended book and it is sure that it will change many of your establised views on war.

To understand the review is to first know the reviewer: My background is aesthetic and I'm a teacher of literature. I stumbled across this book almost by accident; I haven't been the same since. Prophecy is a tough trade; Van Creveld passes the test. This work is the first and best study of what is now called "4th Generation War". Indeed, it is not only -- put plain and simple -- the best theoretical work on war since Clausewitz, but it also offers an astonishingly pellucid view into the future of war. In Chapter 6, Van Creveld reaches a level of insight and eloquence about the fighting man not seen since Homer. Anyone who grew up hating war during the Vietman period, or who formed his views on war from Paul Fussell, or who posted greazy posters about how "war is not healthy for children and other living things" needs to allow himself to be transformed by _The Transformation of War_, Chapter 6. It transformed me. I never understood _The Iliad_ until I had read Van Creveld. Must reading for all citizens. This best book I read in the 1990s -- so good that now I give talks about it.

Although this book was written in 1991 the scenarios and tendencies discussed in the book are now becoming reality in terrorism, civil wars in Africa and the Balkans, and the fruitless war in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians.Creveld convincingly argues that the new conflicts will not neccessarily be fought between states, and that technology and military superiority are not neccessarily guarantees of victory. Creveld shows that while the militaries of the West has run away on a shopping spree to acqurie the new nifty things in the shape of fighter jets, submarines, and laser guided missiles the enemy in the shape of guerillas and terrorist have acquired other, less advanced means, to fight back. The US helicopters that were shot down in Somalia and Afghanistan were not taken down with high tech missiles - instead they were grounded by RPG-7s, a grenade launcher from the 1950s.But Creveld does so much more with this book. Rather than being a book only about the future of war it is about the future of the international system. Creveld's book has greatly influenced other writers such as Robert Kaplan who wrote "The Coming Anarchy".Believers in technology, the wonders of globalization, and the supremacy of the nation state should read this book and seriously consider it. The world as we know it might not be around in the future - and it doesn't look pretty.

Martin van Crevald is truely one of the best strategic thinkers whom is writing today. In his more classic books like 'Supplying War: Logistics from Wallerstein to Patton' he wrote VERY credible military history that shook some of the foundations of less-sound strategic thought that was occuring concurrently; he has also written a powerful critique of people who have hopped on the shoulders of NGOs and non-state actors AND state-centered people in 'The Rise and Decline of the State'. Personally, these have over time become two of my favorite books: perhaps a couple years from now, this shall finish the trinity.Van Crevald puts forth a case that the era of massed conventional wars have finished. For a variety of reasons, the Central-front type conflicts between the USSR and US of the fifties never happened and never will. The more conflicts have happened, the more correct he appears (this book is already eleven years old...) Trying to prepare for them is silly (much in the same way , he asserts, that National Missile Defense is....)This is a must read for students of military strategy and affairs and international politics in general. Its quite a worthwhile book as general reading, though I think that it might be at present out of print. I highly recommend it-- and the other books listed at the beginning of this review....

Martin Van Crevald is the greatest military thinker alive today; the proof of this is in the fact that the U.S. military is in a mad rush to come up with ways to combat sub-national conflicts and asymmetric warfare coming from non-Nation-State "Trinitarian" actors. The whole point of "scholarship" is to arrive at truth; its a means to an end, not an end unto itself. To those who are unwilling to let go of the skirt of von Clausewitz, no amount of "scholarship" is going to be enough, perhaps not even an American city in ashes from a backpack nuclear device planted there by a terrorist who works for no nation-state. There are many books out there that are "scholarly" and clueless about what is going on in the conflict arena, they should be discarded and ignored by those of us charged to defend freedom from real, not imagined armchair enemies. Van Crevald is right, he makes his point without pounding his intellect over your head with minutiae or academia that would distract the reader from the fact that he is talking about life and death of millions of actual, real living human beings (you and I) not some abstract bookworm debate. The Transformation of War is a critical book to the survival of the West; it outlines that we are really in the 4th Generation of war, not the "Third Wave" of human ego-gratifying human progress as outlined by the Tofflers in War and Anti-War. Van Crevald looks into the human condition and admits the truth we do not want to accept that man likes to kill---and that it may have NOTHING to do with Clausewitz's "war is a continuation of [nation-state] policy by other means". Some groups even in an idealized, "New World Order" will simply fight because they want to fight; the blood lust of man runs in his own heart, and no amount of human technological gadgetry will change this basic condition--only divine intervention will do this. If we perpetuate bad nation-state warfare hoping to relive WWII-style 3d Generation warfare "Desert Storms" by safe, push-button warfare using air and missile strikes with digital means tacked on, or loudly sail around the world in surface ships to posture as being willing to fight (but not really on the ground far inland) when we are actually seen from space where we are easily targeted and destroyed---we will miss Van Crevald's sub-national state warrior who bypasses our irrelevant sea-based showboat military and strikes directly at the American people with subtle, psychological information warfare and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Van Crevald should know--he's an Israeli and he has seen first hand how traditional nation-state war forms have been poor tools to fight 4th Generational wars like the Intifada and the insurgency at the order of Lebanon. The troubles Israel are facing are warnings to the west, and Van Crevald is trying to sound the alarm--if we are wise enough to hear him.