Less Money, More Defense

Encomiums cited in Random House blurbs indicate that James Fallows has had signal success in his didactic aim “to give the general reader better ways of thinking about defense.” No reader of his National Defense—to quote a specimen—“can fail to be . . . even better informed, perhaps, than the military establishment itself.” Enthusiasm has even prompted a recommendation, in Saturday Review, of Fallows for Caspar Weinberger’s job at the Pentagon. My own inclination is more restrained. The writing is sprightly. Ideas are too often unsustained. Two cheers suffice.

Consider this doctrinal precept: “There was a time when American forces fought with maneuver principles: in the Revolutionary War. Since then, the American military heritage has been long on the Ulysses S. Grants, the champions of the crushing, ponderous attack, and short on the Stonewall Jacksons and Douglas

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Charles Burton Marshall

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Encomiums cited in Random House blurbs indicate that James Fallows has had signal success in his didactic aim “to give the general reader better ways of thinking about defense.” No reader of his National Defense—to quote a specimen—“can fail to be . . . even better informed, perhaps, than the military establishment itself.” Enthusiasm has even prompted a recommendation, in Saturday Review, of Fallows for Caspar Weinberger’s job at the Pentagon. My own inclination is more restrained. The writing is sprightly. Ideas are too often unsustained. Two cheers suffice.

Consider this doctrinal precept: “There was a time when American forces fought with maneuver principles: in the Revolutionary War. Since then, the American military heritage has been long on the Ulysses S. Grants, the champions of the crushing, ponderous attack, and short on the Stonewall Jacksons and Douglas