The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (Vintage) | 
 enlarge | Author: Rupert Smith
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 26636
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0307278115
Dewey Decimal Number: 355.02
EAN: 9780307278111
ASIN: 0307278115
Publication Date: February 12, 2008
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Product Description
From a highly decorated general, a brilliant new way of understanding war and its role in the twenty-first century.
Drawing on his vast experience as a commander during the first Gulf War, and in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Northern Ireland, General Rupert Smith gives us a probing analysis of modern war. He demonstrates why today’s conflicts must be understood as intertwined political and military events, and makes clear why the current model of total war has failed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other recent campaigns. Smith offers a compelling contemporary vision for how to secure our world and the consequences of ignoring the new, shifting face of war.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 Churchill on the utility of force. May 11, 2008
3 out of 13 found this review helpful
"We are not a young people with an innocent record and a scanty inheritance. We have engrossed to ourselves . . . an altogether disproportionate share of the wealth and traffic (trade) of the world. We have got all we want in territory, and our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions, mainly acquired by violence, largely maintained by force, often seems less reasonable to others than to us." -Winston Churchill, quoted in Inside Lebanon: Journey to a Shattered Land with Noam and Carol Chomsky
I think this quote pretty much sums up the "utility" of force. It enables violent states to steal from other nations.
I heard the general talking about his book on C-SPAN, and it wasn't really impressive. He kept dodging a question about the use of torture, but I'm glad the British military has at least condemned some of the U.S. military's behavior in the gulf.
People who identify with the military will probably enjoy Rupert's discussion of strategy and Napoleon and that sort of thing.
War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning
It will be good when the sun sets on the empires that England and the U.S. have inflicted upon the world.
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
And it will be good when we invest in better ways to structure the economies of the so-called "civilized" nations.
The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community (BK Currents), written by an Air Force veteran.
"It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear. While such an economy may produce a sense of seeming prosperity for the moment, it rests on an illusionary foundation of complete unreliability and renders among our political leaders almost a greater fear of peace than is their fear of war." - General Douglas MacArthur, from a 1951 speech quoted in Total Insecurity: The Myth of American Omnipotence
See also:
Why We Fight
War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
Evil Empire - A Talk by Chalmers Johnson
Letters from Fort Lewis Brig: A Matter of Conscience
The Human Potential for Peace: An Anthropological Challenge to Assumptions about War and Violence
 One Major Recommendation March 30, 2008
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
Edit of 20 May 2007 to drop one link (reduntant to Master Gray) and add instead General Zinni's book on waging peace, our counterpart to the author of this book in terms of intellect, morality, and strategic gravitas.
I defer to the other reviewers on the bulk of the book. It can and should be required reading for some time to come.
Here is the one recommendation in the conclusion that really matters, and I paraphrase:
FROM THE BEGINNING, the national interests and desired outcomes must be considered by a fully integrated team of military and civilian experts with deep strategic, historical, cultural, geographic, and related knowledge, and the use of force must be planned in the context of the desired OUTCOME. The same and related teams must plan for the peace and see the entire program through to the desired END.
This is of course sensible, and not what the Americans did. General Shinseki's correct appreciation was over-turned by Paul Wolfowitz, a world-class liar living in a fantasy world. General Zinni was called a traitor. General Gavin was dismissed early because Haliburton was not done looting, and preppie Paul Bremer sent in to lose another $20 billion.
Here are other books I recommend, beginning with those from British authors that I consider as remarkable as this one:
Modern Strategy
The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose
Intelligence Power in Peace and War
Very Special Intelligence: The Story of the Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre 1939-1945
The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility--Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
The Future of Life
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
I imagine General Patraeus will have his own book one day. It's a pity all the flag officers (both US and UK) drank the kool-aid and let Cheney and his merry band of liars and dim-wits destroy the US Army first--for the price of a good tea, any one of us could have told them the lesson the British Army and other Armies have learned since time immemorial: it takes a big war force two years (for slow learners, five years) to re-learn counter-insurgency--by the time they do so, they have been hollowed out and neither the force nor its equipment is suitable for big war absent a complete re-build--but then, that would be the logical "end state" for Dick Cheney and the military-industrial complex: the White House has gotten the outcome it wanted, never mind blood, treasure, and spirit nor international legitimacy, the insolvency of the nation, and the deepening recession. For those that "matter," the profits have been properly banked in Dubai and elsewhere. So the final lesson from General Smith's book is this one: the planning must be open, public, and endorsed by national referendum. The utility of force, in my view, can no longer be entrusted to elites--the case must be made to the public, and only the public may validate the utlity of force. Mind the gap....
 Incredible Observations on History of War - Muddled Prescriptions for the Future December 29, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Hindsight is always going to be more clear than trying to predict the future, and in this book where General Smith traces the history of war from the Napoleonic to the current age it is no surprise that he is far more clear and insightful looking backward than he is in looking forward.
The major thesis of his book is that war has shifted from what he calls "War Between the People," typified by separate nation-states fighting till decisive victory on a distinct battlefield, to what he calls "War Amongst the People" which will feature conflict including non nation states, waged indefinitely and indecisively on an amorphous front that includes both physical lands and intangible ones such as the media.
