The Future of Battle

The Next World War: Computers Are the Weapons and the Front Line Is Everywhere, by James Adams (Simon & Schuster, 366 pp., $25)

A VETERAN faces an overwhelming temptation when he is reviewing a book about the future of war written by someone who has been neither in the future nor in a war. The temptation, of course, is to dismiss the book out of hand. However, veterans have often been wrong about the future of war, and several of those who have come closest to the truth (J. F. C. Fuller, B. H. Liddell Hart, Billy Mitchell) were ridiculed and saw their military careers suffer as a result.

About the Author

John Hillen

John Hillen, a former assistant secretary of state and a member of the National Review Inc. board of directors, is the James C. Wheat Professor in Leadership at Hampden-Sydney College’s Wilson Center for Leadership in the Public Interest.

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The Next World War: Computers Are the Weapons and the Front Line Is Everywhere, by James Adams (Simon & Schuster, 366 pp., $25)

A VETERAN faces an overwhelming temptation when he is reviewing a book about the future of war written by someone who has been neither in the future nor in a war. The temptation, of course, is to dismiss the book out of hand. However, veterans have often been wrong about the future of war, and several of those who have come closest to the truth (J. F. C. Fuller, B. H. Liddell Hart, Billy Mitchell) were ridiculed and saw their military careers suffer as a result.

About the Author

John Hillen

John Hillen, a former assistant secretary of state and a member of the National Review Inc. board of directors, is the James C. Wheat Professor in Leadership at Hampden-Sydney College’s Wilson Center for Leadership in the Public Interest.