The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (Vintage)

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.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting, if a bit short on recommendations

By WiltDurkey - May 28, 2006

The first half of this book is a first rate history lesson on how the modern war fighting practices of Western military powers came about, with special emphasis on Clausewitz, Napoleon, the US Civil War and the Spanish rebellion against Napoleon (which originated the term "guerilla"). Also reviewed are some of the 20th centuries guerilla wars and how they were lost or won (not many of those) by regular armies.

This groundwork laid, the book examines how this framework of army-vs-army warfare is obsolete and is replaced by foreign "wars amongst the people" where the enemy is an irregular, rather than a standard army and where public opinion, both at home and in the country of operation, becomes paramount.

a) The need to "forget" Western concepts of overwhelming firepower in an army vs. army struggle, because no one is going to be silly enough to engage Western armies on that level for a while yet. For example, IED deaths in Iraq are partially caused by the... read more

Best Book on (Clausewitzian) Strategic Thought in 20 Years

By seydlitz89 "seydlitz89" - September 9, 2006

Rupert Smith is not only a strategic thinker, but a former strategist and military commander. He has written a trully impressive book on the nature of war in the 21st Century which should be read by military professionals everywhere, and taken to heart and used to influence military operations in the pursuit of political goals, but probably won't. More on that at the end.

Smith's book has to do with war paradigms. I disagree with the use of the term, since following Thomas Kuhn it is questionable whether the term can be applied to the social sciences at all, and would prefer to use the term "ideal types" to describe Smith's concepts. Smith is however aware of the pitfalls but insists that we have essentially entered into a new form of war that although linked with the past (as Smith points out, Clausewitz identified the beginnings of this paradigm in the early 19th Century), is diffent from what we knew as "war" before. One will look in vain for buzzwords such as "4th... read more

Excellent Summary of Today's Conundrum

By J. Avellanet "of Cerulean" - March 1, 2007

There are 3 things you need to know about this book:

1. There are parts where it's repetitive and he could've used an editor.

2. If you agree with his main premise - that we will no longer (and haven't been for decades) fight nation-state to nation-state (ala WWII) and that it's all going to be battles for what he calls "will of the people" (aka "hearts and minds") - then you can probably skip this book completely unless you want all the detailed why's and how's we got to this point from Napoleon to 2006.

3. The last third of the book is devoted to his approach to start resolving these issues:
- stop building industrial-complex level machines and technology; focus money on information-gathering, intelligence gathering and analysis and building force flexibility
- the military should be used to achieve military goals only; and then the rest of the "hearts and minds" battle turned over to agencies that train for that (in the US, that'd be... read more