The book is very strong in several regards. First, General Smith's elucidation of Clausewitzian strategy, as well as providing the historical backdrop for when, how and why it was developied, is simply first rate. The biggest lessons drawn from Clausewitz that are still relevant today are that force must be applied to achieve some pre-determined purpose (hence the "utility of force," it is not merely the destruction of your opponent), and the concept of the trinity of government, military and the people. The best way to defeat an enemy is to break this trinity. In War Between the People this could be done conceptually more simply by flat out destroying the enemy military or their government, or perhaps more elegantly by dissolving the people's allegiance to the policies of their government and military, more effective against a democracy such as North Vietnamese efforts to reinforce and inflame the anti-war movement. Second the book's military history from Napoleon to the end of the Cold War is truly outstanding, worth the price of the book itself.
Smith is certainly not alone in sensing a major shift in the type of wars we have found ourselves in for the past nearly two decades now, and in pointing out the intellectual bankruptcy of our "Revolution in Military Affairs," more a techno-advertisement than a strategic realignment of our military forces based on an understanding of our current world and the permanence of human nature. In his new War Amongst the People the Clausewitzian trinity of government, military and people still exists, clearly and distinctly for state actors, but in a much more diffused and maleable way for non state actors such as terrorists. Therefore breaking their trinity becomes a much more confusing and difficult thing to achieve, -but none the less necessary- and much of the military theory for fighting the wars of the past are no longer applicable.
Unfortunately his prescriptions for how to fight our current and future wars, beyond the simple and now hopefully universally agreed upon maxim that your war must have a vision of peace you want to achieve by expending your blood and treasure, are complex and ultimately confusing. Due to being deployed to the Middle East and out of internet access for 6 months I have had to wait that long to write my review for this book, and can barely remember any of his concepts and suggestions for fighting and winning future wars, which doesn't bode well for someone trying to develop a new conceptual framework for our warriors and our society for facing the future. The biggest thing I do remember though is a much more coordinated effort needed between the military, the state department, aid groups, and especially the media. He also appears fatalistic that Wars Amongst the People are essentially intractable and will require a practically permanent peacekeeper presence like we have in the former Yugoslavia, where he commanded forces during the fighting, and developed and employed much of his thinking, and where his final chapters focus. (There is little direct application of this thinking to Iraq and Afghanistan.)
The Utility of Force is an excellent work nonetheless, and highly recommended for people trying to understand the current state of the world and what we can actually do to protect ourselves. For counterpoint the works of Lt. Col. Ralph Peters are suggested too.
Brilliant December 9, 2007
Rupert Smith, a retired Lt. General in the British Army, calls for a re-thinking of the use of force. His treatise is simply brilliant. The book begins with an excellent summary of the major shifts in military thinking that have taken place in the last 200 years: first with Napoleon and Clauswitz, then with Bismark and von Moltke. These "paradigm shifts" (as Smith refers to them) forced a strategic and tactical re-thinking of force given the political and technological changes of their day. It is time, Smith argues, for another paradigm shift.
According to Gen. Smith, the age of "industrial war" along the lines of World War II is long over. In fact, Smith points out, wars between modern nation states have been over since the end of the Second World War; however politicans and the military have been reluctant to adapt their way of thinking about force to the new reality. Citing conflicts in Algeria, Israel, Africa, Southeast Asia, Chechnya, the Balkans, and most recently Afghanistan and Iraq, Smith convincingly shows that the nature of warfare has changed - and therefore our understanding and use of force must also change.
Make no mistake - Smith at no point claims that force is unnecessary. Rather, the application of force and the consequences of its use need to be rethought. After reading his analysis and thinking about his recommendations, I whole-heartedly agree. I hope that politicans and field-grade officers read and digest his conclusions. The sooner we adopt our strategy and war-fighting criteria along this new paradigm, the better.
An essential perspective on the use of force around the world October 8, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
General Rupert Smith has written an essential introduction here to the problems and paradoxes of modern warfare. I recommend it very highly. I especially liked Smith's analysis that in today's wars information is much more important than firepower.
The book does have a few omissions. Most important, I felt it had too little to say on the role of natural resources, overpopulation, and environmental degradation in causing war and civil unrest around the world. There is a substantial argument to be made that the U.S. military has become little more than a global oil-protection service. Changing the American lifestyle from fossil-fuel to renewable energy sources could make a substantial contriubution to the peace and security of the world. Such a transition might well reduce U.S. economic growth; however, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Economic growth sounds great--a rising tide lifts all boats--but it is necessary to keep in mind how it is calculated. Economic growth is generally measured by GDP, which as a measure of well-being is so inaccurate as to be almost laughable. GDP is measured by counting up what is spent on various items. This works more or less OK if you're counting food bought by hungry people, but very poorly indeed if you're counting money spent on bombs or automatic rifles, or on parking garages for rich people's cars. GDP is not corrected for increasing population, pollution, exhaustion of natural resources, or declining quality of life. More accurate measures of economic growth, such as the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare or Genuine Progress Indicator, tend to show that there has been little or no genuine economic growth in the U.S. since the 1970s. For more on this, see McKibben's book "Deep Economy," Daly's "Beyond Growth," Brian Czech's "Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train," or Jared Diamond's "Collapse."
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