Content area
Full Text
Future War: Nonlethal Weapons in Modern Warfare. By John B. Alexander. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. 244 pages. $23.95. Reviewed by Lieutenant General Richard G. Trefry, USA Ret., First Vice President and Program Manager, MPRI.
The end of the Cold War has resulted in changes to the National Security Strategy and the National Military Strategy of the United States. Although the change has seemed comparable to the swing of the compass needle from North to South, perhaps it is really more a fluctuation of the magnetic needle of the security compass in tentative, somewhat uncertain directions. We are trying to determine our own role in a world of political and military instability where no other major powers are superpowers and evolving nations are attempting to bring political and economic order out of uncertainty in a search for security.
We live in a world somewhat comparable to that period between the end of World War I and the beginning of World War 11, when nations embraced the idea of peaceful coexistence and ignored the threats of fascism and communism, thus setting the stage for World War II. It is a fact of history that this period was also characterized by political instability that led to smaller but significant military actions throughout the world-for example, the Italian-Ethiopian War of the 1930s, the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, the Japanese involvement with China, and others too numerous to mention.
The end of World War Il again saw a rash of minor wars such as the war in Korea, the excursion in Panama, the Iraqi aggression on Kuwait, and of course the involvement of the United States in...