Richard A. Preston (1910–2006)

The authors present a concise summation of the political, technological and social changes that have driven development (or at times stagnated) military development in the western world. It gives fair treatment of seapower as well as the land warfare, and even attempts to give fair treatment to the nascent efforts at airpower. While it ends before the terminus of the Cold War and the flowering of insurgency, the authors have shown prescience in exploring the limits of Great Power militaries in addressing the small proxy wars. They have not gotten mired into the perennial trouble spots that remain unresolved precisely because there is no new military breakthrough to give one actor an insuperable advantage.… (mais)