HOW WARS ARE WON: The 13 Rules of War from Ancient Greece to the War on Terror
Bevin Alexander, . . Crown, $25.95 (416pp) ISBN 978-0-609-61039-8
This is a book whose argument would be more effective had the author not apparently refocused his manuscript after September 11. Alexander, a journalist and writer of general audience works on military subjects, challenges the relevance and effectiveness of the "Western way of war" as articulated by, among others, Victor Davis Hanson and John Keegan. That model emphasizes intense, direct conflict focused on decisive battles whose outcomes are determined by relative loss rates. Alexander's "13 rules," in contrast, emphasize indirection: striking at weak spots, employing deception, paralyzing systems as opposed to killing men. Though the research bases of Alexander's case studies are uniformly thin, he does not seriously abuse his evidence. Most of the battles he cites in demonstration of a particular "rule" more or less support the argument. Cannae, for example, is an appropriate example of a battle of encirclement. Yet Alexander (
Reviewed on: 10/07/2002
Genre: Nonfiction
Open Ebook - 274 pages - 978-0-307-42103-6
Paperback - 416 pages - 978-1-4000-4948-6